Tainan City residents last year borrowed more than 7.6 million library books, or 4.04 books per capita, the second-highest rate nationwide next to Taipei’s 4.78 library books per capita, Tainan Public Libraries said, adding that last year’s figure marked an increase in readership compared with the previous year.
Tainan residents last year borrowed 400,000 more books than in 2014, when the average number checked-out per capita was 3.82, the libraries said.
Tainan residents aged from 31 to 50 borrowed 3.25 million books last year, higher than any other age group, while elementary-school children borrowed the second-highest number of books at 1.36 million, it said.
Photo provided by Tainan Public Libraries
The parents of children under six checked out 730,000 books last year, an increase of 340,000 books compared with last year, making pre-school children technically the third-most frequent library book borrowers in the city, it said.
The libraries said that the city’s female library users borrowed significantly more books than males, with women borrowing about 60 percent of all library books checked out last year, even though there were slightly more male residents than females in the city, according to demographic statistics from the city’s Civil Affairs Bureau.
Records last year suggested that male and female library users have different reading habits, with men having a preference for natural sciences, Chinese history and geography, while women read more broadly, Tainan Public Libraries said.
Literature was the most popular genre among the city’s library users last year, with 3.64 million books borrowed falling into that category and accounting for roughly half of all books checked out, it said.
When sorted by age groups, readers older than 19 were most likely to check out books in the applied sciences, while readers aged from 13 to 18 favored manga and readers from seven to 12 mostly borrowed art books, it said.
Children under six were recorded as being most likely to borrow books in the social sciences genre, but this is likely due to the fact that the libraries count illustrated children’s books in the social sciences genre for record-keeping purposes, the libraries said.
The most-borrowed title in the fiction genre last year was Sun and Moon in the Sky (日月當空) by Hong Kong-based wuxia writer Huang Yi (黃易), while the most borrowed non-fictional work was Kevin Tsai’s (蔡康永) Way of Speaking (蔡康永的說話之道), it said.
The most borrowed Japanese manga were books in the Detective Conan series, while the most popular children’s book was Tomorrow Experiment King, an educational comic book translated from Korean, it said.
Tainan Public Libraries added that its Book Box for Businesses — a service established in 2014 that delivers books to Tainan’s commercial enterprises — in April began sending books to community and faith centers, calling on the public to utilize the library books made available by the expansion of service.
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