The 25 most borrowed books at Douglas this year

Photo by Michelle Lim

Textbooks dominate the list

By Atiba Nelson, Staff Reporter


A list of the 25 most borrowed books from the Douglas College library reveals that students are borrowing textbooks available at the library, as most the books on the list are associated with courses offered at Douglas.

“The list of the 25 most popular books, as far as I can tell, all books on that list are textbooks,” commented Olga Kalachinskaya, Systems and Access Services Librarian at Douglas College Library.

The most borrowed book, measured in total number of checkouts in the items history at the library, is Managing the law: the legal aspects of doing business by McInnes, Kerr, and VanDuzer—a textbook featured in the department of business—class, BUSN 1210: Management Essentials.

The BUSN 1210 textbook appears twice on the list of most borrowed books as the top book borrowed, and seventh most borrowed book, as the book appears in the seventh spot as a different edition of the textbook.

The two editions of the business textbook have been borrowed over 4,000 times in the history of their circulation.

Students in Management Essentials seem thrifty as a second textbook of the four textbooks listed on the syllabus for BUSN 1210 makes the list at number fifteen: Management by Robbins, Coulter, Leach, and Kilfoil.

The second and third most borrowed books are math textbooks and belong to one Douglas math class. The textbook used in MATH 1120: Calculus—Single variable calculus: early transcendentals by James Stewart has been loaned out 1,912 times, while the companion student solution manual, has been checkout 25 less times than its partner.

The Stewart textbook for single variable calculus holds a special place on the list. Although the book is the second most borrowed book in the Douglas library collection there are only three copies of the textbook in circulation—half as many as the most checked out book—therefore the book is the most checked out book per item at 637 times per item held in the library’s collection.

The next two books—rounding out the top five—are science textbooks each with an interesting story on the list. General chemistry: principles and modern applications sits at fourth on the list of 25 most borrowed books; however, none of the 1,609 checkouts in the book’s history occurred in either of the last two academic years.

While the fifth most borrowed library book at Douglas College, Campbell Biology, which is used by a number of Douglas College biology courses has the most checkouts in the last two academic years—with 1,259.


Circulation Statistics by Title


Title
# of items Total # of checkouts
Managing the law: the legal aspects of doing business 6 2611
Single variable calculus: early transcendentals 3 1912
Student solutions manual for Single variable calculus: early transcendentals, eighth edition 6 1887
General chemistry: principles and modern applications 3 1609
Campbell biology 7 1538
Student solutions manual for Single variable calculus: early transcendentals 2 1487
Managing the law: the legal aspects of doing business 5 1405
Systems analysis and design 5 1362
Systems analysis and design 3 1265
Chemistry: a molecular approach 4 1256
Business mathematics in Canada 5 1166
Microsoft Excel 2016: comprehensive 6 1065
Campbell biology 2 1048
Understanding economics: a contemporary perspective 4 1032
Management 3 1017
Selected solutions manual [for] General chemistry: principles and modern applications, tenth edition 3 1012
Psychology 2 910
Starting out with Visual C# 2012 2 867
Precalculus: mathematics for calculus 2 836
Organic chemistry 1 804
Study guide and solutions manual: organic chemistry 1 800
Psychology 2 767
Principles of HTML, XHTML, and DHTML 2 736
Algebra and trigonometry 2 704
Systems analysis and design 3 684