Data About Digital

The January/February issue of Information Today offers some interesting numbers about libraries and the digital world.

Here are some highlights that might be of particular interest to those of us working in public libraries:

  •  $3.25 – the cost of Killing Patton by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, in ebook format on Amazon.  In contrast, the cost of Killing Patton in ebook format on OverDrive (for libraries) is $60.00
  • 95% – the percentage of US public libraries that make ebooks available to their patrons.
  • 24% – the percentage of Millennials (age 18-34) who do not subscribe to any type of pay TV.  However, 61% subscribe to a “paid digital video subscription service” such as Netflix or Amazon Prime. What does this mean for us? Let’s target those Millennials when promoting our streaming and downloadable services!
  • 43% – the percentage of “younger Americans” (age 16-29) who “report reading a book—in any format—on a daily basis.”
  • 83.8% – the percentage of U.S. households reporting computer ownership in 2013 (according to a Nov. 2014 report from the U.S. Census Bureau).  74.4% of all households reported Internet use, with 73.4% reporting a high-speed connection.  If you drill down into the report a bit, you will find that our metropolitan statistical area (which includes Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties) has a slightly lower percentage (by less than 5%) of individual computer ownership, but a slightly higher percentage (also by less than 5%) of individual high-speed Internet use.

All of the statistics are taken from Shirley Duglin Kennedy’s article in the January/February 2015 issue of Information Today, which you can find in MasterFILE Complete.  Here’s the citation:

DUGLIN KENNEDY, S. (2015). By the Numbers Once Again. Information Today, 32(1), 8.

Incidentally, the prices of Killing Patton were taken from the Douglas County Libraries Report Pricing Comparison as of January 5, 2015. (http://evoke.cvlsites.org/files/2014/12/DCL-Pricing-Comparison-12-1-14.pdf). On the same report, The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks cost $5.39 on Amazon, and  $81.00 on OverDrive.

Mary Lee (Northland)

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