I just came across a list of the 20 Australian books that were most often borrowed from Australian libraries in 2004-05. Number one is Mem Fox’s Possum Magic. One of my all-time favourite books – Tim Winton’s Dirt Music – came in at number three. Full list over the fold.
| Author | Book | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fox, Mem | Possum magic |
| 2 | Marsden, John | The other side of dawn |
| 3 | Winton, Tim | Dirt music |
| 4 | Courtenay, Bryce | Solomon’s song |
| 5 | Marsden, John | The Night is for hunting |
| 6 | Courtenay, Bryce | Matthew Flinders’ cat |
| 7 | Marsden, John | Burning for revenge |
| 8 | Bruce, Jill B | Flags and emblems of Australia |
| 9 | Courtenay, Bryce | The Potato factory: a novel |
| 10 | Morrissey, Di | Barra Creek |
| 11 | Marchetta, Melina | Looking for Alibrandi |
| 12 | Marsden, John | Darkness, be my friend |
| 13 | Courtenay, Bryce | Four fires |
| 14 | Henderson, Sara | The strength in us all |
| 15 | Courtenay, Bryce | Smoky Joe’s cafe |
| 16 | Reilly, Matthew | Scarecrow |
| 17 | Courtenay, Bryce | Jessica |
| 18 | Marsden, John | Tomorrow, when the war began |
| 19 | Courtenay, Bryce | Tommo & Hawk |
| 20 | Marsden, John | The third day, the frost |
The only books I’ve read in there are the Potato Factory trilogy. I don’t read a lot of fiction though.
Wow, all but one of the Tomorrow series is in there — I wonder how far down the last one is?
Unsuprisingly being a public library the list is dominated by the child/young adult section. I’m actually suprised there isn’t more in there.
I think what this list goes to show is that fans of Bryce Courtenay and John Marsden can’t actually afford to buy their books.
But Neil, the reason librarians buy thousands of copies of those books is that they’re bestsellers, so their fans *can* afford to buy the books.
What do you think of that – should libraries mirror the market in that way? Should libraries measure their success by the number of loans they make, and whether they meet the demand for Di Morrissey? Budgets are limited – if you buy multiple copies of Bryce Courtenay you will miss out on other (perhaps higher quality) literature. But if you have lots of copies of Bryce and Di, then of course they will be high on the list above – what else was there to borrow? (And what happened to the CSIRO diet book?)
I think I am sad to see the Tommorrow series – when I was at school it wasn’t yet a series, so I never read the later ones, but from what I read it was real dreck as far as sci-fi/futurism goes. I hope for the sake of our children that there are a lot of foreign authors above Marsden!
Huh? Tomorrow is not sci-fi.
Havn’t read any of the books in the list!