In its 85th year of existence, Fairfax County Public Library (FCPL) saw a surge in demand for digital materials, reflecting the ongoing expansion of its services beyond traditional print books.
The library system recorded 3.8 million digital checkouts in 2024, pushing it past the all-time milestone of 25 million checkouts, FCPL shared in an overview of the last calendar year published on Jan. 2, 2025.
While readership of electronic books, audiobooks and magazines was already on the rise, the number of patrons checking out those items each month has nearly doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic began, FCPL acting deputy director Dianne Coan says.
“We have seen a strong and steady growth in our digital readership, both prior to and following the pandemic,” she told FFXnow by email. “We are currently seeing between 64,000 and 65,000 unique borrowers per month, not quite double what we were seeing in January of 2019, which was 35,500 unique users.”
Last year also saw FCPL introduce kits for monitoring light pollution and recording family histories to its “Library of Things” collection, which encompasses non-literary items like board games, artwork and nature backpacks.
What FCPL patrons checked out in 2024
Female authors dominated the library’s lists of its most checked-out digital items in 2024, with adults gobbling up historical fiction, crime novels and self-help books, while kids and teens favored fantasy.
Top 5 Adult eBooks:
- “The Second Mrs. Astor: A Heartbreaking Historical Novel of the Titanic” by Shana Abe
- “The Marlow Murder Club: A Novel” by Robert Thorogood
- “The Women: A Novel” by Kristen Hannah
- “It Starts With Us” by Colleen Hoover
- “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed” by Lori Gottlieb
Top 5 Adult eAudiobooks:
- “101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think” by Brianna Wiest
- “Pretty Girls” by Karin Slaughter
- “The Heavens May Fall” by Allen Eskens
- “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros
- “The Paris Apartment: A Novel” by Lucy Foley
Top 5 Childrens and Young Adult eBooks:
- “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas
- “Check & Mate” by Ali Hazelwood
- “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins
- “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak
- “Throne of Glass” by Sarah J. Maas
Top 5 Childrens and Young Adult eAudiobooks:
- “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas
- “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins
- “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” by J.K. Rowling
- “If He Had Been with Me” by Laura Nowlin
- “A Wrinkle In Time” by Madeleine L’Engle
Patrons also used their Libby accounts to read magazines, including online issues of the New Yorker, New Scientist, Us Weekly, The Week and National Geographic, according to FCPL.
Looking at print books, adults gravitated toward Bonnie Garmus’s “Lessons in Chemistry,” which grabbed the top spot after coming in fourth in 2023, and kids continued to go hog-wild for Elephant and Piggie, checking out “The Thank You Book” by Mo Willems more than any other title for the second year in a row.
Top 5 Print Adult:
- “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus
- “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett
- “Exchange, After the Firm” by John Grisham
- “The Women” by Kristin Hannah
- “Happy Place” by Emily Henry
Top 5 Print Childrens/Young Adult:
- “Thank You Book” by Mo Willems
- “Dog Man: Mothering Heights” by Dav Pilkey
- “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley’s Journal” by Jeff Kinney
- “Dog Man: Unleashed” by Dav Pilkey
- “Dog Man: Fetch” by Dav Pilkey
Library seeks to update and expand collections
The popularity of its digital offerings comes with some challenges for FCPL, whose allocated operating budget has stayed flat in recent years even as licensing and subscription costs grow.
With Coan calling the cost of renewal “no longer viable,” the library announced last week that patrons will lose access to Kanopy when its subscription to the video streaming service expires after Jan. 31.
Coan and the FCPL Board of Trustees have also advocated for changes to the licensing model that publishers use for e-books, though local government leaders suggested reforms would likely need to come at the federal level.
Despite the financial burden, FCPL will continue working in 2025 to build “a strong digital collection while balancing the various publisher pricing models with the demand from our readership,” Coan says.
Other priorities for the coming year include a push to update the library’s nonfiction print collection, supported by one-time funding approved last year by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and an emphasis on print materials for children, particularly beginning readers.
“We continue to expand our Read-Along collection, which allows children to both see and hear the story, a proven effective way to improve reading skills,” Coan said.
