Data evolution of the Ebiblio e-book online lending platform (2019/2021)
Data record of the online lending platform for e-books Ebiblio (2019/2021).
In 2019, the eBiblio platform recorded a total of 1,711,330 loans in the national territory. The autonomous communities that recorded the highest number of loans were the Community of Madrid (658,178), Catalonia (326,045), Andalusia (155,903), Castilla y León (116,761), and the Region of Murcia (81,613).
If we delve a little deeper into the figures, we see that the progressive increase in the number of loans throughout the year is remarkable, with August being the month that records the highest number of loans in most of the autonomous communities.
Unique users 2019
The total number of unique registered users in the national territory was 116,587. The autonomous communities with the highest number of unique users were the community of Madrid (33,941), Catalonia (32,899), Andalusia (10,071), Castile, and Leon (7,484), and Galicia (4,902).
2020 figures
In 2020 the eBiblio platform recorded a total of 3,746,853 loans nationwide. It should be noted that the figures are exceptional, given that after the irruption of COVID-19 and the declaration of the state of alarm, all public libraries were forced to close temporarily. This made it impossible to lend physical copies, which led to an increase in online lending.
To make this possible, the Ministry of Culture and Sports reinforced the online e-book lending platform eBiblio and consolidated an extraordinary purchase of licenses.
The autonomous communities that recorded the highest number of loans during 2020 were the community of Madrid (1,115,102), Catalonia (947,438), Andalusia (296,802), Castile and León (247,851), and the region of Murcia
(192.661).
Unique users 2020
The total number of unique registered users in the country was 257,315. The autonomous communities with the highest number of unique users were Catalonia (87,700), the community of Madrid (64,145), Andalusia (17,693), Castilla y León (13,860), and the region of Murcia (8,310). In the figures for unique users, it should be taken into account that during December 2020 the migration of the eBiblio platform from the company Odilo to Libranda was executed, which interrupted the service for several days.
Figures for 2021
The Ministry of Culture and Sport has provided us with an estimate of loans with data for November 2021, since it has not yet been able to finalize the closure with data for December 2021:
In 2021, the eBiblio platform recorded a total of 2,055,478 loans in the country: the autonomous communities that recorded the highest number of loans were the community of Madrid (773,781), Castilla y León (262,686), Andalusia (178,229), the region of Murcia (146,564) and Galicia (100,852).
The total number of unique registered users in Spain was 111,238.
Unique users 2021
The autonomous communities with the highest number of unique users were the community of Madrid (38,266), Andalusia (12,626), Castile and Leon (10,108), Galicia (7,848), and the community of Valencia (7,037).
Catalonia, which left the eBiblio platform after the company’s migration in December 2020, is no longer present in the total number of loans and active users of eBiblio in 2021.
Comparative data conclusions
The confinement of the population and the closure of public libraries for much of 2020 caused the regular users of our libraries to turn to online lending platforms for e-books, magazines, audiobooks, etc. For this reason, digital reading in Spain experienced an unprecedented increase in 2020. The highest growth was experienced between March and June, coinciding with the confinement of the population and the closure of libraries.
From 2019 to 2020, all autonomous communities show a large increase in the number of loans and registered users.
But, the comparison of 2020 and 2021 shows a decrease in both the number of loans and users. This drop is due to the reopening of physical libraries. In this sense, all autonomous communities experience this decline equally.
In conclusion: EBiblio continues to be the largest free digital lending platform in Spain.
