Our communities checked out, downloaded and streamed more than 700,000 books, ebooks, movies and other library materials in 2021! Way to use your public library NCW!
“2021 was a pivotal year with reopening all of our branch libraries to expanded hours, increasing staff, and providing more opportunities to engage with the Library both virtually and in person,” said NCW Libraries’ Executive Director Barbara Walters. “I am hopeful that we will be able to expand in-person programs and services in 2022 and though it remains unclear when that can happen, we will continue to adapt and develop creative approaches to meet our communities’ needs.”
Here’s a look at what you read, watched and logged into most this year.
Most Popular Fiction
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
From #1 New York Times bestselling author, Kristin Hannah, comes an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras – The Great Depression.
Learn more and check out a copy!
Most Popular Non-fiction
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Pulitzer Prize- winning, bestselling a author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of divisions.
Learn more and check out a copy!
Most Popular Book Club Kit
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.
Check out a Book Club kit or an individual book!
Most Popular eAudiobook on Hoopla
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter’s life is miserable. His parents are dead and he lives with his heartless relatives. Will his fortune change with the arrival of a mysterious letter, a strange visitor, and a school for wizardry?
Most Popular Show Streamed on Kanopy
Ten survival experts are dropped off in separate and extremely remote locations. Equipped with only limited gear, their years of wilderness experience, and supplied with cameras.
2021 By the Numbers
710,395 Total checkouts of all physical and digital library materials
448,449 Checkouts of physical books
267,271 Checkouts of digital books from Overdrive/Libby
169,104 Checkouts of DVDs
100,399 Ebooks, comics, movies and TV shows checked out from Hoopla
57,757 Take-home craft and STEM kits handed out
43,610 Packages of library materials shipped by the Mail Order Department (31,125 books and 12,485 movies, audiobooks and music CDs)
14,718 Checkouts of audiobooks
12,693 Movies and TV shows streamed on Kanopy
6,408 New library cards issued (bringing the total number of library-card holders in NCW to 231,151!)
2,727 Hours of language learning through Rosetta Stone
1,128 Hours of online courses taken through LinkedIn Learning
437 Book Club Kits checked out
171 Wifi hotspot checkouts
162 Ohme Gardens passes checked out
97 Washington State Discover Passes checked out
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