Toronto Public Library Reaches 50 Million Loans on OverDrive
Toronto Public Library achieved a new milestone and became the first library system in the world to reach 50 million checkouts through OverDrive. The 50 millionth loan was A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson.
It is fitting that the 50 millionth checkout is by an acclaimed Canadian author. A Town Called Solace was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize and named a Best Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail, CBC Books and The Daily Telegraph. Set in Northern Ontario in 1972, it tells the story of three individuals at different stages in life who live near each other in the small town of Solace. The book is a quiet journey through their lives as they become intertwined by tragedy.
TPL first provided access to OverDrive in 2007, when a mere 3,608 items were borrowed. It took five years for all-time checkouts to reach 1 million in 2012. In 2021, TPL circulated 9.8 million digital items through OverDrive to over 230,000 library cards. TPL has also led the world in annual OverDrive circulation for nine consecutive years.
These are the most borrowed books of all-time in TPL’s OverDrive collection:
Top 10 eBooks
- The Goldfinch
- The Girl on the Train
- Becoming
- Educated: A Memoir
- Where the Crawdads Sing
- The Handmaid’s Tale
- Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know
- Gone Girl
- Little Fires Everywhere
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
Top 10 Audiobooks
- You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
- Becoming
- Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
- 1984
- The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
4 thoughts on “Toronto Public Library Reaches 50 Million Loans on OverDrive”
I’ve been a solid user and fan of audio books since the library introduced its first foray, books on cassette. Overdrive is a fantastic explosion and development of the service, I do not get to sleep without it, even when out of the country. Congrats on the milestone – and there was me thinking I was the only one using Overdrive! It’s great and my only disappointment is the seemingly over abundance of American writers/topics in non-fiction. But it does not stop my dependence on it. Thank you.
Ebooks in print form and audio add incredible variety to my life.
I immediately go to overdrive whenever I hear of a book that I want to read. My sources are newspaper reviews, bookstores and references from friends.
My books end up on my phone and iPad within a few days and sometimes immediately.
I am never without a book regardless of where I am..
I walk while listening to my audio books, and can read late into the night without disturbing my sleeping bedmate.
I use Libby all the time; however, I would like to see more boos by certain authors like George Eliot, P.G. Wodehouse, Alexander Pope, William Shakespeare, and many others. I’ve tried making recommendations but so far only one, Romola, has been accepted.
For titles that we don’t have by those authors, you can always try Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/). They have a large collection of titles that are in the public domain. All free and no account necessary.