Top Circulating Non-Fiction

The Yellow Books, 1887 . Fine Art. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 18 May 2016.
http://quest.eb.com/search/108_303306/1/108_303306/cite

“Knowledge is like money: To be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.”
― Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man  

In the library, "circulation" means a lot of things.  What's sometimes called the "library card desk" is also known as "circulation."  When we look at a book's record, we count how many times it has checked out as its "circs." The library's collection floats (items checked out at one branch and returned at another stay at the branch at which they are returned), but its items circulate.

We've done a couple of posts this year about the top circulating fiction by genre, how about non-fiction for a change? We've got a list of the top 30 most popular checkouts system-wide and we've also done the top 5 checkouts for a couple of random branches. The top 30 is slightly skewed by manga and graphic novel series books (noted in the list below as "series") - apparently all books in the series count as one title for the purpose of our collection performance methodology - but that makes Marie Kondo's dominance of this list even more impressive, we think.

Top Circulating Non-Fiction for Adults

1.  Attack on Titan [series] by Hajime Isayama

2. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

3. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

4. Best Plants for New Mexico Gardens and Landscapes by Baker H. Morrow

5. The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper

6. Guinness World Records [various editions]

7. Moon Handbooks [travel guides]

8. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

9. The Walking Dead [series] by Robert Kirkman

10. Spark Joy by Marie Kondo

11. Cracking the ACT by the Princeton Review

12.  The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

13. The Sandman [series] by Neil Gaiman

14. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

15. Hiking to History by Robert Julyan

16. The Flash [series] by Francis Manapul

17. Saga [series] by Brian K. Vaughan

18. Transformers [series] by John Barber

19. Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue [various editions]

20. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown

21.  Justice League [series] by Geoff Johns

22. The Maxx [series] by Sam Kieth

23. Deep Down Dark by Héctor Tobar

24. Frank Miller’s Sin City [series] by Frank Miller

25. Injustice [series] by Tom Taylor

26. A Chick in the Cockpit by Erika Armstrong

27. Preacher [series] by Garth Ennis

28. Chew [series] by John Layman

29.  Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima

30. Growing the Southwest Garden by Judith Phillips

 

What was surprising was how different the lists were at individual branches!

Top Circulating Non-Fiction for Adults Cherry Hills

1.  How to Be Alive by Colin Beavan

2. Make it Easy by Stacie Billis

3. Historic Ranches of Northeastern New Mexico by Baldwin G. Burr

4. Military Response to UFO Activity by Dr. Stephen Cox

5. Brazillionaires by Alex Cuadros

Local travel certainly makes a strong showing in two of the lists by branch. North Valley loves their pets!

Top Circulating Non-Fiction for Adults North Valley

1.  How to Retire With Enough Money by Teresa Ghilarducci

2. True Tails of Baker & Taylor by Jan Louch and Lisa Rogak

3. Bandelier National Monument by Paul R. Secord

4. The Dog Walker by Joshua Stephens

5. The Old Man and the Cat by Nils Uddenberg

 

Cookbooks also seems popular at the branch level. Only one of our three chosen branches echoes the dominance of graphic novels from the top 30 list, though!

Top Circulating Non-Fiction for Adults Erna Fergusson

1.  The Killing of Osama Bin Laden by Seymour M. Hersh

2. Batman [series] by Scott Snyder

3. Paleo Cooking from Elana’s Pantry by Elana Amsterdam

4. Adulthood is a Myth by Sarah Andersen

5. Look Into My Eyes by Kevin Bubriski