It turns out that people still watch DVDs.
That was the first unexpected surprise which awaited me as I began to sift through Boston Public Library’s checkout data, and I am still torn on whether it adds or subtracts from the general esteem in which I hold humanity. On the one hand, there is something depressing about trying to figure out what book genres are most popular only to discover that the #2 slot - beating the entirety of “Fiction” - is claimed by the likes of Spotlight and Finding Dory. On the other, learning that Boston still checked 500,000 DVDs out of a library in the Netflix era does feel a bit fun in an anachronistic sort of way. Like finding out your aunt still uses Hotmail.
In fact, as I shared this with the library, I learned that the way I built this analysis actually understated the impact of DVDs, in comparison to how the Library typically views this data. I bucketed a number of different “collections” together if they seemed to be of a type: For example, I chose to group “Juv. Non Fiction” (Juvenile Non Fiction) and “Non Fiction” together. If you don’t do any bucketing, DVDs are the #1 collection overall.
Another unexpected surprise? There are a lot of different genres, or “collections”, as the library terms them. Check out that long “Other” bar in the chart above. Within that bar includes 50,000 Science Fiction and Fantasy books, 45,000 CDs, and (my personal favorite) another 45,000 “Board Books”.
It felt like less of a surprise to learn that people read fiction in the summer.
Note: Only the top overall collections (included in first bar chart) shown above
Fiction checkouts shoot up in June and July. The above chart shows it on a percentage basis, but it is true in absolute terms as well. Boston saw nearly 50,000 Fiction checkouts in July alone last year, compared with 35,000-40,000 in each of the Spring and Winter months.
Picture books, unsurprisingly, show the reverse of that trend. We check picture books out during the school year. During the summer and the December Holidays, it looks like we might feel less pressure to get little kids to read…
Speaking of which: How important are kiddos to the library system, anyway? Let’s take a reader question from our good friend Meg:
The kiddos are quite important! And about the whole “I’m not totally certain” thing … I’ve double checked since then. According to the data, kids and teens make up about half of all checkouts. And teens read a lot of graphic novels. I think. Maybe.
Here’s the thing: If I can be real for a hot sec, I actually have no idea what percentage of books kids read, and I certainly cannot say with certainty how often teens read comics vs. Proust. What I do know is that quite a few of the items checked out of the library are “Kid’s items” and quite a few of the items belonging to “teen genres” are graphic novels.
The assumption we are making is that kids read all the kids books and teens read all the teen books. This feels probably fair when it comes to younger kids…
| Title | Author | Number of Checkouts in past 30 days |
|---|---|---|
| Arthur’s Valentine | Brown, Marc Tolon. | 20 |
| Bringing in the New Year | Lin, Grace. | 16 |
| Minnie and Moo | Cazet, Denys. | 15 |
| Celebrate Chinese New Year | Otto, Carolyn. | 14 |
| Cork & Fuzz | Chaconas, Dori, 1938- | 14 |
| Fly Guy Presents | Arnold, Tedd, author. | 13 |
| Good Night, Good Knight | Thomas, Shelley Moore. | 13 |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Dahl, Roald. | 12 |
| Curious George Goes to the Hospital | Rey, Margret. | 12 |
| Junie B., First Grader | Park, Barbara. | 12 |
| Leave it to PET | Sonishi, Kenji, 1969- | 12 |
| My First Chinese New Year | Katz, Karen. | 12 |
| Danger in the Darkest Hour | Osborne, Mary Pope. | 11 |
| Elmo Loves You! | Albee, Sarah. | 11 |
| George and Martha | Marshall, James, 1942-1992. | 11 |
| The Runaway Wok | Compestine, Ying Chang. | 11 |
Note: Items with distinct titles always considered as separate items for purpose of analysis (e.g. “Alice in Wonderland” would be considered separate from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”); Authors names listed as they are recorded in BPL collections
I doubt many 30-year-olds are checking out Junie B. Jones.
Of course, the flip side of this is that I am very confident that my mom reads young adult fiction. So when we look at a chart like this one:
It actually is not clear to me that all of those “Teen Fiction” books were read by teens and not my mom (or, more probably, people who are like my mom). Similarly, since teens are typically sneaky, they might be checking out books from the adult nonfiction section - thereby escaping the above analysis.
The bottom line is that the teens are probably wacky, and they are probably reading a lot of graphic novels, but there isn’t enough detail in the dataset to know for certain.
| Title | Author | Number of Checkouts in past 30 days |
|---|---|---|
| Fruits Basket. 8 | Takaya, Natsuki, 1973- | 15 |
| The Amber Spyglass | Pullman, Philip, 1946- | 10 |
| Pride and Prejudice | Austen, Jane, 1775-1817. | 9 |
| The Subtle Knife | Pullman, Philip, 1946- | 8 |
| Fahrenheit 451 | Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012. | 7 |
| Heart of Darkness | Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924. | 7 |
| The Call of the Wild | London, Jack, 1876-1916. | 7 |
| The Golden Compass | Pullman, Philip, 1946- | 7 |
| The Wallflower | Hayakawa, Tomoko. | 7 |
| Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe | SaÌenz, Benjamin Alire. | 5 |
| Flowers for Algernon | Keyes, Daniel. | 5 |
| Magi | Ohtaka, Shinobu. | 5 |
| Sakura Hime | Tanemura, Arina. | 5 |
| Steal Like an Artist | Kleon, Austin. | 5 |
| The Diviners | Bray, Libba. | 5 |
Note: Items with distinct titles always considered as separate items for purpose of analysis (e.g. “Alice in Wonderland” would be considered separate from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”)
There is one more layer of complexity which we have ignored so far. The Boston Public Library is not just one library. And if you happen to be a kiddo, that’s an important piece of the puzzle.
There is wide variety in the extent to which different libraries serve adults and kids. In Hyde Park and Jamaica Plain, kids items make up over half of all checkouts - twice the share that kids items make up in, for example, “BPL - Central” (the library’s largest branch). Hyde Park is perfect for an afternoon with Arthur’s Valentine or Minnie and Moo.
I’m actually not sure I ever read Minnie and Moo … guess I know which branch I’m headed towards next.