OverDrive Users Borrowed 662 Million Ebooks, Audiobooks and Digital Magazines During 2023; 19% Increase Over 2022

From OverDrive:

Librarians and educators achieved new milestones in 2023 by providing increasingly robust streaming options to satisfy the interests of all ages and audiences. Readers worldwide borrowed 662 million ebooks, audiobooks and digital magazines, a 19 percent increase over 2022. This growth was driven by a regular cadence of new release blockbuster titles, as well as new Libby reading app features and cost-effective access models.

Streaming video through libraries and colleges on Kanopy also reached a record 23 million plays. Aggregated data was reported by OverDrive, the leading digital content platform for 92,000 libraries and schools in 115 countries worldwide.

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2023 digital lending records from the OverDrive global network:

• Total digital checkouts from libraries and schools: 662 million (+19% over 2022)
  • Ebooks borrowed: 370 million (+12%)
  • Audiobooks borrowed: 235 million (+23%)
  • Magazines borrowed: 56 million (+75%)
  • Comics and graphic novels: 37 million (+14%)
  • Ebook and audiobook holds/wait listed: 253 million (+19%)
• Public library systems achieving more than 1 million digital book checkouts: 152 public library systems in seven countries (+13%)
  • Includes one system over 12 million digital book checkouts, one over 11 million and 73 other systems over 2 million checkouts (full list available soon).
• Libby app checkouts grew 17 percent, and millions of first-time users installed the app (+22%)
• Sora student reading platform checkouts grew 11 percent, and 4 school systems borrowed more than 1 million digital books through the Sora app
  • Digital books borrowed by students on Sora from public libraries through Public Library CONNECT: 5 million (+6%)
• Kanopy streaming video achieved new records in 2023
  • 13 million hours watched (+14%)
  • Nearly 24 million plays (+9%)
  • 6 million new users (+6%)
• OverDrive’s Marketplace also experienced a record year
  • More than 600,000 new titles added into the OverDrive catalog (+12%)

2023 top titles borrowed in the OverDrive global network. See full list.

Most popular ebooks borrowed from libraries in 2023:

1. Verity by Colleen Hoover (Grand Central Publishing)
2. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)
3. It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)
4. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)
5. Happy Place by Emily Henry (Penguin Publishing Group)

Most popular audiobooks borrowed from libraries in 2023:

1. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Recorded Books, Inc.)
2. Spare by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (Books on Tape)
3. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (Simon & Schuster Audio)
4. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Books on Tape)
5. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (Recorded Books, Inc.)

Most popular digital magazines borrowed from libraries in 2023:

1. The New Yorker
2. Us Weekly
3. Woman’s World
4. Prevention
5. New Scientist

Most popular comics and graphic novels borrowed from libraries in 2023:

1. Big Nates series by Lincoln Peirce (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney (Amulet Books)
3. Baby-Sitters Club Graphix series by Ann M. Martin (Scholastic Inc.)
4. Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic Inc.)
5. Heartstopper series by Alice Oseman (Scholastic Inc.)

Top digital books borrowed from libraries by genre:

• Adult fiction: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
• Adult nonfiction: Spare by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
• Young adult fiction: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Children’s fiction: Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
• Top books used for digital book clubs by more than 14,000 public libraries (avg. 400 checkouts per club):

Top digital books requested from libraries via Notify Me tags

1. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
2. None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
3. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
4. House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas
5. The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

Top films watched from libraries via Kanopy (full list):

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24)
2. Triangle of Sadness (Neon)
3. The YouTube Effect (Drafthouse Films)
4. Minari (A24)
5. The Green Knight (A24)

• Top documentaries watched from libraries via Kanopy

1. The YouTube Effect (Drafthouse Films)
2. Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (Kino Lorber)
3. Kubrick by Kubrick (Level 33 Entertainment)
4. Florence and the Uffizi Gallery (Film Movement)
5. Some Kind of Heaven (Magnolia Pictures)

• Top TV series watched from libraries via Kanopy

1. Manhattan (Lionsgate)
2. Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators (BBC Studios)
3. SS-GB (BBC Studios)
4. The Forsyte Saga (PBS)
5. Alone (The History Channel)

Read the Complete Release

Update (1/4): Coverage From Publisher’s Weekly

See Also: A Compilation of 2023 Top Checkout Lists From Libraries in US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

See Also: More Public Libraries Than Ever Exceed 1 Million Digital Book Checkouts in 2022

Filed under: Data Files, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Public Libraries, Publishing, Scholastic, Video Recordings

About Gary Price

Gary Price ([email protected]) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.

He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.