Administrative data provided by Malta Libraries indicate that, in 2018, total book loans stood at 1,022,346, an increase of 111,370 or 12.2 per cent over the preceding year. The increase in book loans was registered across all districts, the NSO said in a statement today.
In percentage terms, the largest share of the increase in book loans was registered by public libraries in the Western district. In total, this district had a year-on-year increase of 36.6 per cent in book loans, with the main increases being registered by the public libraries of Ħad-Dingli, Ħ’Attard, and Mtarfa at the rates of 74.3, 52.0, and 48.3 per cent respectively.
When we examine the public libraries by locality which registered a decrease in book loans one fi nds that the public libraries of Senglea, Ta’ Kerċem and Kalkara registered the highest drops in book loans with 48.2, 27.9, and 18.4 per cent respectively. In 2018, book acquisitions amounted to 36,369, down by 20.9 per cent when compared to the preceding year. Book donations and book purchases to public libraries decreased by 28.5 and 11.9 per cent respectively. On the other hand, the acquisition of eBooks recorded an increase when compared with the previous year.
New members of the public libraries stood at 6,266, up by 22.4 per cent when compared to 2017. Persons under the age of 18 made up 65.5 per cent of the new members of the public libraries. Last year, the number of books and periodicals received by the National Library of Malta under legal deposit reached 1,741, an increase of 29.9 per cent when compared to 2017. The share of periodicals accounted for 70.9 per cent of these deposits.
Both imports and exports of printed book material and periodicals during 2018 declined when compared to the preceding year and stood at €12.0 and €4.7 million respectively. In 2018, the value of imports declined by 9.8 per cent, while exports fell by 13.5 per cent. This corresponded to a decrease of 0.1 percentage point in the private fi nal consumption expenditure on printed material.