In which language are most books borrowed in libraries (and other surprising facts)
According to data from the Municipal Library Network for the last five years, the loans where Catalan comfortably dominates are those of children's and young adult books.
BarcelonaCatalan libraries lent 11.4 million books in 2023, just over half—52%—in Catalan, and 45.7% in Spanish. This is a "high presence of Catalan in relative terms" given that Spanish dominates the publishing world, as Xavier Fina, the director general of cultural promotion and libraries, reminded ACN. Data from the last five years show that in Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona, Catalan is close to 60%. Even so, a detailed analysis of the data leads to some surprising conclusions.
1. Children's and young adult books, the absolute leader in Catalan
According to data from the Barcelona Municipal Library Network for the 2019-2024 period, children's lending in Catalan has more than doubled that of Spanish since 2019 (from 14 million loans to 6.3 million). This offsets the language's dominance in adult book lending, which is much higher than in Catalan, while the figure for Catalan is 7.4 million.
Thus, of the total number of books lent in Catalan over the last five years in the Barcelona area, which accounts for 80% of the country's library lending, 65% are children's and young adult books, while the remaining 35% are adult books. In Spanish, the trend is reversed: only 27% of users who borrow books borrow children's and young adult books, while 73% are adult books.
2. In Barcelona, the adult book loan represents only 16%
Adult books in Spanish account for nearly 40% of all library loans in the more than 230 libraries in the Municipal Library Network, while adult books in Catalan account for only 16%. Those responsible for the Generalitat's Library Service assess that the presence of Catalan in libraries is "above" its specific weight in the publishing field.
"It's a small preponderance, but compared to other areas, it's a very high presence," argues the Director General of Cultural Promotion and Libraries. Xavier Fina recalls "the starting point" of publishing in Spanish and Catalan. According to the yearbook of the Federation of Publishers' Guilds of Spain, Spanish was the language of 70.6% of the books published in Catalonia in 2023, while the remaining 24.5% of the volumes were in Catalan.
3. The loan continues to grow
In 2023, 11.45 million books were loaned out to Catalan libraries, 9.2 million of them in Barcelona Provincial Council libraries and 2.17 million in libraries throughout Catalonia. This represents a total of almost 12% more than the previous year and the highest figure—at least—since 2019 (as far as data from both types of libraries goes).
4. Do libraries buy more books in Catalan or Spanish?
The effort that, according to the department, is being made to ensure that the presence of Catalan on library shelves "above" its weight in the publishing market is reflected in the acquisition data: in 2023, Catalan libraries purchased nearly 770,000 copies, almost 60% written in Catalan; 37.4% in Spanish; and the remaining small percentage in other languages, mainly English.
In libraries in the Barcelona area, the percentage of acquisitions in Catalan is slightly lower (54.7%) and the percentage of Spanish is higher (42%). The reasons for this include the sociodemographic circumstances of each municipality, the size of Barcelona's facilities (the more space, the larger the catalog and the need to complement the offerings available in Catalan), and the catalogs the facilities use.
5. And the most borrowed book is... 'Dragon Ball'
The most borrowed and purchased books in recent years, both in libraries in the Barcelona area and in the rest of the districts, are manga titles. In Barcelona, the first place is occupied by Dragon Ball, by Akira Toriyama, with 171,133 loans, followed by the Catalan edition of Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto (165,240 loans), the Spanish edition of the Naruto (94,236 loans). Fourth and fifth place are respectively occupied by One Piece, by Eiichiro Oda, in Spanish (80,518 loans) and Detective Conan, by Gosho Aoyama, also in Spanish (53,709 loans).
In Barcelona, Naruto was the most purchased title by libraries. However, new releases climb onto the list of most purchased titles every year. In the case of 2024, titles such as The Fight for Equality Club, a story written by Anna Miracle and illustrated by David Acevedo, as the seventh in number of copies purchased by libraries, or Story of a piano, by Ramon Gener, the tenth most purchased.