Recently, OCLC rolled out The Library 100, a list of the top print novels held by the world’s libraries. OCLC Research generated this list using data from WorldCat.
For most people, a list of 100 is fine. But for those of us who are bibliophiles and want to dig deeper, a list of the top 500 novels held in libraries also is available at the website. The list of 500 is marvelously rich and lets you explore even more titles, authors, and genres.
As I read over the longer list, I wondered how it would match up against a list of the most-requested novels on the OCLC system, WorldShare ILL. Would there be any overlap? Would the two lists be mutually exclusive? What about authors? Who would be on both lists? Any other similarities and differences?
Using ILL data from the last five years, I pulled a list of the top 100 novels requested on WorldShare ILL and compared it to The Library 500. Six titles and 11 authors were on both lists.