Director's Note
Statistics can tell interesting stories. Throughout December, it seemed like Gail's pickup was taking on more books than usual with each delivery. We didn't think much of it at the time--after one or two heavy deliveries it starts to feel like normal. Perception can play interesting tricks that way. Retrospectively examining the circulation data for the period, though, shows that we weren't just circulating more books than usual for a pandemic month. We were circulating more books than ever.
In December 2019, we checked out 1,526 print books. In December 2020, we checked out 2,112. Alongside digital loans, which increased from 654 to 967, this was enough to make up for the rest of our under-performing collections and make December 2020 a record-setter for total circulation statistics by a whopping margin of 12.5%.
So while the pandemic may have put a damper on everyone's social holiday plans, it appears that a lot of Douglas's introverted bibliophiles had the holidays of their dreams. Or at least they were prepared to. We can't guarantee that you read every book that you check out, but it is pretty obvious that a lot of patrons had stacks of reads ready to ring in the new year.
Unlike Santa, though, we'll be delivering books all year long. Call or email to enroll.
Thanks for Reading,
Justin Snook