Audiobooks, statistics, networks and library systems: The trend in the pandemic

Abstract

The fruition of texts through listening did not originate with audiobooks: man was born first as a storyteller, the oral communication of tales and stories has been inherent in him since ancient times.
This contribution, resulting from a master’s thesis, addresses an issue that unites two different but complementary cultural worlds: audiobooks and libraries. By analysing data from five different library systems in three regions of Italy (Lombardy, Tuscany and Puglia), it examines the statistics of audiobooks lending before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to a rethinking of cultural fruition and a discovery or rediscovery of digital material. More widespread in Northern Italy than in the South, audiobooks are a resource only recently introduced in library systems, but with expansion prospects. There are several possibilities for lending audio material: physical audiobooks, directly from the shelves, downloads or streaming. The lending of digital audiobooks is regulated by two main platforms, MediaLibraryOnLine and ReteINDACO.
Survey shows the differences in lending of audiobooks in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 in library systems: the lending of physical audiobooks decreased significantly in 2020 and maintained the same circulation rate in the following year. The overall statistics concerning streaming audiobooks show a considerable increase in 2020 compared to 2019 and a decrease in 2021 compared to the previous year, without returning to the numbers recorded before the pandemic: a part of the users has converted to the use of audiobooks as a tool of cultural enjoyment or as an alternative reading option to traditional media.
Finally, the contribution proposes a comparison between the rankings of audiobooks, books and the most rented audiobook titles in libraries, which often do not reflect editorial rankings.