If I were to go to a (large) library in a major city in a primarily non-English speaking country, would I expect to see a large (if not majority) number of English-language books? I would think that the relatively few (e.g.) Dutch, Greek, or Estonian titles in libraries in those countries would be supplemented by some/many in other languages, with English being dominant. (of course - small-town libraries would probably be dominated by the local language).
How about a library in Barcelona? Are there enough Catalan books to fill a library (or bookstore) - large or small?
While that’s true, I doubt most libraries are filled with books originally written centuries ago.
But mainly I’d expect it would depend on what kind of library. If it’s a library that mostly serves a community, the books would likely be in the local language(s). If it’s a university or college library, there will probably be a lot of reference books in foreign languages and many of those will be in English these days.
There are plenty of books in most common foreign languages.
In languages like Welsh, which is getting a comeback, they have just translated a lot from English.
But like in the American Southwest, where you will find a nice section in Spanish in many libraries, you can expect to find an English language section in many parts of the world.
I did visit a Library in Mexico. Very large, lots of books, but also music, art etc. They had a English language section. For visitors but also for people to learn to read English- which is the most common 2nd language in the world, iirc.
So, by no means a 'majority", but still a decent sized section.
About the only place most of the books would not be in the 'local" language are places like Luxembourg with several official languages= but last I checked, not that many spoke Luxembourgish as a first language- much more French and German. So there it might be French, German, English and then Luxembourgish.
The OP must not be aware of the global translation industry.
One book of mine had Spanish, Slovak, Polish, French, and Chinese (Taiwan) translations. Big name authors may have their books translated into dozens of languages.
I live in Luxembourg and have visited the downtown libraries and several bookstores. The estimate above is roughly accurate. Here is some detail.
The government has made a concerted effort to promote the Luxembourgish language over the years. These days, more kids are growing up with Luxembourgish as a first language than, say, forty years ago; it’s not the most common first language, but it’s not exactly uncommon either. Due to this effect and government support of writers, there are many, many books available (as well as original movies, including animation, produced locally). Still more media in French and German of course, but there’s no shortage of books in the local language. Also, due to a historical quirk, there are lots of Portuguese speakers here.
In the main downtown library, I would roughly estimate the proportional ranking of books and magazines as 25-30% French, 20-25% German (with a greater emphasis on math and science texts than in French), 15% English (with an emphasis on financial books), 10% Portuguese, 10% Luxembourgish, and the remaining portion mostly distributed among other European languages like Italian and Greek plus a smattering of publications in other world tongues like Chinese.
This is my finger-in-the-air estimation based on wandering the stacks; take it for what it’s worth.
In addition, in my travels around Europe, I like to visit the local bookstores just to see what they’re like, even if I have no intention of buying anything. A few days ago, I popped into a comic-book shop in Prague and browsed around a bit. Everything was in Czech; I found nothing in English or any other European language. I would guess maybe one title in fifty was an original Czech publication, written and drawn by Czech artists for the Czech-speaking market. The vast majority was imported and translated — the biggest segment was American (superhero stuff mostly), but almost as many books were originally French or Belgian (lots of Spirou and Lucky Luke). But all the words on all the pages were Czech, because the shop was dedicated to serving Czech readers.
In South Africa, where the majority speak a Bantu first language, most books will still be in English, then in Afrikaans, and then some few books in other local languages (mostly kid’s books). Even in smaller towns.
This varies a lot by country. For instance, in Finland (where I’ve visited libraries), most books are Finnish or Swedish. They have a huge local publishing industry and also active translation activities. Because the people are highly literate.
I can’t help but suppose that the OP’s perception is distorted by the - probably rather small - number of non-English titles they see in English-speaking libraries. But yes, languages other than English are in actual use, and books are written in them or translated into them.
In any normal library in Berlin the vast majority of books will be in German. There are specialized libraries like the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut where most books might be in Spanish.
In any normal, non specialized library in Barcelona the majority of the books today should be in Catalan, followed by Spanish. Fifty years ago it would have been Spanish, followed by a distant French, I would guess.
Governments in Europe and probably the whole world attach a great significance to culture, language and publishing. I can’t think of any European language where there would only be “relatively few” books published. The same goes for other world languages, with the possible exception of Arabic.
Thinking back to my college days, my university library (Haifa University, Israel) was probably 25% Hebrew, 74% English, 1% other languages. There have been a lot of books written in Hebrew, and many more translated, but there are still more books in English on more subjects, and an academic library will have more of them. Plus, educated Israelis speak decent English, and English fluency is required to get into college.
With public libraries (and I admit, I haven’t been in one for a very long time), and bookstores, I guess that the situation is reversed, with at least 75% Hebrew and the rest English and other languages.
In The Netherlands the majority of books will be in Dutch, but there will be a sizable English (and some other foreign languages) section, focusing on fiction (non-fiction may differ but is harder to estimate as the books are not divided according to language).
Going by memory of the distribution of stacks in a large city library, the distribution would be something like 60% Dutch, 30% English, 5% French, 5% German (could as well be 50-30-10-10). Dutch high school students have mandatory classess in those four languages.
I live an extremely cosmopolitan European city. Yet, if you go to a regular library here, even a huge one, you will find a rather limited selection of English books. You will however be able to buy literally thousands of books in the native language.
If you want to have a decent choice of English books, you have to go to specialized library, usually a local branch of a British or American bookstore. Or the airport.
In other words, it’s the exact opposite of what you seem to think, and I have no reason to believe it is any different in other non-English speaking cities all over the world.
True in substance, but I think the OP was asking about libraries, not bookstores (but I know that some European languages use a word that looks a lot like “library” for a place that sells books rather than lending them, e.g. French “librairie” as opposed to “bibliothèque”).
I suspect the situation is even more lopsided in libraries. You l’ll find almost nothing in English I’d guess, unless it’s one that caters to the (very large) expat community.
The OP seems to be of the curious, patronising view that were say, a small regional town in a non-English speaking area to operate a library, they would by necessity outfit it with a literary collection which the local populace could not read.
The City of Vienna runs a number of children’s libraries specializing in international books. There’s one just down the street from where I live, and I’ve often been there. About half of the books there are German, and the rest are pretty evenly split among other major European and Asian languages, with English maybe having a slightly larger share than the others. But there are plenty of books in Albanian, Hungarian, French, Kurdish, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Armenian, and many more.
As for Austrian book stores, the ones catering to the general public seem to offer about 90% German titles, with the remainder divided among English and a few other major European languages. Ones in international train stations and airports will have a slightly greater proportion of English books, and will also have some major newspapers and magazines from the US, France, Italy, and perhaps some other countries. Book stores catering to university students and staff will have an even greater still proportion of English books, but mostly textbooks and other specialist works, as well as a much broader selection of languages when it comes to classic literature. (The actual selection of books within any given language may be fairly limited, though, as it’s probably determined by what is assigned reading for courses.)
I visited Biblioteca Vasconselos in Mexico City. One of the largest libraries in the world (and the largest in Latin America), it has a collection of 600,000 books and was designed to hold two million. Most of them in Spanish. Even if you can’t read a lick of Spanish, the building itself is amazing and worth a visit.
600,000 volumes isn’t that big for a major library; as you can see at Wikipedia, the world’s largest libraries hold dozens of millions of units. Apparently, it’s not the largest library in Latin America either - that would be the National Library of Brazil, at 9 million units.