Lmst

Ahead of Print in BFP: Review of Petras on ‘Library Catalogues as Data’ anthology. Cultural memory, metadata ecosystems, and LLMs: This review explores how library catalogues unlock new interdisciplinary research. #librarydata #digitalhumanities #cataloguing #AI

https://doi.org/10.1515/bfp-2025-0037

It's not clear from the previous graph whether the digital events through covid had greater reach - this shows an answer.

While digital events had significant reach (blue), the sheer number of physical events means total reach of physical events (red) is much higher, even though no.s at each event are lower.

Physical events are now reaching more than 3 times the number of people than digital events managed through the pandemic.

@libraries
@ukpubliclibraries
#Libraries
#LibraryData

4/4 end

Graph showing around 2000 attendees/month at digital events run by libraries over pandemic closures in blue, but following reopening of face to face services the attendees at physical events (blue) massively outreaches this getting to over 7,000 attendees per month per library service in October 2022.

This graph shows activities and events.

* Blue circles represent digital events in each region
* red squares represent physical events.

The size of the squares / circles represents the number of attendees that month
The position up the graph represents the number of events.

We see from October 2021 and then again from March 2022, the reopening and increase numbers of physical events with higher numbers of events in each region.

@ukpubliclibraries @libraries
#Libraries
#LibraryData

3/n

Graph showing digital events as blue circles and physical events as red squares. The numbers of red square and the height of them increases, representing the increase in physical events over the past year.

Looking at audio borrowing:

• lower physical audio lending - red -(e.g. cds) but consistent over past 12 months.
Likely represents people who *can't* shift to digital content for reasons of equipment / skills - so a core group that is highly reliant on the service.

Digital audio - in blue - has increased dramatically from an average of 6000 /month / library service to 18,000.
Big impact on budget as digital audio =££££

@ukpubliclibraries
@libraries
#Libraries
#LibraryData

2/n

Graph showing audio content lent by UK public libraries. Contact grows over time, with the physical content shown as red bars not growing, and digital content as blue bars growing very significantly.

Update on our libraries activity data:

UK public libraries footfall closing in on, but still lagging behind, high street footfall at 67% of pre covid levels.

Lending levels much more closely aligned with High Street footfall - now at around 90% of pre-covid levels.

Libraries tell us this is due to fewer people attending events, and borrowing more books on less frequent visits.
Clearly shows footfall doesn't represent activity.

@ukpubliclibraries
@libraries
#Libraries
#LibraryData

1/n

Graph showing high street footfall increasing to a plateau of around 80-90% of pre-covid levels and England public libraries closing in on this but only up to 67%. Physical borrowing and total borrowing tracking high street footfall almost exactly

Packed day today:

• Try to distil the implications of the UK budget for library funding - and and increased need for community support it might create.

• Webinar with our Libraries Data and Information group to share and explore the latest #LibraryData

• Webinar about our Future Funding programme - how we cans support libraries generating additional income in a sustainable and ethical way - few places left so likely to fill up today!

@libraries
@ukpubliclibraries
#Libraries

This looks excellent and really timely with the work we're doing with ACE / DCMS / CILIP and the library sector to develop national library data systems.
#libraries #data #LibraryData

"All your data are belong to us: the weaponisation of library usage data and what we can do about it!"
https://nag.org.uk/event/data/

h/t @alastairdunning