Top Biographies

The big network of libraries we belong to, OCLC, has put together some lists of the titles that the largest number of libraries own, what they call "the 'purchase vote' of libraries around the globe." This is a pretty good way of getting a sense of what people want to read. It's a fairly universal reflex in libraryland: you want, we try to buy. The top entries on their "Biography, autobiography and journals" list:

• Henry David Thoreau, Walden (22,165 libraries)
• Plutarch, Lives (21,050 libraries)
• Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl (18,835 libraries)
• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (16,358 libraries)
• Tabari, History of Prophets and Kings (14,793 libraries)
• Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (14,164 libraries)
• Van Gogh, Vincent van Gogh (13,760 libraries)(they seem to have lumped several Van Gogh books...)
• St. Augustine, Confessions (12,564 libraries)
• Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo (11,214 libraries)
• Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography (10,361 libraries)
  

We have them all except the Tabari, about which--I'm sorry to say--we were until this moment completely ignorant. We'll order a copy. The readers in those 14,793 libraries clearly know what they are doing...

      P.S. You have access to the OCLC database, called WorldCat, but only from inside the library. Listings for 54,826,796 titles, as held by about 50,000 libraries, are yours to examine. More about FirstSearch and Worldcat in an upcoming post. You will find a link to Worldcat on the Internet Starting Points, but it will only let you in from the library's IP address...