Book borrowing statistics show more than how many books leave a library. They also reveal how widely a system is used, how access affects demand, and which titles attract repeated attention. Toronto Public Library reported 28 million materials borrowed in 2024, alongside 13.4 million branch visits and 31.5 million online platform visits. These figures provide a useful picture of borrowing within a large, multilingual public library system.
Contents
- The scale of Toronto Public Library
- Borrowing and library access in 2024
- Branches, online services, and participation
- The most borrowed books in 2025
- The most-read books in 2024
- Canadian reads and borrowing patterns
- What expanded hours changed
The scale of Toronto Public Library
Toronto Public Library operates 100 branches and two bookmobiles, giving the system a substantial physical presence across the city. Its collections include more than 10.5 million items, and its collections and services are offered in over 40 languages. Those figures help put the borrowing total into context: 28 million materials borrowed in 2024 represents activity across a very large and varied collection, not a small set of local shelves.
Toronto Public Library reported nearly 45 million annual visits to branches and online in 2024. The system also said that 81% of Torontonians use their library, according to a 2024 public survey. The survey measure is a user share, while the visit figure is a count of visits, so they describe different aspects of reach. Together, they indicate that library use extends well beyond occasional book checkout.
The library describes itself as one of the world’s biggest and busiest public library systems. Its reported scale is visible in several separate measures: 100 branches, two bookmobiles, more than 10.5 million collection items, and millions of physical and digital visits. Borrowing is therefore one part of a wider public service network that includes reading, online access, programs, and in-branch technology.
Borrowing and library access in 2024
The central borrowing figure is 28 million materials borrowed in 2024. The wording covers materials rather than books alone, so it should not be read as a book-only checkout total. It is nevertheless the clearest measure in this set for the overall volume of lending activity.
Toronto Public Library registered 235,270 people for a library card in 2024. New registrations and total borrowing are different measures: a card registration counts people newly registered during the year, while borrowing counts lending transactions or items across the system. Keeping those measures separate avoids treating every borrower as a new cardholder or every new cardholder as an active borrower.
The 2024 activity profile can be summarized as follows:
| Measure | Toronto Public Library figure | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Materials borrowed | 28 million | 2024 |
| Branch visits | 13.4 million | 2024 |
| Online platform visits | 31.5 million | 2024 |
| Wireless sessions in branches | Nearly 6 million | 2024 |
| Public computer workstation session hours | More than 1.2 million | 2024 |
| New library card registrations | 235,270 | 2024 |
This comparison shows why borrowing statistics should be read alongside access statistics. A library can serve people who borrow physical materials, use online platforms, connect to wireless service, or use public computers. The different measures are not interchangeable, but each describes a part of the system’s public use.
Branches, online services, and participation
Branch activity accounted for 13.4 million visits in 2024, while online platform visits reached 31.5 million. Toronto Public Library also logged nearly 6 million wireless sessions in library branches and more than 1.2 million public computer workstation session hours. These figures show that library buildings function as access points for more than shelf browsing and checkout.
Programming added another layer of activity. Toronto Public Library reported more than 750,000 participants at in-person programs in 2024 and offered over 38,000 in-person programs. It also offered nearly 800 online programs, with more than 23,000 total views and attendance recorded for online programs.
These participation figures matter when interpreting borrowing totals. A person may encounter a book through a program, a branch visit, an online platform, or a recommendation connected with another library service. The available numbers do not identify how many loans came from each pathway, so they cannot establish a causal link between programming and borrowing. They do show that borrowing takes place inside a broader pattern of library engagement.
The language figure is also relevant. With collections and services offered in over 40 languages, the more than 10.5 million items in the collection support a wide range of reading needs. The supplied figures do not break borrowing down by language, format, branch, or genre, so those comparisons cannot be made from this data alone.
The most borrowed books in 2025
Toronto Public Library’s 2025 top-borrowed books were borrowed over 195,000 times collectively. The published ranking placed The Empyrean series first, followed by The Let Them Theory, The Women, The Wedding People, and The God of the Woods. Great Big Beautiful Life ranked sixth, Funny Story seventh, Atomic Habits eighth, Intermezzo ninth, and The Anxious Generation tenth.
The list combines series and individual titles, and the supplied figure describes the top-borrowed list collectively rather than providing a separate count for each entry. That distinction matters: the ranking shows relative position, while the total shows the group’s combined borrowing volume. It does not support calculating a precise average per title or identifying the gap between adjacent ranks.
The 2025 ranking was:
- The Empyrean series
- The Let Them Theory
- The Women
- The Wedding People
- The God of the Woods
- Great Big Beautiful Life
- Funny Story
- Atomic Habits
- Intermezzo
- The Anxious Generation
The mix includes fiction, a series, and nonfiction. That range suggests that borrowing demand was not confined to one format of reading interest, although the data does not provide genre shares or format-specific counts. The ranking is a snapshot of Toronto Public Library’s 2025 list, not a global sales chart or a forecast of future borrowing.
The most-read books in 2024
Toronto Public Library’s 2024 top-reads list ranked The Empyrean series first and The Women second. Atomic Habits ranked third, The Covenant of Water fourth, and Lessons in Chemistry fifth. Funny Story ranked sixth, followed by Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow in seventh place, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store in eighth, Hello Beautiful in ninth, and Tom Lake in tenth.
The 2024 top-reads ranking provides a useful comparison with the 2025 top-borrowed list because several names appear in both lists. The Empyrean series was first in both published rankings. The Women appeared in the top three in both years, Atomic Habits appeared in both lists, and Funny Story also appeared in both. These are ranking overlaps, not evidence that the same individuals borrowed the titles in both periods.
| Title or series | 2024 top-reads rank | 2025 top-borrowed rank |
|---|---|---|
| The Empyrean series | 1 | 1 |
| The Women | 2 | 3 |
| Atomic Habits | 3 | 8 |
| Funny Story | 6 | 7 |
The comparison also shows why labels and years should remain explicit. “Top reads” and “top borrowed” are not stated as identical measures in the supplied source labels. The 2024 list belongs to the 2024 measurement period, while the 2025 ranking belongs to 2025. A title’s position can change without the available figures explaining why.
Canadian reads and borrowing patterns
Toronto Public Library separately ranked Canadian reads for 2024. This Summer Will Be Different ranked first, followed by Meet Me at the Lake, The Mystery Guest, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, and Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. The Maid ranked sixth, The Phoenix Crown seventh, Study for Obedience eighth, Denison Avenue ninth, and Every Summer After tenth.
This Canadian reads list adds a national-literary grouping to the broader top-reads list. The supplied facts provide rankings but no borrowing totals for individual Canadian titles. As a result, the list can identify relative order within the published ranking, but it cannot establish how many times each title circulated or how much of the overall 28 million-material total it represented.
The distinction between a list of popular books and a systemwide borrowing statistic is important for readers comparing library data. The 28 million figure covers all reported materials borrowed in 2024. The top-ten lists identify selected rankings for particular published lists. Neither list can be used to reconstruct the full collection’s borrowing distribution.
What expanded hours changed
Access hours provide one measured connection between availability and library use. Toronto Public Library reported a 44% increase in visits when open hours were expanded in 2024. It also reported a 50% increase in Sunday visits compared with the same 2024 period and a 54% year-over-year increase in materials borrowed during Sunday hours.
These percentages describe different comparisons. The 44% figure concerns visits after open hours were expanded. The 50% figure concerns Sunday visits against the same 2024 period. The 54% figure concerns materials borrowed during Sunday hours year over year. They should not be combined into one overall increase, and they do not show that every branch or every day experienced the same change.
The Sunday borrowing result is especially relevant to book borrowing statistics because it connects a schedule measure with lending activity. It does not give the underlying number of Sunday materials borrowed, so the percentage cannot be converted into a count from the supplied facts. It does, however, show that borrowing changed alongside expanded availability during the measured comparison.
Taken together, Toronto Public Library’s figures describe borrowing as part of a large public system: 100 branches, two bookmobiles, more than 10.5 million items, 28 million materials borrowed in 2024, and a 2025 top-borrowed list exceeding 195,000 collective loans. The rankings show what attracted attention, while the access figures show the many physical and digital routes through which readers use the library.