Post‐checkout (Non‐)usage of Library Digital Content.

The present study analyzed a large urban Canadian public library's data (2013‐2017) from Rakuten OverDrive to identify patterns, trends, and potential implications related to post‐checkout non‐usage (material that is checked out by a user, but subsequently never opened and/or downloaded) of library digital content. It was found that over 12% of the more than 1.1 million checkouts of digital content via OverDrive in 2017 were never opened, causing a waste of over $10,000 USD on metered access eBooks alone; this figure will likely increase in the coming years based on the trends found in this study. Juvenile and non‐fiction eBooks are most likely to be checked out and go unused. These findings may shed light on ways libraries and digital content vendors might improve the efficiency of digital content lending, and serve to inform collection management and user‐targeted marketing and solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]