Loan Stars is 10!

Can you believe a decade has gone by so fast? Loan Stars is now in its double digit years!

Loan Stars is the readers’ advisory tool that allows libraries across Canada to indicate popular upcoming titles. Using LibraryData, BookNet Canada’s library data aggregation service, the forthcoming titles with the most orders become Loan Stars top picks! Along with overall Adult and Junior lists, Loan Stars also has Adult and Junior lists identifying the top-ordered Canadian-authored titles.

In 2021, we celebrated Loan Stars turning five by noting that Loan Stars had highlighted nearly 800 titles to library staff and patrons. Now, as Loan Stars turns 10, we can boast 1,710 titles since our very first list in May 2016!

But since we love numbers here, let’s break that down a bit more.

• Overall we’ve shared 177 top 10 lists

  • 112 Adult lists (plus 5 best of the year lists)

  • 41 Junior lists (those started in March 2019)

  • 10 Adult Canadians lists (the inaugural one was released March 2023)

  • 9 Junior Canadian lists (starting in May 2023)

• We’ve featured 1,220 Adult books and 500 Juvenile and Young Adult books

• Of all Loan Stars top picks, 33% were titles with at least one Canadian contributor

• We’ve met 30 Loan Stars authors

Adult Loan Stars picks

Looking at all 1,220 Loan Stars Adult picks, 83% were Fiction and 15% were Non-Fiction titles.

Loan Stars Adult Fiction titles are classified under 39 different BISAC subject categories. The top three most popular Fiction subject categories from the last decade are:

• Fiction / Thrillers — 29%

• Fiction / Literary — 16%

• Fiction / Mystery & Detective — 11%

The Non Fiction subject categories are more concentrated. 35% of Non Fiction Loan Stars picks were Biography & Autobiography books and the rest are spread out amongst 21 subject categories.

But which Loan Stars titles have been the most popular in Canadian libraries? We took a look at the loans from all Adult Loan Stars picks since LibraryData starting tracking circulation figures from libraries in Canada.

Top loaned adult titles from all Loan Stars picks:

1. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (January-February 2021 list)

2. The Maid by Nita Prose 🍁 (January-February 2022 list)

3. The Women by Kristin Hannah (February 2024 list)

4. Spare by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex (January-February 2023 list)

5. The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny 🍁 (August 2021 list)

6. Happy Place by Emily Henry (April 2023 list)

7. People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (May 2021 list)

8. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (January-February 2019 list)

9. Simply Lies by David Baldacci (April 2023 list)

10. Book Lovers by Emily Henry (May 2022 list)

Loan Stars Jr. picks

Now to break down the 500 Juvenile and Young Adult (YA) books that make up the Loan Stars Jr. lists: 88% of them were Fiction and 11% were Non Fiction.

Fiction picks spanned 47 BISAC subject categories and the top two were:

• Juvenile Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels or Young Adult Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels — 21%

• Juvenile Fiction / Animals — 11%

The Jr. lists were made up of fewer Non Fiction titles, spanning 11 subject categories with 23% of them categorized with the Juvenile Nonfiction / Animals BISAC code.

Again, to find out how popular these titles are in Canadian libraries, we took a look at the loans from all Loan Stars Jr. picks since LibraryData starting tracking circulation figures from libraries in Canada.

Top loaned juvenile titles from all Loan Stars picks:

1. Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey

2. The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel series by Ann M. Martin

3. Big Nate series by Lincoln Peirce

4. Baby-Sitters Little Sister graphic novel series by Ann M. Martin

5. Wings of Fire series by Tui T. Sutherland

6. Cat Kid Comic Club series by Dav Pilkey

7. Phoebe and Her Unicorn series by Dana Simpson

8. Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi

9. Geronimo Stilton Reporter series by Geronimo Stilton

10. I Survived graphic novel series by Lauren Tarshis

Thanks for celebrating 10 years of Loan Stars with us! If you want to keep up with the program, you can sign up for our newsletter to get the top picks lists each month.

*A quick note about the lists: LibraryData uses ISBN clusters to track circulation, holds, etc. in the system. (This differs from SalesData, which reports data at a per-ISBN level.) We do this because of how libraries report their collection data to us — their data is broken out by their Catalog ID or record. Each record can contain multiple ISBNs, often all of the editions of a single work. When you use the library, you put a hold on a copy of Pride and Prejudice, for example, and you usually don't mind which particular edition or ISBN you receive — just that you get the first available copy! Some clusters may contain ISBNs for different but related works. For example, occasionally all of the titles in a series or set may be clustered as a single work.