Borrowing audiobooks and ebooks from the public library is very popular in 2022. More people have checked out digital content than ever before. This is due to a few factors, the rising cost of buying ebooks and audiobooks is getting more expensive and libraries have also invested heavily in their collections, to cut down on waiting times.
During the year, readers borrowed 555 million ebooks, audiobooks, digital magazines, comics and other digital content, a 10% increase over 2021. This record circulation led to another milestone: Readers have checked out a total of 3 billion digital books from public libraries, schools and academic libraries in the OverDrive network since the first ebook checkout in 2003. Data was reported by OverDrive, the leading digital reading platform for 88,000 libraries and schools in 109 countries worldwide.
Over 331 million ebooks were checked out last year, which is an increase of 4% in 2021. 191 million digital audiobooks were borrowed from the public library, an increase of over 17% vs 2021. Patrons checked out 32 million magazines and 33 million graphic novels last year, both had double digit increases.
If you borrow digital content from the public library, waitlists and holds are nothing new. Popular or bestselling titles sometimes have weeks or even months before you can borrow them. Over 214 million audiobooks and ebooks were flagged to be checked out at a later time, a 13% increase over 2021.
OverDrive’s Most Popular E-books in 2022
- The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster)
- Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty (Henry Holt and Co.)
- The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s Publishing Group)
- Verity by Colleen Hoover (Grand Central Publishing)
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Washington Square Press)
- The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Penguin Publishing Group)
- It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)
- The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake (Sourcebooks) *Big Library Read title
- The Judge’s List by John Grisham (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by E. Schwab (Tor Publishing Group)
OverDrive’s Most Popular Audiobooks in 2022
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Books on Tape)
- The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster Audio)
- The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (Macmillan Audio)
- Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty (Macmillan Audio)
- The Guest List by Lucy Foley (HarperAudio)
- Atomic Habits by James Clear (Books on Tape)
- Dune by Frank Herbert (Macmillan Audio)
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (HarperAudio)
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Simon & Schuster Audio)
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Duke Classics)
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
