On the Shelf
By Paul Guffin
3 min read
Wrapping Up 2023 at the Downieville Library
Once again we take a look at the Downieville Library from a purely statistical viewpoint. What do the numbers tell us? When 2023 is compared to 2022, it appears that the library was under-utilized this past year. I know that we, as a reading public, can do better in 2024.
| 2023 | 2024 | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of days the library was open | 101 | 103 | -2.0% |
| Adult books checked out | 331 | 683 | -51.5% |
| Young adult books checked out | 0 | 128 | -100% |
| Juvenile & children books checked out | 412 | 466 | -11.6% |
| Audio books checked out | 122 | 72 | +69.4% |
| Videos checked out | 581 | 408 | +42.4% |
| Patrons with reference questions | 11 | 18 | -38.9% |
| Patrons using the internet | 4 | 12 | -66.7% |
| Number of patrons using the library | 716 | 750 | -4.5% |
Also, at year’s end, here is what was available on the shelves of the Downieville Library:
| Adult fiction books | 2,769 |
| Adult non-fiction books | 2,007 |
| Young adult fiction books | 192 |
| Juvenile & children fiction books | 1,318 |
| Juvenile & children non-fiction books | 310 |
| Audio fiction books (CD) | 149 |
| Audio non-fiction books (CD) | 27 |
| DVD videos | 892 (98 of which are in the children’s section) |
| BluRay videos | 101 (7 of which are in the children’s section) |
| Music CDs | 38 |
| Music cassettes | 18 |
| Total items in the library | 7,821 (which is an increase of 208 items from 2022) |
A Few More Books That I Would Recommend
In my final column for 2023, I shared books that I read during that year and would recommend for your own reading — all of which could be found in the Downieville Library. My reading also extended beyond what the library has to offer — and here are some more recommendations of books that are not (at least not yet) on our library’s shelves:
- Ducks: Two Years on the Oil Sands, by Kate Beaton (graphic memoir)
- Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, by Lerone Bennett Jr. (non-fiction)
- Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, by Vine Deloria Jr. (non-fiction)
- Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr (science fiction)
- How Flowers Changed the World, by Loren Eisley (non-fiction)
- Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence, by Erik H. Erikson (non-fiction)
- The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber & David Wengrow (non-fiction)
- The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones (non-fiction)
- The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harback (fiction)
- It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis (fiction)
- On Time and Water, by Andri Snær Magnason (non-fiction)
- The Song of the Cell, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (non-fiction)
- The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson (science fiction)
- How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith (non-fiction) (This one should have been on last week’s list, since it is in the library.)