University Textbook Availability Compared to Anna's Archive, 100 Titles

A sample of 100 high-demand course textbooks from the University of Canterbury library catalogue was compared for availability on the Anna's Archive website in May 2026. Author Dave Clemens conducted searches for matching editions, finding 64 matches. The dataset includes comments on edition availability.

Use Cases

• Assess textbook accessibility gaps based on the comparison between a physical library's high-demand collection and a major shadow library.
• Analyze the prevalence of duplicate digital versions based on the description noting many duplicates appear on Anna's Archive.
• Study the availability of specific editions for academic texts based on the comments added for specific titles.

Strengths

• Provides a direct comparison for 100 specific textbook titles.
• Includes a snapshot of Anna's Archive's total holdings (64,416,225 titles) as of May 2026.
• Records the match rate (64 out of 100) for the same edition.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The sample size of 100 titles is small, limiting generalizability.

Provenance

Source

University of Canterbury library catalogue and Anna's Archive.

Collection Method

Manual keyword searches (maximum 3 per title) for matching editions.

Time Range

Snapshot as of May 2026.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-28 09:13:33; freshness should be verified.

Geography

University of Canterbury (New Zealand); Anna's Archive (global).