What share of library checkouts are digital?
About a third. Across the 6,239 profiled systems that reported both, electronic loans made up 33% of all checkouts in FY 2024. E-books accounted for 45% of electronic loans and e-audiobooks for 42%. The share is highest in big systems: the median system serving a million people or more lent 41% of its items digitally, against 18% in the smallest class.
What is counted
Electronic circulation covers e-books, e-audiobooks, e-video and e-serials lent through the library's own platforms or a shared consortium collection, counted per checkout. Physical circulation covers books, DVDs, CDs and other items, renewals included. Database searches and website visits are not checkouts and are not in either figure, and loans between libraries are reported in a separate count. In FY 2024 the survey stopped counting electronic holdings and kept only use, which is why this article works with loans rather than collection size.
Not every system reported electronic circulation: 2,322 of the 8,561 profiled systems did not report it for FY 2024. Those systems are excluded from every figure here.
Bigger systems lend more digitally
| Population served | Systems reporting | Median electronic share | Middle half of systems |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 million or more | 27 | 41% | 31%–49% |
| 500,000 to 999,999 | 52 | 36% | 25%–46% |
| 250,000 to 499,999 | 109 | 30% | 25%–37% |
| 100,000 to 249,999 | 304 | 26% | 19%–33% |
| 50,000 to 99,999 | 464 | 25% | 19%–32% |
| 25,000 to 49,999 | 757 | 24% | 18%–31% |
| 10,000 to 24,999 | 1,273 | 23% | 16%–31% |
| 5,000 to 9,999 | 1,043 | 21% | 14%–29% |
| 2,500 to 4,999 | 826 | 20% | 12%–29% |
| 1,000 to 2,499 | 855 | 19% | 9%–30% |
| under 1,000 | 529 | 18% | 3%–36% |
The most digital larger systems
Among systems serving 100,000 people or more, BiblioTech in Texas stands apart at 98% electronic.
| System | State | Electronic checkouts | Physical checkouts | Electronic share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BiblioTech | Texas | 482,575 | 11,921 | 98% |
| Onondaga County Public Library | New York | 886,506 | 324,445 | 73% |
| Los Angeles Public Library | California | 17,911,689 | 7,657,537 | 70% |
| Buffalo and Erie County Public Library | New York | 2,210,451 | 1,009,077 | 69% |
| Free Library of Philadelphia | Pennsylvania | 3,843,543 | 1,991,155 | 66% |
| Seattle Public Library | Washington | 8,405,516 | 4,464,020 | 65% |
| Cheaha Regional Library | Alabama | 48,350 | 26,779 | 64% |
| Smithtown Special Library District | New York | 592,872 | 344,270 | 63% |
| Spokane County Library District | Washington | 1,788,264 | 1,066,522 | 63% |
| Kansas City Public Library | Missouri | 1,500,682 | 907,582 | 62% |
E-books against e-audio
Electronic loans split almost evenly between e-books and e-audiobooks nationally, but not in every size class. The table gives each format's share of electronic checkouts among systems that reported both.
| Population served | Systems | E-books | E-audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 million or more | 27 | 46% | 40% |
| 500,000 to 999,999 | 52 | 47% | 42% |
| 250,000 to 499,999 | 109 | 43% | 44% |
| 100,000 to 249,999 | 303 | 42% | 44% |
| 50,000 to 99,999 | 459 | 45% | 42% |
| 25,000 to 49,999 | 749 | 45% | 41% |
| 10,000 to 24,999 | 1,239 | 46% | 41% |
| 5,000 to 9,999 | 1,001 | 45% | 42% |
| 2,500 to 4,999 | 764 | 43% | 45% |
| 1,000 to 2,499 | 746 | 45% | 45% |
| under 1,000 | 416 | 41% | 50% |
In the 1 million or more class, e-books take 46% of electronic loans and e-audio 40%; among systems serving under 1,000 people the split is 41% to 50%. The split shows how borrowers in each class divide their digital loans between reading and listening.
States with the highest digital share
Adding up every reporting system in a state, the electronic share of checkouts is highest in New Mexico (51%), Washington (47%) and Louisiana (43%), and lowest in Illinois (9%), Maine (15%) and Mississippi (19%). State figures depend heavily on which systems could report electronic loans separately: where few did, the share reflects mainly the libraries that could.
Where digital lending overtakes physical
Physical items still make up most loans almost everywhere. The median reporting system lent 22% of its items electronically, below the combined share of 33%, because the large systems that carry most loans lend more digitally than the typical small library. Of the 6,239 reporting systems, 313 lent more electronic items than physical ones; the largest of them by population are Los Angeles Public Library, Harris County Public Library, Phoenix Public Library, Free Library of Philadelphia and Sacramento Public Library. For these systems the physical collection is the smaller part of borrowing, and the digital share on their pages should be read with that in mind.
Electronic loans per resident
Shares can mislead when physical lending is low, so the table also gives electronic and physical checkouts per resident for the median system in each class. The electronic rate per resident varies far less across classes than the share does, so it is the better figure when a small library is set beside a large one.
| Population served | Median electronic checkouts per resident | Median physical checkouts per resident |
|---|---|---|
| 1 million or more | 2.40 | 2.86 |
| 500,000 to 999,999 | 2.12 | 4.44 |
| 250,000 to 499,999 | 1.81 | 3.77 |
| 100,000 to 249,999 | 1.10 | 3.12 |
| 50,000 to 99,999 | 1.17 | 3.35 |
| 25,000 to 49,999 | 1.25 | 3.73 |
| 10,000 to 24,999 | 1.11 | 3.69 |
| 5,000 to 9,999 | 0.99 | 3.82 |
| 2,500 to 4,999 | 1.02 | 3.86 |
| 1,000 to 2,499 | 0.96 | 4.07 |
| under 1,000 | 1.17 | 3.94 |
Video, magazines and children's books
After e-books and e-audiobooks, the remaining 13% of electronic loans are streaming video, digital magazines and other e-serials. On the physical side, children's materials are a large block of their own: across the 7,751 systems that reported them, children's books and other children's items made up 49% of physical checkouts. That block alone is larger than the electronic share in most size classes.
When reading a single library's figures, it helps to look at the electronic and physical counts together rather than at the share alone. A library whose physical lending fell while its electronic lending held steady will show a rising digital share without any change in how many e-books it lent. System pages list both counts side by side, and the article on change since 2019 covers physical checkouts over time.
Finally, electronic loans are counted per checkout, not per minute of reading or listening. A two-week audiobook loan and a magazine borrowed for a day each count once, so the electronic total says how often people borrowed digitally, not how much they read. The same is true on the physical side, where a renewal counts as a new checkout.
Checking one system
System pages list electronic checkouts, with e-book and e-audio loans where reported, next to physical checkouts. Where a system ranks near the top or bottom of its size class for the electronic share, the opening paragraph says so. For overall borrowing per resident, the peer check compares physical checkouts across systems of similar size.