Collections Data, 2023

You can see most of my statistics here in this spreadsheet.

 Audiovisual materials - our excellent cataloger has been buying most of these and this coming year will take over the whole budget, including dvds, video games, and audiobooks of various formats. I don't track audiobook stats, but dvd circulation continues to drop. This is normal, due to the proliferation of streaming services (adult dvds are rising in circulation, so it's definitely different audiences). We weeded the collection down ~100 to a little over 1,000 and circulation dropped by ~800. Video games, in contrast, were also weeded and the collection size went down by ~50 to just under 400, but circulation increased by almost 250.

 Early materials, including board books - The board book collection increased by about 50 but circulation went up by over 200. I'll be interested to see what results next year when I change the board books over to bin-style shelving. I weeded and reorganized the tub books this fall - the collection ended up still increasing by about 50, but circulation hasn't yet rebounded from the weed and dropped by 200. Even when they're falling apart, the books circulate, but at some point they've got to go! I expect as new shows come and go and people figure out the new organization (they're alphabetical instead of being in bins with pictures on them) circulation will go back up. I think putting dividers with pictures into the bins might help though! The picture book collection increased by over 500, which wouldn't be sustainable for our space, except that the circulation increased by over 1,800. Early readers were also weeded, dropping the collection down by 100, but the new arrangement and school requests kept circulation up, increasing it by almost 300.

 Juvenile fiction and nonfiction - Juvenile fiction and beginning chapter collections both increased by over 300. Nonfiction stayed the same - the small amount of purchases I made in this area last year were matched by my start on weeding at the end of the year. Juvenile fiction circulation went up by over 1,200, beginning chapters by over 700, and nonfiction by a little over 100. I kind of wish the JPOP collection was separate from fiction, so I could see the numbers separately, but I have more than enough collections/locations! I always feel that those materials aren't circulating much, but I think it's more that the kids know where they are and don't ask for them. 86% of the ~1500 JPOP items circulated last year (American Girl and superheroes seem to be slowing in popularity).

 Young Adult - We are phasing out the anime collection and I'll no longer be tracking those statistics - most of the circulation was in the single digits. Nonfiction increased in size and circulation by about 20 - it's a hard collection to move. We kept the fiction collection about the same - around 1300. There isn't space for more, especially as the collection doesn't move as much as some of the children's collections. However, fiction circulation did increase by almost 700 which is a great number! We added genre stickers and I think those might have helped. The real success story here is the increase of our graphic collection circulation by an astounding 1,261! This is another one I kind of wish I had separated, since it's three collections - superheroes (Marvel/DC), graphic novels, and manga, but I won't push it (even though SOME libraries have separate collections for individual picture book neighborhoods!!). There are about 1300 items in this collection. Circulating last year from this collection - 77% of 360 graphic novels, 65% of 188 superhero comics, and 90% of our 815 manga. Clearly, manga is the winner here and kudos goes to my teen services associate who primarily buys this (occasionally I purchase things because they have a pretty cover...).