This week we learn about the Great American Read. Write to us about your favorite summer book! Be sure to explain why it's your favorite!
Top Picks at the Library
[Laura] It might surprise you, but often the most popular items at libraries aren't even books. At several Ohio libraries, People Magazine is tops.
- Go figure. Every single month, month in and month out, People Magazine is absolutely the favorite thing that people take out of the library, which we can always count on that.
DVDs are also super popular. A little bit of that is the summer effect.
[Laura] DVDs dominated the list of most requested this summer, based on the records of 15 libraries or library system in northeast Ohio. Mobile hotspots that let you connect to the internet are also popular to borrow at libraries, including the Stark County's West
Lake Porter Branch.
- What libraries are about is connecting people to information, that's what we're about.
So the hotspot fits in very well with that, because it helps people connect to information.
[Laura] The goal is to stay in touch with what the public wants.
- I think the challenge is that popular culture, just is it changes so fast these days with social media, you just don't know what's gonna rise up and be the next thing.
[Laura] Make no mistake, books are still popular at the library. As far as favorite titles and authors? Well that varies from place to place. To spark more summer reading, PBS started The Great American Read. It's a list of 100 popular books across America. It includes everything, from the classics like Catcher in the Rye, to modern titles like Harry
Potter.
- I think it's definitely great motivation to get more people reading and you know, to go through the list and be able to check them all off and said that I read all of those.
- I think what this list has done is said to people, number one, when's the last time you read To Kill a Mockingbird, because it's a very different experience when you're 15 or
50. So it's really helped get the word back out about some really, really, really great titles.
[Laura] To keep up with reader demand, libraries are getting more advanced. They even use math equations to decide which books to order more of and which to discard.
- We pay very close attention to how many holds are on any particular item. And we have ratios for different types of materials, but, for instance, popular fiction, every times there's three holds on something we purchase another to copy to help fulfill those holds as fast as possible.
[Laura] It's just another way that libraries are working to meet public demand.
[Rick] Thanks Laura. The Great American Read that you heard about is mainly adult books, but we want you to be part of it as well. This week write to us and tell us what was your favorite book from this summer, and why?