Written by Rachel Vogus

JMRL Circulation Data Research Project – Fixing Errors

There are many considerations in both the field of collection management and recommended reading. To manage these activities in a home or community library, a rogue librarian begins by building their knowledge of both award-winning and popular books.

My research into the circulation data for FY25 at JMRL focuses on the popularity (via circulation numbers) of “kid lit” materials. I’ve chosen to use the term “kid lit” because “juvenile” may read to some as childish.

You can read more about the circulation data that I am using and how I am adding information to it here.

The Data

This week I took a closer look at kid lit titles that circulated 50+ times in FY25. This closer look revealed some significant data flaws.

Disambiguation

Titles like The Edge were classified as Kid Lit. The script I ran successfully found Kid Lit books with this title, but based on a JMRL/Libby catalog search, this is likely a “general content” (i.e., adult) book. In the limited set of titles checked out 50+ times, I cleaned up all the titles I could find that were mislabeled as kid lit.

Missing data

The script I ran collected ISBN based on title and author (where available). It then used ISBN to collect subject tags. Next, based on its interpretation of the subject tags, it identified a title as Kid Lit, Possibly Kid Lit, Young Adult or left the age-range field blank.

To remedy this, I am working my way through titles labeled as Kid Lit that have been checked out 50 + times. I am using the author field (example: Jeff Kinney) and title field (example: Clifford) to search for Kid Lit books that were missed.

I am also using my knowledge of Kid Lit. I’ve been searching for common titles or fragments of titles such as World Record books, Treasury of, or Weird but True or searching for “illustrat*” in the author field. These searches have uncovered more books that should have been labeled Kid Lit, but were missed.

Both of these methods (searching for known popular authors and titles and searching for words that suggest Kid Lit) have uncovered books that circulated 50+ times in FY25 and were missing data.

So the data is incomplete, as is. Editing continues!

A Closer Look – Top Titles, Series, and Authors

With these caveats in mind, let’s take a closer look at the data for Kid Lit books checked out 50+ times.

Series dominate. 72% of the Kid Lit books checked out 50+ times were part of a series, a duology, or an intellectual property such as Minecraft or Lego.

The most checked-out Kid Lit book is “Hot Mess” from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. The audiobook was checked out 290 times. The ebook was checked out 229.

Physical materials make up the majority of kid lit items in this list. 19% of the items were checked out via Overdrive (Libby). However, the top three most checked-out Kid Lit books are all from Overdrive, aka Libby: Hot Mess (audiobook and ebook) and Big Jim Believes from the Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey.

The top most checked-out Kid Lit physical item is Dog Man. The Scarlet Shedder by Dav Pilkey at 204 check-outs.

The following series had books in them that were checked out 100+ times:

Katherine Applegate’s book Odder is the top non-series book at 122 check-outs.

The top ten physical non-series materials are:

The top nine digital (Libby) non-series materials are:

  • Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
  • The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
  • Drama by Raina Telgemeier
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  • Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
  • The BFG (likely audiobook) by Roald Dahl
  • Watership Down (likely audiobook) by Richard Adams
  • Odder (likely audiobook) by Katherine Applegate
  • Refugee (likely audiobook) by Alan Gatz

Note: There were only nine Kid Lit non-series books checked out via Libby in FY25. That’s about 5% of the non-series Kid Lit checkouts and about 1% of the total Kid Lit checkouts. I’d also argue that Huck Finn and Watership Down are likely adult check-outs.

The following authors had books checked out 100+ times:

Next Steps

Top X number lists are a useful way to check for gaps in knowledge. A caveat: some kids are selecting for themselves, but some have a parent or other adult selecting for them. Of course, adults are reading these books too.

Based on these lists, my own to-dos include:

  • Continuing to build out read-alike lists and/or reading ladders for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dog Man, Piggie & Gerald, and Babysitter Club Graphic Novels
  • Read some of the Wings of Fire, I Survived, Pete the Cat, Blue Bison, I Cannot Draw, and Big Nate series to fill in gaps in my knowledge. Connect these books to known titles to build out read-alikes and reading ladders.
  • Read Somewhere in the bayou by Jarrett & Jerome Pumphrey, Squished by Megan Wagner Lloyd & Michelle Mee Nutter, Poo-dunit? : a forest floor mystery by Katelyn Aronson, Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall, Eggasaurus by Jennifer Wagh, Bubbly beautiful Kitty-corn by Shannon Hale & LeUyen Pham.
  • Look for new books or reissues of books by the authors with 100+ checkouts. Consider organizing events or materials to celebrate their new books and draw readers in.

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