If Quebec adopted digital publishing two times behind the United States and one time behind France, it has since developed a unique use of pixel works. Readers here stand out “largely from other French-speaking countries by [leur] practice of digital borrowing in public libraries”, rather than purchase, as revealed once again by statistics that Bibliopresto transmitted to the Duty. A look at our digital borrowings, in this 25e Public Library Week.
On October 10, more than 110,000 digital books were borrowed by subscribers to Quebec libraries. And in 2022, Prêtnumérique, the dematerialized borrowing tool developed by Bibliopresto to meet the wishes of public libraries in Quebec, recorded nearly 2.8 million loans.
At the end of 2022, 530,000 French-language titles, including 54,000 Quebec titles, were offered to libraries, as well as 581,000 titles in English. Remember that each library develops its own digital collection.
The pandemic will have had the positive side effect of causing their reading to explode. “When, on March 13, 2020, all libraries had to close, in a few weeks, we saw digital lending jump by 150%,” recalled Chloé Baril, general director of Bibliopresto.
“Since then, this use of digital reading has not declined. Mme Baril smiles today. Before the pandemic, we were racking our brains to figure out how to reach these readers, those who we knew would love to read digitally and who simply didn’t know we existed. »
“We had a whole campaign ready… along came the pandemic… and that’s it! Thanks to that, we reached our base, the heart of our readership. Now we are growing more constantly. »
Backlit reader portrait
Who reads digital books from our libraries? Approximately 70% of readers are 50 and over, indicates Chloé Baril, based on the results of a De Marque survey carried out in April 2023, which includes several French-speaking countries and Spain, but where Quebec is over-represented to the point that the conclusions are representative of our uses, according to the director.
They are regular borrowers: 72% of respondents take books one or more times a month. And these are hybrid readers, which go from digital books to paper, from the e-reader to the Prêtnumérique application.
“It is the same portrait, for the digital reader, as that of the library user. The reader who reads a lot digitally also borrows a lot of paper books. »
We read almost the same thing, digitally or on paper: the most consulted genres are, in order, youth, human and social sciences, biographies, cooking, comics, health, and books of personal growth.
Among digital journals, the top five most borrowed on BibliMags starts from Ricardothrough Vero, 5 ingredients, 15 minutes, Hello Stars and ends with I cook.
If the 11 regional BIBLIO Networks now have Digital Loan, and can offer it to their users, on the independent library side, 129 are served, out of 175. What is the obstacle for the 46 remaining libraries?
“It’s very often a question of the size of the libraries and the related budget,” explains Chloé Baril. It still takes a budget to offer an interesting collection of digital books; costs can quickly become an issue, even if the platform itself is not very expensive. »
“There is also the question of connecting users: you need a system that can authenticate users, like EZproxy for example, and very small libraries may not have the connection infrastructure in place to allow you to use Digital loan. »
Bibliopresto’s next challenge, according to its director, will be to introduce the rest of the digital offering: digital journals, much less borrowed than books, and courses, also offered by certain libraries, are still very little known.