Researchers from the Australian National University's literature school will launch this week the new Australian Common Reader website, giving a historical snapshot of the nation's reading habits drawn from what the university says is the world’s largest database of library borrowing records.

The records show borrowing habits – not catalogued books – from six Australian libraries between 1861 and 1928, not including the state libraries of Sydney and Melbourne.

Dr Julieanne Lamond considers the results of the Australian Common Reader project at ANU. Credit:Karleen Minney

The worker libraries, in Newcastle, Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia, had been established with the aim of educating men employed in the mines and "keeping them out of the pubs", according to Dr Julieanne Lamond, of the university's School of Literature, Languages, and Linguistics.

And while Lee Child's Jack Reacher series regularly tops Australia's most borrowed library books today, at the turn of the 20th century it was homegrown Guy Newell Boothby who was a must-read.