Statistics and Libraries

I think that it’s interesting to look at book retailing and see if it’s different that what happens in your library’s circulation.
Listed below is the various book categories and what happened in 2008:
Overall Book Market – EVERYTHING -Week Ending: 2008-12-28
Category Sales ‘000’s Share YoY
Adult Non-Fiction 10,411 36% 25%
Adult Fiction 6,185 22% 18%
Juvenile Non-Fiction 1,422 5% 84%
Juvenile Fiction 6,271 22% 72%
Other 4,264 15% 8%
Computers 151 1% -8%
Total 28,553 100% 30%
As you can see, the computer market is only 1% of total unit sales in bookstores and online retailers. The Computer category was the only category down [-8%] year-over-year. Note that this is unit sales which is more comparable to circulation than revenue which can be affected by average prices, inflation and discounting programs.
For example, do you see that trend computer book trend in your library?
You can learn more about this stuff here at O’Reilly Radar:
State of the Computer Book Market 2008, Part 1: The Market
State of the Computer Book Market 2008, Part 2: The Technologies
[Added Feb. 24, 2009] State of the Computer Book Market 2008, Part 3: The Publishers
I like this stuff since it is just the sort of thing that we had hoped would be used with library data and SirsiDynix Director’s Station. Retailers sure live and die on their numbers and use the most sophisticated tools.
Stephen