For ten consecutive years, the numbe of books taken out from Norwegian public libraries dropped, but in 2015 the number remained at the level of the previous year. In addition, the number of visits to the libraries has increased.
The recent library statistics show that 16.8 million books was borrowed and taken out from the libraries last year, identical to 2014.
– Libraries have put a lot of effort and taken a lot of initiatives in imparting literature and seem to have succeeded with this, director at the National Library, Aslak Sira Myhre, says.
A total of 22.4 million visits were registered in Norwegian public libraries in 2015. That’s 4.6 percent more than the year before.
– All of this fits together. When there are more events taking place at the libraries , the number of visits increase, and the libraries have more opportunities to talk about and impart knowledge of literature and books in their possession. Next year we will fully see the effects of the national library strategy, and we believe the activity then will increase even more, he said.
The number of movie dvds and cds, music dvds and music books dropped by around 10 percent last year, a development that is considered to have come about because of people increasingly making use of web services for music and movies. The number of ebooks lended by the libraries and taken out from the libraries, increased from 250,000 in 2014 to 460,000 in 2015.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
