Originals
Flow
Approximately 240 terabytes (compressed) of unique data are recorded on printed media worldwide each year, as shown in the following table:
| Table 1: World Flow | |||
Media Type (Sources and Year Cited)* |
Unique Items per Year |
Conversion Factor |
Total Terabytes (Annual Worldwide) |
| Books (UNESCO 1996) | 968,735 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 40 MB/book | 39 |
| Digital compression: 8 MB/book | 8 | ||
| Plain text: 1 MB/book | 1 | ||
| Newspapers (ISSN 1999) | 22,643 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 5,475 MB/year | 124 |
| Digital compression: 1095 MB/year | 25 | ||
| Plain text: 110 MB/year | 2.5 | ||
| Scholarly journals (Ulrich's 2000) | 40,000 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 225 MB/year | 9 |
| Digital compression: 45 MB/year | 2 | ||
| Plain text: 4 MB/year | .2 | ||
| Mass-market periodicals (Ulrich's 2000) | 80,000 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 650 MB/year | 52 |
| Digital compression: 130 MB/year | 10 | ||
| Plain text: 13 MB | 1 | ||
| Newsletters (Oxbridge Directory 1997) | 40,000 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 20 MB/item | .8 |
| Digital compression: 4 MB/item | .2 | ||
| Plain text: .4 MB/item | .02 | ||
| Archivable, original office documents (National Archives 1998) | 7.5 X 109 pages | Scanned image (600 dpi): 130 KB/page | 975 |
| Digital compression: 26 KB/page | 195 | ||
| Plain text: 2.5 KB/page | 19 | ||
| Totals: | Scanned: 1200 TB | ||
| Compressed: 240 TB | |||
| Text: 24 TB | |||
| * Detailed source information listed at end of this document. | |||
| Table 2: United States Flow | |||
Media Type (Sources and Year Cited)* |
Unique Items per Year |
Conversion Factor |
Total Terabytes (Annual Worldwide) |
| Books (US Statistical Abstract 1999) | 64,711 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 40 MB/book | 3 |
| Digital compression: 8 MB/book | .5 | ||
| Plain text: 1 MB/book | .05 | ||
| Newspapers (Newspaper Association of America) | 2,386 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 5,475 MB/year | 13 |
| Digital compression: 1095 MB/year | 3 | ||
| Plain text: 110 MB/year | .3 | ||
| Scholarly journals (Tenopir and King) | 10,500 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 225 MB/year | 2 |
| Digital compression: 45 MB/year | .5 | ||
| Plain text: 4 MB/year | .04 | ||
| Mass-market periodicals (Ulrich's 2000) | 20,000 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 650 MB/year | 13 |
| Digital compression: 130 MB/year | 2.6 | ||
| Plain text: 13 MB | .26 | ||
| Newsletters (NEPA) | 10,000 | Scanned image (600 dpi): 20 MB/item | .2 |
| Digital compression: 4 MB/item | .04 | ||
| Plain text: .4 MB/item | .004 | ||
| Archivable, original office documents (National Archives 1998) | 3 X 109 pages | Scanned image (600 dpi): 130 KB/page | 390 |
| Digital compression: 26 KB/page | 78 | ||
| Plain text: 2.5 KB/page | 7.5 | ||
| Totals: | Scanned: 421 TB | ||
| Compressed: 84 TB | |||
| Text: 8.2 TB | |||
| * Detailed source information listed at end of this document. | |||
Notes on Conversion Assumptions
Books. Estimate 300 pages per book. (Source: Robert M. Hayes, UCLA, "The Economics of Digital Libraries" www.usp.br/sibi/economics.html)
Newspapers. Estimate 30 pages per newspaper, then multiply by 365 days per year. (The page number is low, to reflect the number of small and non-daily newspapers published around the world.)
Scholarly Journals. Estimate 1,700 pages per periodical per year. (Source: Donald W. KLing and Carol Tenopir. "Economic Cost Models of Scientific Scholarly Journals," 1998. www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/icsu/kingppr.htm)
Mass Market Periodicals. Estimate 5,000 pages per periodical per year. (Source: Robert M. Hayes, UCLA, "The Economics of Digital Libraries" www.usp.br/sibi/economics.html)
Newsletters. Estimate 150 pages per newsletter per year. (Source: Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters - 1997)
Office documents. The estimate above is limited to documents that an organization might retain permanently such as documents comparable to those retained by the National Archives in Washington D.C., which estimates that they retain 2% of US government documents produced each year.
More detail on the conversion factors used for the above estimates appears in the Print Detail Report.
Stock
United States
According to a press release from January 2000, booksinprint.com 2000 includes 3.2 million titles - about 26 TB total. This figure is supported by online booksellers such as Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com who claim to offer access to 3 to 4 million titles.
If one wished to more fully address the universe of book titles in the United States, including those that are no longer in print, one could look to the holdings of the larger national libraries and copyright repositories - for example, the Library of Congress print media collection includes almost 26 million books (208 terabytes).
World
To estimate the international stock of books currently available for purchase, we extrapolate from the United States production figures. The US engages in the world's largest trade in printed products, producing about 40% of the world's printed material, according to the US Industry and Trade Outlook 2000. The world stock of original titles might be about 8 million titles - equivalent to 64 TB.
Using the same 40% rule of thumb, we can also estimate the worldwide stock of books (including those out of print). The national library and copyright repository of the United States - the Library of Congress - contains about 26 million books. Therefore, the world stock of books might be approximately 65 million titles.
Rate of change
The number of titles within most print media forms have increased each year worldwide - between 2 and 10%. Within the US, the number of book titles increased every year until 1996, when there was a 5% downturn.
Copies
Flow
If all of the writing paper and newsprint produced each year were used
to store printed information, this would be equivalent to about 980,000
terabytes worldwide.
World
As of 1997, the world was producing 90 million metric tons of printing
and writing paper and 36 million metric tons of newspaper. In equivalent
bytes, this translates to 540,000 TB (world) for printing and writing
paper, and 432,000 TB for newsprint.
The number of books sold worldwide may be estimated using the 40% rule
of thumb (cited above) and the US book sales statistics (cited below):
about 2.75 billion books, equivalent to 22,000 TB.
United States
The US produces about 30% of the world's paper and paperboard output (Source:
US Industry & Trade Outlook 2000). In 1999, the US produced 23.8
million metric tons of printing and writing paper and 6.4 million metric
tons of newsprint. In bytes, this translates to 142,800 TB for
printing and writing paper and 76,800 TB for newsprint. These figures
provide an upper bound on the total number of bytes required to digitally
store all the information produced in printed format each year.
About 1.1 billion books were sold in the United States in 1999.
Using the 8 MB/book estimate, this is equivalent to 8,800 TB. (Source:
Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2000, "A New Chapter: Independent Booksellers
Hope to Find Strength in Numbers" by Scott Eden.)
In the United States 55,979,332 daily newspapers and 59,894,381
Sunday newspapers circulate each year. (Source: Newspaper Association
of America, citing Editor and Publisher.)
The total number of US magazines circulated annually exceeds 500 million.
(Source: US Industry and Trade Outlook.)
Each year, almost 500 billion copies are produced on copiers in
the US; nearly 15 trillion copies are produced on copiers, printers,
and multi-function machines. (Source: XeroxParc). For specific
information on fax printing, see the Telecommunications
Summary.
Stock
According to the 1999 US Industry and Trade Outlook, the United States
produces more printed products than any other country in the world. NAFTA
countries have a 50% world market share. Estimating that the US produces
40% of the world's printed materials, we can estimate that each year the
world produces 7.5 billion archiveable pages, which would be equivalent
to 195 terabytes (compressed). (Source: National Archives and
Records Administration.)
Rate
of Change
As with the other print industries, growth in paper production is expected
to be incremental but fairly consistent, both within the United States
and internationally. Globally, paper and paperboard production capacity
is forecast to grow from 333.6 million metric tons in 1998 to 348.1 million
metric tons in 2001, an increase of 14.5 million metric tons (about 4%)
over those three years. (Source: U.S. Industry and Trade Outlook, 2000).
According to the American Forest and Paper Association, US capacity to
produce paper will increase by an average of only 0.7% annually over the
next three years (2000-2002).
References
- Bogart, Dave, ed. The Bowker Annual Library and Book Trade Almanac, 44th edition. New Jersey: R.R. Bowker, 1999.
- Cummings, Anthony M., Marcia L. Witte, William G. Bowen, and Laura O. Lazarus. University Libraries and Scholarly Communication: A Study Prepared for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Association of Research Libraries, 1992
- Hayes, Robert M., UCLA School of Information Science, "The Economics of Digital Libraries"
- King, Donald W. and Carol Tenopir. "Economic Cost Models of Scientific Scholarly Journals," 1998.
- American Forest and Paper Association, 1999 Statistics for Paper, Paperboard and Wood Pulp. Washington, DC, 1999. To order a copy, see www.afandpa.org/about/about.html or call (800) 244-3090.
- Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1999.
- ArchiveBuilders.com White Paper, "Computer Storage Requirements for Various Digitized Document Types"
- Association of Research Libraries Statistics
- Books in Print, 1999-2000. New Jersey: R.R. Bowker, 1999.
- International Standard Serial Number Register
- International Standard Book Number Register
- JSTOR digital library
- Magazine Publishers of America, Information Center, (212) 872-3745.
- National Directory of Magazines.
- Newsletter and Electronic Publisher's Association (NEPA)
- Newspaper Association of America, Facts About Newspapers.
- Newspaper Project, National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters 1997. New York: Oxbridge Communications, Inc., 1997.
- Ulrich's International Periodical Directory. New York: Bowker Publishing, 2000.
- UNESCO Statistical Yearbook 1999. Paris, UNESCO, 1999.
- U.S. Census Department, 1999 Statistical Abstract of the United States
- U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
- U.S. Government Printing Office, Prepared Statement before the Committee on Rules and Administration, U.S. Senate on Public Access to Government Information in the 21st Century July 1996.
- U.S. Industry and Trade Outlook. Available in print from McGraw Hill/U.S Department of Commerce Washington, D.C. or download from www.ntis.gov/products
- Chaskas, Eric. US National Archives and Records Administration.
- Walden's Paper Report. Twice-monthly newsletter, published by Walden-Mott Corporation, Ramsey, NJ. Available by subscription only. See www.walden-mott.com/PaperReport/PAP_RPT.HTM or call (201) 818-8630.
Charts
Click here to see charts supporting the above estimates, with time-series data.
More Discussion
Click here to read additional discussion of the conversion factors and related issues and to obtain detailed bibliographical information.