Seattle Public Libraryโs Open Checkout Data: What Can It Tell Us About Readers and Book Popularity More Broadly? | Journal of Open Humanities Data
The Seattle Public Library (SPL) publishes anonymized, open-access checkout data for every item in its collection, dating from 2005 to the present. To our knowledge, it is the only U.S. library to release checkout data by title with this level of temporal detail: one dataset records exact timestamps for print book checkouts, while another provides monthly aggregates across all formats (e.g., ebooks, audiobooks, print books). Because U.S. book sales data is largely inaccessible outside the publishing industry, SPLโs open checkout data offers a rare and valuable alternative. But how well does it generalize beyond Seattle? Does it reflect book sales? And what can it tell us about readers more broadly?
David Christensen, @mellymeldubs.bsky.social & I wrote about the Seattle Public Library open checkout dataset. The data is idiosyncratic and imperfectโbut also a rare, detailed look at book popularity over time. Excited to see how others put it to use!
openhumanitiesdata.metajnl.com/articles/10....
18.08.2025 18:08 โ ๐ 26 ๐ 7 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 4
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