91探花

Seattle Public Library, or SPL, is the only U.S. library system that makes its anonymized, granular checkout data public. Want to find out how many times people borrowed the e-book version of Toni Morrison鈥檚 鈥淏eloved鈥� in May 2018? That data is available.听

The hitch is that the library鈥檚 data set contains nearly 50 million rows, and a single title can appear variously. Morrison鈥檚 鈥淏eloved,鈥� for instance, is listed as 鈥淏eloved,鈥� 鈥淏eloved (unabridged),鈥� 鈥淏eloved : a novel / by Toni Morrison鈥� and so on.听

To track trends in the catalogue over the last 20 years, 91探花 researchers analyzed the checkout data of the 93 authors included in the post-1945 volume of 鈥淭he Norton Anthology of American Literature.鈥� It鈥檚 assigned in U.S. English classes more than virtually any other anthology, so what鈥檚 thought of as the contemporary American 鈥� the books and writers we鈥檝e deemed culturally important.听

The team found that among these vaunted writers 鈥� including Morrison, Viet Thanh Nguyen, David Foster Wallace and Joan Didion 鈥� science fiction was particularly popular. Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler topped the list.听

The team Nov. 21 in Computational Humanities Research 2025, and created .听

鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of mind-boggling and ironic that in this age of abundant data, we have so little data about what people are reading,鈥� said senior author , a 91探花assistant professor in the Information School. 鈥�, particularly for researchers, so I鈥檝e been obsessed with SPL鈥檚 data for years now. But extracting insights from it is actually a really hard computational and bibliographic modeling problem.鈥�

To organize the data, the team used computational methods, such as stripping away subtitles and standardizing punctuation. They also manually identified things like translations of a work.听

鈥淲e worked with the Norton anthology in part because it’s a small enough scale for us to handle,鈥� said lead author , a 91探花doctoral student in the Information School. 鈥淚t allows us to have a ground truth to work off of. We can still put a human eye on things.鈥澛�

In all the team looked at 1,603 works by the 93 authors, which were checked out a total of 980,620 times since 2005.

The 10 top authors were:

1. Ursula K. Le Guin
2. Octavia E. Butler
3. Louise Erdrich
4. N.K. Jemisin
5. Toni Morrison
6. Kurt Vonnegut
7. George Saunders
8. Philip K. Dick
9. Sherman Alexie
10. James Baldwin

The 10 top books were:聽

1. 鈥淧arable of the Sower鈥� by Octavia E. Butler
2. 鈥淟incoln in the Bardo鈥� by George Saunders
3. 鈥淭he Fifth Season鈥� by N.K. Jemisin
4. 鈥淭he Sympathizer鈥� by Viet Thanh Nguyen
5. 鈥淜indred鈥� by Octavia E. Butler
6. 鈥淏eloved鈥� by Toni Morrison
7. 鈥淭he Left Hand of Darkness鈥� by Ursula K. Le Guin
8. 鈥淭he Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian鈥� by Sherman Alexie
9. 鈥淭he Year of Magical Thinking鈥� by Joan Didion
10. 鈥淭he Sentence鈥� by Louise Erdrich

Researchers noted several trends that may have driven checkouts. In general, books with genre and sci-fi elements were some of the most popular.听

鈥淚 found the prevalence of sci-fi books and writers really interesting,鈥� Gupta said. 鈥淭hese are recent additions to the anthology, since sci-fi and genre fiction haven鈥檛 always been seen as important literature. So while it鈥檚 a bit unsurprising, it鈥檚 also striking to see that despite comprising a small portion of the anthology, these are the authors people are actually reading the most.鈥�

News events also drove spikes in readership, such as film adaptations of James Baldwin鈥檚 鈥淚f Beale Street Could Talk鈥� and Don DeLillo鈥檚 鈥淲hite Noise,鈥� or the deaths of authors such as Didion, Wallace, Morrison and Philip Roth.听

The top book, 鈥淧arable of the Sower,鈥� saw a huge spike in readership in 2024 鈥� the year the futuristic novel is set, and the year SPL selected the novel for its program.听

鈥淲e鈥檝e deemed these canonical authors important enough to continue reading, to continue teaching, to continue studying and talking about, so it鈥檚 fascinating to see who we鈥檙e actually reading and when,鈥� Walsh said. 鈥淚 find it very beautiful that after years of these big debates about diversifying the canon, the works that people are turning to the most are by women and Black and Native writers, who previously were not even included in these anthologies.鈥�

Co-authors include Daniella Maor, Karalee Harris, Emily Backstrom and Hongyuan Dong, all students at the UW. This research was supported in part by the .

For more information, contact Walsh at melwalsh@uw.edu and Gupta at ngupta1@uw.edu.