Brooklyn Public Library’s collection is shrinking because of unreturned books. According to a report in The Daily News, the library systems counted 70,144 books unreturned books in 2012 across the system’s 60 branches. This was up from 61,543 books that weren’t returned in 2011. (Numbers for 2013 have not yet been calculated).
These unreturned books are leading to smaller collections. In 2009, the library housed about 4.1 million books. As of 2012, the system only had 3.3 million titles.
Here is more from The Daily News: “GED prep guides, nursing and other professional exam cliff notes were high on the list of frequently filched books — but so too were graphic novels, library officials said. “Those are always going missing,” a librarian at the Brooklyn Heights branch told the Daily News Thursday.”