Myth 37 - The book is dead
When we look back on the COVID-19 pandemic, the shutdown of the economy and enforced social isolation, I’m wondering if we might also be thinking of a time that – for the next 20 years at least – laid to rest the myth that the book is dead. Yes, I know that downloads of ebooks, emags and eaudio increased 50% in the space of 3 weeks. Yes, I know that tens of thousands of people downloaded the Borrowbox or CloudLibrary app for the very first time. And I know that when the dust settles and we enter the new normal in the latter half of 2020* (the ‘Year of the Asterisk’) that library members all over Australia will have found a new way to access their favourite books and their new favourite authors. But the closure of public libraries and the way in which libraries have responded to the needs of their communities has highlighted the importance of the physical book.
For years we’ve been told that we don’t need libraries any more is because the book is dead, or dying. And I’ve got the statistics to prove it.
Look at that downward slope on the line showing loans of physical items from Australian public libraries over the past seven years. Look at the number of downloads of digital resources soaring exponentially. What more can I say … except to realign the axes on the chart to show the two numbers on the same scale. Now you see the true story.
The number of loans of physical items is going down, and the number of downloads of ebooks, etc. is going up. If historic trends continued the two lines would have been meeting some time in the next 15 years or so. With a step change from COVID-19 that meeting point might now be 8-10 years. That still brings us to a time when loans equals downloads. Neither of those figures will be zero, and neither will become zero any time soon.
Just ask the book publishers and book stores if they are going out of business. Sure, the sales profile looks different than it did 20 years ago, but after a period of strong growth sales of ebooks have been pretty flat in the last few years. Sales of physical books – paperbacks, hard back and children’s books – make up about 80% of all book sales. Amazon started out as an online bookstore and it’s still doing OK. The shops at the airport have rent to pay and wouldn’t be stocking reading material if people weren’t buying.
If ‘everyone is online’ why did schools and welfare agencies spend March and April scrambling to find wifi dongles so kids with no access to the internet or devices could learn from home? The latest census data tells us that in 2016 one in seven households does not have an internet connection – fixed, mobile or satellite. Even with NBN, the 2021 figure will still be around one in ten.
Why did the public libraries quickly - and to the delight of thousands of people desperate for reading material - set up massive home delivery services during the shutdown? And as the libraries re-open why are people lining up to : i) return the 1000s of books that have been borrowed; and ii) get a 20-30 minute timeslot to grab a new armful of books off the shelves?
For the simple reason that some people still like to sit down and read a book. A physical book. With pages that you turn. And a different place to store your bookmark every night. Reading a book can be different things to different people. For some it’s being curled up on a couch on a wintry Sunday afternoon. For some it’s the escape to another world on the 60 minute commute. For some it’s a giggling child under each arm as you look for the monster at the end of the book. For some it’s 30 minutes before they turn off the bedside lamp at night.
I’ve just finished a book on Alexander the Great and the art of military strategy. Now I’m reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the fifth time. My bedside table currently houses The Old Man and the Sea, Fahrenheit 451, a Steve Waugh diary, a book about Monty Python and 100 Great Scientific Discoveries. The only tablet on my bedside table is the one I take to dull the throb from an old sporting injury. I like the experience of reading a book. And for me and millions of people of all ages around the world, part of that experience is the feel of the book in your hand or on your lap.
As we stayed at home during the COVID-19 shutdown we learned that there are many things we can do online if we have to (hello Zoom!). As we had to do without I think we also learned to value the people, the things and the experiences that are important to us. The way the library sector has responded to community needs has been a reminder for many that libraries and physical books are not dead yet.
https://www.markinblog.com/book-sales-statistics/
https://www.statista.com/topics/1177/book-market/
https://www.nsla.org.au/resources/annual-australian-public-library-statistics (incl. some estimates)