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Books Borrowed

Map No. 344

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This map shows books borrowed from public libraries - which lend books to members for free or for a nominal charge. Libraries share books, making it unnecessary for us to buy books that we will read only once or twice.

The most books borrowed were in the Russian Federation. There were high rates of borrowing in Western Europe, Japan and Eastern Europe. In these regions most territories reported some book borrowing.

In other regions reported book borrowing was lower, and many territories reported very little borrowing. Where many people cannot afford books, it appears they often cannot borrow them either.

"In vain have you acquired knowledge, if you have not imparted it to others." Deuteronomy Rabbah, undated

Territory size shows the proportion of all library books borrowed that were borrowed there.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page