Interesting statistical factoids

I have been number crunching figures regarding how many items the library purchased in the last financial year and have converted them into the following set of factoids which may be of interest.

We purchased 77,612 items for the libraries last financial year.

Now close your eyes and imagine that you are in the Eastern Regional Libraries Cheer Squad behind the goals at the MCG.

If you placed the 3585 CDs that we bought on top of each other they would make a pile twice the height of two goal posts placed on top of each other.

If you then decided to place all of the magazines that we purchased on top of each other (11,295) they would reach as high as a light tower at the MCG (75m in height - the equivalent of a 24 story building).

If you then placed all the DVDs we bought end to end (10,985) they would stretch from the MCG all the way up to the front steps of the State Library of Victoria (2.1 km).

And then if you were to place all of the books that we have purchased this year (Fiction, Non-Fiction and Paperbacks = 33,990) in equal piles in front of the State Library you would have 24 piles of books reaching as high as the library's dome.

But what was even more amazing was the following calculation based on the items purchased for the eLibrary. 

The eLibrary collection contains 7,636 eBooks and 1,607 audiobooks.

I was able to calculate an average for the file size of the eBooks and audiobooks and then calculated that the total size of the eLibrary equated to approximately 60,000,000 kilobytes......... which sounds pretty impressive until you realise that 60,000,000 kilobytes equates to 60 gigabytes or 0.06 terabytes.

Basically you would be able to store our entire eLibrary collection on a 1TB portable hard drive from Dick Smiths and have room for another 15 ERL eLibraries on it!

A 1TB portable hard drive is the same size as a normal paperback book and costs $150.

Cheers, Paul.

ERL members saved over $62 million in the past year by borrowing from our libraries

Paul, our Manager - Information Services, has had his statistics hat on the past couple of weeks and shared some interesting comparisons....

Last year we had 2,042,407 people come through the doors of our libraries – this works out to 39,277 folks turning up each week. To put it into perspective it means that we are filling The Gabba, the Brisbane Cricket Ground, to capacity each Saturday for an entire year or playing to a sold-out crowd at Docklands stadium for 38 consecutive nights.

We have 126,444 members which is the equivalent of the entire membership of Collingwood and Hawthorn Football Clubs combined. Last year we joined up 15,304 members which is the equivalent of filling the Myer Music Bowl to capacity and still having a thousand people queuing up outside clamouring to get in.

Speaking of cultural institutions we had 91,209 people, large and small, come along to our adult and junior activities. This equates to filling the newly refurbished Hamer Hall at the Arts Centre for 34 nights – beat that KD Lang et al!

And as for loans…… well we have had a terrific year – 3,444,650 items have gone out and come back again. Now if we were to put a monetary value on these items you would get the following set of numbers for the main categories of items that people borrow (I have averaged out the RRP costs of these items):

• Hardback Fiction – 923,000 items @ $20 an item = $18,460,000
• Paperbacks – 226,000 items @$10 an item = $2,260,000
• Non-Fiction – 465,000 items @ $25 an item = $11,625,000
• Picture books – 430,000 items @ $15 an item = $6,450,000
• DVDS – 727,000 items @ $25 an item = $18,175,000
• CDs – 130,000 items @ $20 an item = $2,600,000
• Magazines – 180,000 items @ $8 an item = $1,440,000
• Graphic Novels – 25,000 items @ $30 an item = $750,000
• eBooks – 29,000 items @ $20 an item = $580,000

Which makes a grand total of $62,340,000 that you, our members, have saved themselves by being members of the library…… membership certainly does have its privileges.

Well done everyone!!

Cheers, paul & webgurl

2009 library website in review

Well I've finally managed to tally up the stats for our website visits this year and it's been a great one. We've had 828871 visitors through the front door of the website, striving for 1 million visitors in 2010.


So let's start the countdown (not including the front page).....

20. 4 Kids Animals
19. Reader's Corner Reviews blog
18. Births, Deaths and Marriages
17. Teen Fashion
16. 4 Kids
15. Family History
14. Reader's Corner
13. 4 Kids Games
12. How to use the catalogue
11. About us
10. Contact Us
9. What's New events blog
8. SiteSearch
7. Teen Online Games
6. Job vacancies
5. Online resources
4. Email & Search
3. Using the library
2. 4 Kids Science

and number 1 is......................... Find a Library

Not really a huge surprise as one of the most common questions we get asked in the branches are the branch hours.

The 4 Kids website was extremely popular, especially 4 Kids Science, thanks to the support of schools around the world, curious young minds and recommendations from people such as Mrs Parrington at Mrs. Parrington Loves Science.

We also had 80840 searches on our Who Writes Like database, which is a very popular resource on the 'net. Who Writes Like is compiled by hand on genres and subgenres and we're always looking for more suggestions, particularly in the Fantasy & Science Fiction area. If you like to help you can contact me through the contact form on our website and let me know what genre you read.

I'm currently working on a new website for the library using a content management system so I can look at expanding the site and looking at new training opportunities for staff and members. We will continue to explore other means of reaching our members and trying to connect you with information or great books. 

Cheers, webgurl

Counting down the website visits

Well it's the time of year to take stock and look at the yearly website stats. For all of those who are interested (and who wouldn't be), here's a countdown to the Top 20 Eastern Regional Library Sites (not counting the main page)

20. Reader's Corner - Bookclubs
19. SiteSearch
18. Reader's Corner
17. Family History - CDROM & Microfiche
16. 4 kids
15. About us
14. 4 kids - Top reads
13. Family History - Births, Deaths & Marriages
12. Family History
11. Email & Search
10. Teen Online Books
9. Job Vacancies
8. Using the Library
7. Online Resources
6. Online Information
5. What's New @ Eastern Regional Libraries Blog
4. Teen Online Fashion
3. Find a Library (Branches & hours)
2. Local History Community Databases

1. Teen Online Games

Teen Online Games was the overwhelming winner, thanks to the fantastic support of gamers around the world. Cheers!

Also a special mention for the Who Writes Like page on Reader's Corner. It had over 85,000 searches for the year. It's also been a great year for the blog. Thanks for reading. We'll try and do some new things for 2007. I'll probably look at podcasting some of the popular events this year. Stay tuned.

Cheers, Maryanne