Tauranga Libraries’ most-issued books in 2022 revealed

Thrillers and vegan recipe books seemed to be Tauranga's favourites. Photo / 123rf

Thrillers, mysteries, and plant-based recipes kept Tauranga bookworms entertained last year.

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series kept its hold at the top of the most-read book across all the city’s libraries, with two books making the top-10 most read, issued over 500 times. Better Off Dead was issued 337 times, and The Sentinel 203.

The two novels also topped the Rotorua Library’s most issues last year with 56 and 26 respectively.

Michael Connelly and Lucinda Riley also had two books feature in the top ten, with Connelly’s The Dark Hours and Fair Warning combining for a total of 389 issues and Riley’s The Missing Sister and The Seven Sisters: Maia’s story issued 386 times combined.

Kiwi chef Chelsea Winter’s books Supergood, which is filled with plant-based recipes, and Eat were issued a combined total of 157 times. Nadia Lim’s book Veg, which is packed with recipes for vegetable-based meals, was issued 98 times.

NZME’s Toni Street’s autobiography Lost and Found: My Story of Heartbreak and Hope was also popular and was issued 90 times.

Last month, Tauranga City Council city libraries team leader Judy Ryder said the council was set to follow other libraries around the country in axing fines as more than 9000 books weren’t returned last year.

She said by removing overdue fees later this year, it hopes more books will be returned to its collection and the need to bill customers for the cost of replacing un-returned books will be eliminated.

“We want to ensure our collections are kept in regular circulation so items can be easily accessed and enjoyed by the community. For the system to work well, we need members to take action when they receive a pre-due date reminder notice and return or extend the loan on items they have borrowed.”

City Libraries team leader of business services Judy Ryder. Photo / Mead Norton

The fines-free project means all overdue fines for adult items would be removed, Ryder said.

She said the initiative would hopefully be implemented in the first half of this year.

Figures showed in 2021 there were $71,033.82 in overdue fines, $7,224.20 were unpaid and 9766 books were not returned. Last year, over the same time-frames, there were $52,725.92 in overdue fines, $18,307.90 were unpaid and 9278 books were not returned.

Any change in policy had the potential to impact membership, she said.

The libraries - Tauranga Library, Greerton Library, Pāpāmoa Library and Mount Library - had an average of 66,000 members.

Meanwhile, 1,199,513 books, magazines and DVDs were borrowed from libraries across the city last year, compared with 1,331,987 in 2021.