eBorrowing settles at 25%

There were more than 29 million downloads of eBooks and eAudiobooks and other eResources from Australian public libraries in 2021-22. That’s a lot of eBorrowing – more than one download for every Australian. And when compared with around 3 million downloads in 2014-15 that’s a massive (eightfold) increase in just seven years.

But before we start pulping all those hard copy books that no-one reads any more, and before funders say we don’t need libraries any more, let’s remember that eResources account for only one quarter of all borrowing in Australian public libraries AND that the growth in downloads of eBooks from libraries has slowed.

Yes, contrary to what some will have us believe, eBooks do not signal the death of the hard-copy book or public libraries. This was an issue I discussed in one of my early blog pieces back in June 2020 (Myth 37 – The book is dead, https://www.analibraryse.com/blog/myth-37-the-book-is-dead), but now we have an extra couple of years data to look at and a much better understanding of how physical and digital items work together as a reading collection.

So, to the data first, and here I’m using the National Public Library Statistics published annually by NSLA (https://www.nsla.org.au/resources/public-libraries-statistics/), with data from 2014-15 (because that’s the first year they reported circulation figures separately for physical and digital items). [And from here in I’m using eBooks and eResources interchangeably. Not exact I know, but simpler language.]

In 2014-15 eBooks represented 2.1% of all public library circulation – or 1 in every 48 loans. The following years exhibited exponential growth in downloads of eResources, but when your baseline is 2% that still doesn’t add up to a whole lot of borrowing. By 2018-19 eBooks had grown to 11% of library borrowing – 15% in Queensland but only 8% in NSW.

Then COVID hit and the world changed. Libraries were closed. People couldn’t pop into their local library and leave with an armload of thrillers, romances, bios, graphic novels or picture books. For a little while there our only options were to download eResources or start reading the instruction manuals for kitchen appliances or the nutrition information on food packaging. Even though COVID really only impacted borrowing in the last 3 months of 2019-20 (as libraries pivoted to Click and Collect models), downloads of eResources jumped to 20% of all borrowing in 2019-20. By my calculations, this means that eBorrowing must have made up around 75% of all library loans in those shut down months from late March to June 2020.

Having got a taste for it, and with COVID restrictions still impacting in some states and territories, the growth in eBorrowing continued in 2020-21. That year there were 34 million downloads from libraries – 25% of all library loans and as much as 28% in Victoria (the state with the longest periods of library closures).

As the world started to open up again, as technological options became more widely accepted in many aspects of society (e.g. cash payments fall, streaming content jumps), as commuters chose the convenience of a book to read on their mobile device, and as we began to take holidays again armed with an eReader not 4kg of novels, the rise of eBorrowing was all but assured. But that’s NOT what happened.

The proportion of cashless transactions continues to rise, many travellers do prefer ebooks, fewer people are commuting and there are fewer print books in hand. But when readers were given the option of popping in to their library to browse the shelves and find something to read – fiction or non-fiction; for themselves, a partner or child – that’s what they did. In 2021-22 the number of downloads of library resources fell in both absolute and % terms. From 34 to 29 million. From 25% of library loans to 22%.

Victoria led the swing back to print with eBorrowing down from 28% to 25%. Queensland plateaued at 20%, where it has been since 2019-20. eBorrowing continued to rise in NSW (from 15% in 2020-21 to 22% in 2021-22), but they have been lagging the other states all along so it will be interesting to see what happens in 2022-23.

All of which means that we’ve gone from a 90-10 split in 2018-19 to 75-25 in 2021-22. That’s a big jump in use of eResources, but the trend data suggests that any future growth is likely to be at a more modest rate than it has been in the past. eBorrowing may settle at 25-30% in the next few years, but there is no indication that downloads will pass physical loans any time in the next 5-10 years, and even then we might be looking at parity, not the end of print.

In that context it’s interesting to reflect on ALIA’s 2013 prediction “that library print and ebook collections will establish a 50:50 equilibrium by 2020, and that this balance will be maintained through to 2040.” Within two years, when the eBook sales boom had settled and the book industry forecast that eBooks would plateau at around 20–30% of sales, ALIA shifted its stance to suggest that an 80:20 outcome was more likely, with print books remaining the dominant format. Right first second time! (https://read.alia.org.au/content/5050-2020 and https://read.alia.org.au/content/8020-2020)

So what else do we know about the use and implications of now solid borrowing of eResources. In my opinion (and this is informed speculation so I might in time be proven spectacularly wrong):

  • eBorrowing is likely to be strongest in adult fiction for readers aged between 30 and 60 (probably ageing up as tech-comfortable users also age up)

  • convenience of access for people on the move will contribute to ongoing growth in use of eResources

  • fewer magazines are being published in physical form so there will be a shift to digital (and the future of newsagents?)

  • reading at home to young children will continue to be dominated by the more tactile board books, picture books and early readers

  • eBorrowers will visit the library less often (so expect a drop in visitation numbers)

  • curation of the library collection will become more complex (Do we purchase the new Sam Kerr bio in print or digital format?)

  • the size of and investment in the physical collection will fall, offset by slow growth in eResources (and no depreciation on eBooks)

  • less library floorspace will be devoted to holding/displaying the smaller physical collection

  • new or additional metrics will be needed to monitor collection efficiency.

Whatever the changes in collections and circulation end up being, however fast or slow they occur (and I’m looking forward to seeing 2022-23 data), public libraries will adapt, because that’s what they have always done. For now – 25-30%, 1 in 4 or 1 in 3. No more than that.

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