I am going to take a little detour from writing about the best books of the year to begin looking at a very big trend of 2025-- the return of physical media.
With the increasing cost and consolidation of streaming services many people are figuring out what we libraries already knew-- when you stream things you not only do you not own them, but also you can lose access to them either when you stop subscribing or if they just decide to remove your access.
There have also been many reports that Gen Z really love physical media more than streaming-- here is one study for example. As the parent of two Gen Zers, I also know that this is true. They are buying records and CDs and well as print books.
Those of us who work in public libraries also know that while we may have been buying less physical media (CDs, DVDs), they are still being checked out. And there are still people who think we are able to get DVDs of films that are only streamed. When Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was up for the Oscar, we had multiple angry patrons complain that we didn't have the DVD. One person accused us of being racist. And we had to explain that Netflix made the movie and did not produce a DVD.
When we received this complaint in 2020, I started to realize that what seemed like a march to no more DVDs was not absolutely not inevitable.
Well, here we are in 2025 and 404 Media had this piece researched with help from the MuckRock Foundation about how libraries are quietly amassing large physical media collection amid the IP dispute threatening elect availability. They interview numerous AV collection librarians and the article has gotten a lot of traction in the media, even in non library spaces.
LitHub-- a mostly book space-- wrote a piece based on the 404 Media article here as well.
While this appears to be a new trend, the article from 404 Media and the observations I made above, should don't surprise any of us. I know smaller libraries have had to cut their physical media buying and even weed much of their collections due to budget and space concerns, but please stay aware of this trend. It has been creeping up on us for 5 years now-- after 5 years before that of us thinking psychical media was dead. Trends take time, but we need to stay aware of the signs coming at us from all directions.
This is one of the trends of 2025 I will be talking about in my 2025 Readers' Advisory Year in Review program for PCI Webinars on February 11th.
If you want to share some trends you have noticed recently, leave a comment or contact me.
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