As a publisher committed to providing exceptional books to schools and libraries, it thrills us to hear reports of increased circulation. More books being borrowed usually means more kids are reading…and that’s why we do what we do!

As someone who works to provide our content digitally, it thrills me even more to hear reports of readers accessing content at libraries in a variety of eBook formats and audio downloads. The statistics confirm that school and public libraries are doing an amazing job meeting their patrons’ needs, and we are proud to support these institutions.

This month, DBW reported some exciting statistics from OverDrive, one of our partners in providing digital content to schools and libraries. Notably:

• Readers borrowed more than 169 million digital books in 2015. This is a 24% increase over 2014!
• Of these digital books, 125 million were eBooks (19% growth from 2014) and 43 million were audiobooks (36% growth from 2014).

Impressive growth indeed! And it wasn’t like 2014 hadn’t set the bar high. A year ago, Library Journal reported an impressive recap from OverDrive about 2014:

• Readers borrowed more than 137 million digital books, a 33% increase over 2013.
• eBook circulation increased 32% to 105 million downloads, and Audiobook circulation increased 38% to 32 million downloads.

To quote the DBW article, “2015 was a big year for libraries’ digital efforts.” I am proud that Lerner Publishing offers all of our titles in both print and digital formats. We want kids to read, and we want to provide the best content and tools to send them on a lifelong adventure of reading.