Chapter 1: What record did the Calgary Public Library achieve in 2025?
There was a report that came out in January that kind of blew my mind. It has to do with transaction numbers at the Calgary Public Library. So apparently, Calgarians checked out 17.5 million books in 2025. 17.5. 11 million of them were physical copies, with the remaining 6.5 million being digital. 17.5 million is a record for Liberian.
Now, I don't know about you guys, but that is a way, way higher number than I was expecting ever. How freaking bookish is Calgary? What do I not know about the city? I mean, I do know that they have a population of roughly 1.6 million that averages out to roughly 10 book checkouts per person per year.
Chapter 2: What factors contributed to the 15% increase in library usage?
And that's on top of all the other services that it offers. Public libraries are such a vital resource for so many people. They're absolutely appreciated and hold a revered place in society, but I think the positive community impact is still hugely underappreciated. The Calgary Public Library clearly had an incredible 2025, just based on those numbers.
I thought with this in mind, this is a great opportunity to talk about libraries and how they work and what they offer. Today, I have the perfect person to talk about the impact of libraries, Genevieve Luthi. She's the Director of Collections at the Calgary Public Library. This is Audiobook Cafe. I'm Jacob Szymanski. Genevieve, thanks for making time. Welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me, Jacob.
Of course. So I only mentioned just a few of the numbers that were made available in that press release in January. Can you share with us the rest? Because they're also super impressive.
Sure. Yeah. So we have millions of visits every year and hundreds of thousands program participants at the library, more than 20,000 people a day. visit 22 different library locations across Calgary.
Wow, 20,000. Okay, what kind of programs are we talking about here?
So we have programs for all ages, all interests. So we start with that as a baby, you might attend our baby rhyme time with your with your caregiver, all the way up to coffee and conversation programs for seniors, tech programs, all kinds of programs. Really, there's something for everyone at the library.
And most public libraries do host programs like these. Is 20,000 people showing up for these programs a high number if you compare them to other public libraries in Canada, if you have a picture of what it looks like?
Yeah, I mean, I think Calgary is a large city and hundreds of thousands of program participants is probably specific to our city because of the population. But I imagine at libraries across the country, people are showing up in huge numbers for programs. I know that We have trouble meeting demand for some of our baby programs, for example. There's a large young population here.
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Chapter 3: What types of programs does Calgary Public Library offer for the community?
So that talks about what we provide to the community. And so in our collections policy, we have selection criteria. Those are the things that we look at when we're deciding what to purchase. And I would say for something, especially when we're making selection decisions in Libby, one of the biggest things that we have to, one of the biggest selection criteria is availability.
So you're probably aware that not everything that's available on something like Amazon is available for libraries to purchase in Libby. For example, Project Hail Mary, which is popular right now, that audiobook is an Audible exclusive. So the libraries can't purchase it.
They've locked it down. You can only get that on Audible.
Exactly. Yeah. So availability is a pretty important factor when we are selecting material in in Libby because sometimes something is not available. Our patients would love to listen to that audiobook, but it's just not something that's available for us.
Another way that we choose in Libby, I don't know if you've ever placed a notify me tag, but that's something you can do if there's a title that's available, but that your library hasn't purchased yet, you can put a notify me tag on it and that indicates to the library, oh, I'm interested in this. And so last year,
Calgary Public Library patrons placed more than, I think it was 260,000 notify me tags in Libby. So that's another way that we select material is what is the community asking for? What is the community interested in?
Audiobooks are expensive and if you have to wait a couple weeks to get to an audiobook to get it for free, I think a lot of people would do that. So it's totally well worth it. Signing up for your local library and then registering through Libby so you can see what audiobooks they have available. I think I remember hearing that
the Toronto library bought like a record amount of copies of the audio books for heated rivalries. That whole series was very, very popular in Toronto.
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Chapter 4: How does the Calgary Public Library compare to other libraries in Canada?
I mean, to be fair, it's very, very popular. Absolutely everywhere.
Yes, it was very popular here. And we actually just did a promotion where we made that available at a simultaneous use model. So multiple people could borrow it at once without having to wait.
How'd you get that to work?
Well, so actually that's one of the, before it became popular, I think, the publisher said, well, we'll make this available as a simultaneous use audio book. So that was a title that we had already with that license model. And it just happened that became very popular. We could make it accessible.
Out of curiosity, I don't know if you have liberty of talking about this. How much does it cost for a library to purchase a copy of an audio book to be able to check out for the patrons?
So it depends. Um, I would say it can be anywhere from, some of them are $70 and some of them can be up to $170 or $200. So libraries pay significantly more than the sort of general public. If you went and bought an audio book from Audible or Kobo store, you'd be paying significantly less than what libraries pay.
Because it's like a special sort of license, right? Because you're checking it out for multiple patrons.
That's right. Yeah. So, so there's a couple of things. One is that the actual copy costs more, but then most of the time when we are purchasing a license for an audio book, it's a limited time period. So sometimes it's two years, sometimes it's based on number of checkouts, so 24 checkouts. So we're sort of paying more twice, right?
We pay more for the actual, to actually purchase the, each copy of a book or audio book. And then we are getting it for a limited amount of time. So that is something that's definitely a challenge for libraries.
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Chapter 5: What is Libby and how can patrons use it for audiobooks?
Sure. Yeah, it is a pretty fun job. And I think often when people hear collections, they think that we're the people that collect overdue bills, but luckily our job is much more fun than that.
Like a tax collector.
That's right. Or the debt collectors. But that's absolutely, our job is much more fun than that. So yeah, it's a really busy job. We As I mentioned, we have six selectors who are choosing the material and then a whole team of staff who are helping to process that material. So we put in the orders and then the books arrive and we distribute them to different locations.
So it's really about managing budget, making sure that we're meeting the demand, meeting the interest of Calgarians. So it's a pretty fun job to be able to buy books.
What does one have to study to become a librarian?
Yeah. So typically librarians have a master's degree. My degree is in a master's of library and information studies. There are some that are masters of information, but so yeah, librarians and all of our selectors would have a master's degrees in information.
What do you learn when you do a master's in library studies or in information? This is fascinating.
Yeah. Yeah. It's something that a lot of people don't realize. Yeah. So I think Um, I did my degree quite a long time ago now, but some of the things that we, we talked about were, well, so we learned about sort of search strategies. How do you find information? How do you make it available to people?
One of the really important, I think, things that we talk about in library school is intellectual freedom and that importance of, of making all information available, whether or not you personally agree with it. So, um, I think that, uh, these days there's lots of focus on programming and, and, um, reaching all kinds of different people in your community?
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