Checkouts of Book Series and Movie Counterparts
MAT 259, 2021
Ashley Bruce
Concept
During this year’s winter break, my sister had recommended that I read the Maze Runner series,
as it was one of her favorite trilogies. After reading all three books, we decided to have a movie marathon
and watch all three of the respective movies. This got me thinking about how movie adaptations of book series’
affected the popularity of a series over time.
I specifically wanted to explore books that were part of a series, to see if interest in the book spiked after the respective movie came out (ie. checkouts of book 2 in a series spiked after movie 2 came out). In order to investigate this trend, I had to find books in a series that had a movie counterpart for each book. This limits the books being looked at to those that were released / had movies come out while the database has been active (2006 on). Books that fit this criteria included the Maze Runner series, the Twilight series, the Hunger Games series, and the Divergent series.
I specifically wanted to explore books that were part of a series, to see if interest in the book spiked after the respective movie came out (ie. checkouts of book 2 in a series spiked after movie 2 came out). In order to investigate this trend, I had to find books in a series that had a movie counterpart for each book. This limits the books being looked at to those that were released / had movies come out while the database has been active (2006 on). Books that fit this criteria included the Maze Runner series, the Twilight series, the Hunger Games series, and the Divergent series.
Query
select
count(title) as checkouts,
year(cout) as years,
from spl_2016.outraw
where (
LOWER(title) like '%maze runner%'
and callNumber like '%YA DASHNER%'
)
GROUP BY year(COUT)
** I then replaced the title and call number with the following to get the counts for all the series:
Maze Runner -- YA DASHNER
Twilight -- YA MEYER
Hunger Games -- YA COLLINS
Divergent -- YA ROTH
count(title) as checkouts,
year(cout) as years,
from spl_2016.outraw
where (
LOWER(title) like '%maze runner%'
and callNumber like '%YA DASHNER%'
)
GROUP BY year(COUT)
** I then replaced the title and call number with the following to get the counts for all the series:
Maze Runner -- YA DASHNER
Twilight -- YA MEYER
Hunger Games -- YA COLLINS
Divergent -- YA ROTH
Preliminary sketches
The following table shows the publishing dates of each book in each series and the respective release dates of the movies.
I made this chart to help me better see the timeline of all the books and movies so I could better compare it to the output
produced from the query.
Final result
Please put your final images or screen shots here with some explanations.
As seen in the graphs above, with the exception of Maze Runner, there is only one significant spike in each series. This increase in checkouts for each book in the series appears to be associated with the release of the first movie in the series. What I thought was interesting was that the subsequent release of movies related to the series didn’t spike additional checkouts within the series, like I thought it might. One possible explanation for this could be that because all the books in the series are published before the first movie is released, those who are intrigued by the movie can go and read all the books in the series within the same year. Subsequent movie releases no longer trigger the same increase in book checkouts because those who were interested enough in the series read it after hearing about it after the first movie.
After looking at the charts in Figure 4 and seeing how the max number of checkouts for each book was during the same year, I wanted to get a better breakdown of how the checkouts changed during the course of that year. I picked one series, Twilight, and looked at a month by month breakdown during the year where the max checkouts was (2009) as well as the years before and after.
Twilight, the first movie, came out on November 21, 2008. As seen on the graph, there is a huge spike in the number of checkouts for Twilight, New Moon, and Breaking Dawn in December of 2008, which is just after the first movie came out.
New Moon, the second movie, came out on November 20, 2009. After the first movie was released in 2008, the checkouts slowly declined, but there is a small spike following the release of the second movie, especially in checkouts of New Moon.
Eclipse, the third movie, came out on June 24, 2010. A small spike can be seen in checkouts of Eclipse in June and July of 2010.
On the graphs that had years as a scale, it appeared that the number of checkouts was only correlated with the date the first movie was released. But, if breaking it down to a month by month basis, there does appear to be a small increase in the number of checkouts for the books during the dates subsequent movies are released.
As seen in the graphs above, with the exception of Maze Runner, there is only one significant spike in each series. This increase in checkouts for each book in the series appears to be associated with the release of the first movie in the series. What I thought was interesting was that the subsequent release of movies related to the series didn’t spike additional checkouts within the series, like I thought it might. One possible explanation for this could be that because all the books in the series are published before the first movie is released, those who are intrigued by the movie can go and read all the books in the series within the same year. Subsequent movie releases no longer trigger the same increase in book checkouts because those who were interested enough in the series read it after hearing about it after the first movie.
After looking at the charts in Figure 4 and seeing how the max number of checkouts for each book was during the same year, I wanted to get a better breakdown of how the checkouts changed during the course of that year. I picked one series, Twilight, and looked at a month by month breakdown during the year where the max checkouts was (2009) as well as the years before and after.
Twilight, the first movie, came out on November 21, 2008. As seen on the graph, there is a huge spike in the number of checkouts for Twilight, New Moon, and Breaking Dawn in December of 2008, which is just after the first movie came out.
New Moon, the second movie, came out on November 20, 2009. After the first movie was released in 2008, the checkouts slowly declined, but there is a small spike following the release of the second movie, especially in checkouts of New Moon.
Eclipse, the third movie, came out on June 24, 2010. A small spike can be seen in checkouts of Eclipse in June and July of 2010.
On the graphs that had years as a scale, it appeared that the number of checkouts was only correlated with the date the first movie was released. But, if breaking it down to a month by month basis, there does appear to be a small increase in the number of checkouts for the books during the dates subsequent movies are released.
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