GEELONG LIBRARY’S MOST IN-DEMAND ITEMS REVEALED

THE star power of Hugh Jackman and an enduring crime thriller series are the most in-demand items at the Geelong library.

With more than 430,000 physical products in the Geelong Regional Libraries network, there is no shortage of books, films, CDs and graphic novels for users to borrow.

But a flood of requests for major cultural works means that, to paraphrase an old Heinz ad, the popular things come to those who wait.

Despite the digital age providing the ability to gain immediate access, there are still scores of people willing to bide their time to watch, read or listen to new releases.

The Hugh Jackman-led musical The Greatest Showman was released on DVD six weeks ago, but still has a waiting list 167-people deep.

With borrowers able to hold on to a DVD for a week, the network’s 11 copies will take nearly four months to reach the end of the queue.

There is a longer wait for Margot Robbie’s Oscar-winning turn in I, Tonya, with 149 9 requests for just nine copies.

Another Oscars favourite, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, has 145 holds.

There is a similar waiting period for era-defining literary works.

If you requested Michael Wolff’s incendiary Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House in early February, you’d still be marking time.

While there are 11 copies of Wolff’s exposé, a Jack Reacher title has almost four times that many circulating across Geelong.

The 22nd book in Lee Child’s long-running crime series, The Midnight Line, leads the count at 42.

The network spends more than $1 million annually updating and replacing its massive collection. Some of that is to replace stolen items, such as the missing copy of a Wonder Woman DVD.

“DVDs, picture books and children’s fiction require replacement most frequently,” a library spokesman said.

“Replacements are assessed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the number of other copies we hold, demand and availability from our suppliers.”

There are about 121,000 library members across the library network, with the 16 branches hosting 1.96 million visits per year.