.@BookNet_Canada shares insights on buying and borrowing of Crafts & Hobbies books during the third quarter of 2021.
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Have you picked up a new hobby or spent more time crafting lately? Even if you didn’t, you probably know someone who did. From knitting to TikTok inspired rug making, people have been finding creative ways to spend their free time. So, we wanted to find out if the new hobbyists and crafters were having an impact on book sales and library circulations.

In this instalment of our Subject spotlight series, we’ll take a look at the Canadian sales and library circulation of Non-Fiction / Crafts & Hobbies titles during the third quarter of 2021 with the help of our SalesData and LibraryData services.

Buying books about Crafts & Hobbies

Looking at quarterly data from July to September 2020 and 2021, we see that sales of Crafts & Hobbies books were higher last year — at least during July and August. The most significant year-over-year difference happened in July where 2021 sales were 19% lower than 2020 sales. In August 2020, book sales for this subject category trended downwards, the year-over-year gap for this period was only 9% with 2021 sales still being lower. In 2020, sales from August to September stayed flat, but in 2021 they went back up by 9%, reaching almost the same number of books sold as in July.

Line graph comparing book sales between July, August, and September 2020 and 2021 in the Non-Fiction / Crafts & Hobbies BISAC category.

Borrowing books about Crafts & Hobbies

In the library world, things look slightly different. In 2020, loans and renewals followed a similar upward trend, they started low and kept increasing until the end of the quarter. From July to August, loans increased by 41%, from August to September by 28%. Renewals from July to August saw an increase of 91%, from August to September the increase was 132%. As we’ve mentioned in our previous instalments, the data from 2020 has to be analyzed in context with the library closures that were happening at the time.

As expected, 2021 book loans were on average 73% higher than in 2020 during the same quarter. And even though in 2021 libraries didn't close as much as they did in 2020, book loans also saw some interesting changes. From July to August 2021 loans dropped by 15%, but they went back up by 25% by the end of September. In terms of renewals, the pattern is similar, renewals decreased by 5% from July to August 2021 and went back up in September after an increase of 36% compared to the previous month.