New Report Provides In-Depth Review of eBook Borrowing at Five U.S. Public Libraries
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Matt Weaver, a Library Renewal board member (who also contributes to infoDOCKET), has written an interesting and discussion provoking report about ebook borrowing.
The report is titled, Struggling to Satisfy Demand and it’s more than worth a look. You can find the full text report along with a sidebar listing “key dates” in libraries and ebooks (2011-June 2012) on the Library Renewal web site.
In a nutshell, Weaver analyzes ebook borrowing statistics made available by five U.S. public libraries:
- Robbins Public Library (MA)
- Santa Monica Public Library (CA)
- Omaha Public Library (NE)
- Topeka Shawnee County Public Library (KS)
- Westlake Porter Public Library (OH)
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Of note in that report is this table about Kindle checkouts.
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Table 1: Kindle share of ebook checkouts – average of sample libraries (TSCPL is not included)
- Sep-11: 22.3%
- Dec-11: 54.8%
- Mar-12: 59.5%
- Jun-12: 57.5%
In September 2011, when the Kindle format was first supported by Overdrive, it accounted for an average 22.3% of ebook checkouts among the libraries that provided data for this category (Omaha, Robbins, Santa Monica, and WPPL). By December 2011, that share doubled to nearly 55%. In March, Kindle accounted for nearly 60% of ebook checkouts, falling slightly by end-June 2012, the end of the term covered in this analysis (Table 1).
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