The National Central Library yesterday released its report for last year, which suggested that a 4 percent increase in borrowers and 0.8 percent increase of books borrowed compared with numbers from 2012 pointed to a positive growth in the nation’s population of habitual readers.
The percentages mean 610,000 more people borrowed books and 470,000 more books were borrowed.
Sixty-two million people borrowed books and 82 million visited libraries last year.
Children between seven and 12 years old constituted the majority of the increase, borrowing an average of 7.2 books per child, data showed, while the second-largest group of readers were those between 31 and 50 years of age, with an average of three books per person.
National Central Library director-general Tseng Shu-hsien (曾淑閒) said the annual average readership is growing continually, indicating an increase of habitual readers.
According to the library’s data, the top three series of popular novels were Island — End of Terror (噩盡島) by Mo Jen (莫仁), Legends of the Essence Hunters (獵命師傳奇) by Giddens Ko (柯景騰), also known as Jiu Ba-dao (九把刀), and Datang Shuanglong Zuan (大唐雙龍傳) by Huang Yi (黃易).
Sixty-five year-old Greater Taichung resident Su Cheng-ming (蘇正明) borrowed the most books last year, a total of 4,358, averaging more than 13 per day, the data showed.
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