The Toronto Public Library has emerged as the top lender of e-books, audiobooks, and e-magazines in 2021 as digital reading reached an all-time high last year. Overdrive revealed more than half a billion digital content was circulated through them in 2021. Specifically, it is 506 million e-books, audiobooks, and digital magazines that went into circulation in the past year, making it the highest it has ever been in recent times and a 16 percent increase in digital content borrowings over 2020.
This also marked libraries achieving all-time high circulation records in 2021, with as many as 121 libraries making it past the one million digital checkout mark in the past year. Among these, 22 library systems achieved the feat for the first time.
The Toronto Public Library emerged at the top with the maximum checkout, with it becoming the first ever to hit the nine million digital checkout in a calendar year. The National Library Board Singapore and the Los Angeles Public Library came in at the second spot with eight million digital checkouts.
The third spot with 7 million checkouts is shared by four libraries – the King County Library System, MELSA: Twin Cities Metro eLibrary, The Ohio Digital Library, and the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium.
Digital reading is the highest in the United Sate with its 37 states making it to the list of libraries having more than a million checkouts in the last year. On the whole, it is seven countries that made it to the million-checkout mark, with the UK and Germany making it to the list for the first time ever.
Among the most popular e-books that were borrowed in 2021 include The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, The Guest List by Lucy Foley, and Nomadland by Jessica Bruder.
Similarly, the most popular audiobooks to be borrowed last year include A Promised Land by Barack Obama, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Cold Mourning by Brenda Chapman, The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, and Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey.
It wasn’t just about a record number of digital content that was lent out by libraries, schools, colleges, or companies but authors and publishers too had a lot to gain in the year 2021 with their earnings hitting a record high during the period. The above figures have been revealed by Overdrive which has a presence in over 76,000 libraries and schools spread across 94 countries around the world.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.