Number of digital items borrowed at London libraries hit 1M in 2024

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Borrowers set a record for the number of digital items (ebooks, audiobooks and magazines) they checked out from the London Public Library, surpassing the one-million mark in 2024. Free Press reporter Jonathan Juha explores the meaning of reaching that milestone for the local library system.  

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A closer look at Londoners’ borrowing habits

The bulk of the digital materials borrowed were ebooks. In total, as of Dec. 12, Londoners had read 443,753 books, making ebooks nearly half of all digital materials checked out this year.  

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That was followed by nearly 380,000 audiobooks and close to 200,000 magazines.  

“It’s pretty exciting getting there,” London Public Library chief executive Michael Ciccone said of surpassing the one million figure. “It’s a reflection of the times; we are moving more toward a digital society, and the libraries, I think, have done a good job of adjusting to that reality, and this just reflects a city that is moving in that direction as well.”  

How did the library get to the one million milestone?

The proliferation of smartphones, tablets and e-readers have all been contributing factors to Londoners using more of the library’s digital offerings.  

But though the number of digital items being borrowed by Londoners had been trending upward in the past decade, the COVID-19 pandemic that forced the closing of public branches and limited access to physical materials boosted digital use significantly, Ciccone said.  

“Quite honestly, the pandemic, 2020, that’s when you really saw a large, steep climb for digital materials,” he said.  

“The digital collections really were boosted by that time period in general, and once they seem to reach a threshold, the use doesn’t fall back.” 

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Are physical materials in danger?

Not at all. Ciccone said that, in his career, librarians and many industry watchers alike have been talking for years about the demise of the printed book and libraries’ physical collections.  

That time has yet to arrive, however, and even though demand for digital content is rising, physical materials are “still very popular, still in demand,” Ciccone said, noting the number of physical items checked out by Londoners is still higher than the digital ones.  

“We’re getting there, but not quite yet,” he said. “It’s pretty close . . . (but) our physical collections are still being heavily used.”  

Ciccone also said the library is close to a 50/50 split when it comes to how it spends its funding between physical and digital collections.  

“Obviously, that will continue to move more toward the digital in the future . . . (but) we don’t foresee the decline of physical materials anytime soon.”  

Most popular books in 2024

Is reading more one of your resolutions for 2025? If you don’t know where to start, here are the most popular books for Londoners, including both digital and print versions.  

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Fiction

• Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson  

• The Phoenix Crown, by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang  

• The Boyfriend, by Freida McFadden  

• The Waiting, by Michael Connelly  

• Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade, by Janet Skeslien Charles  

• Creation Lake, by Rachel Kushner  

• The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley  

• Think Twice, by Harlan Coben  

• To Die For, by David Baldacci  

• The Blue Hour, by Paula Hawkins  

• In Too Deep, by Lee Child and Andrew Child  

• The Grey Wolf, by Louise Penny  

• Wild Love, by Elsie Silver  

• When the World Fell Silent, by Donna Jones Alward  

• By Any Other Name: A Novel, by Jodi Picoult  

Nonfiction

• The Knowing, by Tanya Talaga  

• From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir, by Lisa Marie Presley  

• Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, by Ina Garten  

• I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, by Daniel J. Levitin  

• Nexus: a Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI, by Yuval Noah Harari  

• At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage, by Carol Off  

• What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, by Bill Maher  

• The War We Won Apart: The Untold Story of Two Elite Agents Who Became One of the Most Decorated Couples of WW II, by Nahlah Ayed  

• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by Jonathan Haidt  

• Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, by Malcolm Gladwell  

 jjuha@postmedia.com

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