BookNet Canada Study: Library users buy more books than those who don’t use libraries

May 29, 2019

BookNet Canada this week released its newest study, Borrow, Buy, Read: Library Use and Book Buying in Canada, a look at how Canadian readers, book buyers, and library borrowers discover, obtain, and buy books.

Some highlights:

• Canadians who both buy and borrow books purchase more books, on average per month, than buyers who don’t use the library at all.
  • Those who had both borrowed a book from a library and purchased one in the last year purchased an average of 3.0 books per month
  • Those who had purchased a book but said they never visit the library bought the least amount of books, with 2.6 purchases.
  • Buyers who visited the library 10-14 times in the previous month purchased an average of 6.1 books in a given month
• Borrowers are listening to audiobooks more often than readers in general:
  • 9% of borrowers listened to audiobooks daily,
  • 7% of readers listened to audiobooks daily
  • 18% of borrowers listened to audiobooks several times a week,
  • 16% of readers listened to audiobooks several times a week
• The public library is the fourth most popular way readers of all kinds are generally discovering the books they read.
• Library borrowers are also more likely to read print books daily (24%) or several times a week (28%), when compared to readers (20% and 22%, respectively), who are more likely than borrowers to read less often than once a month or rarely.

Data for the study was collected throughout 2018 via online surveys asked of adult, English-speaking Canadians. The report also includes data from BookNet Canada’s SalesData service which tracks print sales for an estimated 85% of the Canadian English-language trade book market, as well as its LibraryData service.

The full report is available from the BookNet Canada website.