The Oklahoma State Capital

A report filed early this year by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries shows the Guthrie Public Library continuing to downsize its physical book collection, with another 2,073 items withdrawn while electronic borrowing climbed 23% and accounted for all of the library's overall circulation growth.

Guthrie's reported print book collection continued its fall now down to just 14,212.

Those figures put numbers behind a multi-year collection-culling effort as staff review adult fiction, juvenile fiction, large-print books, audiobooks and DVDs, removing materials and reorganizing sections.

The state reports show Guthrie as having held 36,500 print books in 2022, compared with 14,212 in 2025 — a reduction of 61% in the reported count. The true impact of that number is unclear, however, as library director Cameron Smith, hired in 2023, told library advisory board members during an April 2024 meeting that he was accounting for books differently than his predecessor, saying, "It's not that we lost a lot of books. I think that we just account for them differently."

Meanwhile, electronic borrowing supplied the latest year's growth in library circulation.

The 2025 report lists 33,679 electronic circulation transactions, up from 27,365 in 2024. Physical circulation was essentially flat, slipping from 52,422 to 52,374. Combined circulation rose nearly 8%, to 86,053 transactions.

Digital materials accounted for about 39% of that total, up from 34% in the preceding report. Physical materials still accounted for the majority of circulation. Digital borrowing has fluctuated, falling in the 2024 report before increasing in 2025.

Guthrie's digital services include ebooks and downloadable audiobooks through OK Virtual Library and OverDrive's Libby app, plus Kanopy streaming video.

Earlier this year, Smith won City Council approval for his plan, described as automatic forgiveness of overdue fines when certain materials, including books, DVDs and books on CD, are returned.

Smith's proposal puts Guthrie in line with a trend of eliminating fines, following the passage of a 2019 resolution by the American Library Association, which declared, "monetary fines present an economic barrier to access of library materials."

Smith told library advisory board members that the revenue generated from late fees wasn't being used by the library, but was instead directed to other purposes such as "fire trucks."