The study presents data from 62 randomly chosen public libraries in the United States about their plans for their book collections, focusing primarily on print but also including detailed information about eBook collections plans. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: how much do libraries plan to spend on print books in the near future? What about children’s books? How much do they plan to spend on eBooks? What are the rates of growth expected to be in print book and eBook spending? In what areas do public librarians expect to increase their print and or digital collections? In what areas do they expect digital to replace print?
What percentage of print titles are culled each year and what happens to these books? How do key stakeholders such as local schools that rely on public libraries and Friends of the Library organizations view the print vs. digital choice on book purchasing for public libraries? What are they urging libraries to do – buy more print or more digital? What are library patrons telling their libraries about their preferences?
Just a few of the 100-page report’s many findings are that:
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Survey participants expect that their spending on children’s eBooks will rise 19.7% in 2016.
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The median percentage of the print book collection culled each year by survey participants was 8%.
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33.87% of libraries sampled said that culling print books had freed up space for other purposes in their libraries
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31.25% libraries sampled serving an area population of over 19,000 had surveyed their patrons about their preferences for print or eBooks.
Data in the report is broken out by various criteria such as size of library service area and print book budget, among other variables. The report also presents commentary by many librarians in open ended questions, as well as a summary of main findings by our analysts.