Public Libraries Beat Out Netflix, Others, When It Comes to DVDs

For many years, I was a proud Netflix subscriber, happily plunking down between $15-20 a month to rent to my heart's content. Only I didn't. I mean, I did pay the monthly fee, but I wasn't renting to my heart's content. At one point, I managed to keep three movies for six months, apparently not wanting to watch the movies but not able to admit that to myself by returning them. It was a vicious (and admittedly stupid) cycle that my then-girlfriend (now-wife) alerted me to, and I finally cut the cord.

I don't know if this is something other people have admitted to themselves or if this is due to the economy, but as the Hartford Courant reported, public libraries are actually beating out Netflix, Redbox and Blockbuster when it comes to the lending/rental market. According to a survey by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), an average of 2.1 million DVDs are being loaned out by US public libraries on a daily basis, barely beating out Netflix, which comes in at 2 million rentals per day. Redbox, meanwhile, is at 1.4 million per day, while Blockbuster trails with 1.2 million.

It helps that, as the article notes, while libraries have been lending movies for years, "the size and scope of offerings have changed vastly, from smatterings of PBS documentaries on VHS to smorgasbords of new releases, art house and hard-to-find foreign films, children's movies and TV shows on DVD and Blue-ray."

The good news, in my mind, is two-fold. One, people are saving money, since it's free to take out DVDs, assuming you don't keep them too long and incur the dreaded late fees. Second, and more importantly, people are actually using the library. And even if the reason they're going there is to rent a DVD, they're surrounded by books, so they might just be tempted to borrow one or two. Stranger things have happened.

Photo by chelmsfordpubliclibrary via Flickr.