Bookworms made Braintree Library one of the busiest in the county but Witham Library was one of the quietist.

More than 250,000 visited Braintree Library, which is classed as one of the county’s main town branches, between April 2012 and March 2013 and borrowed 253,273 books.

Almost 160,000 people visited Witham Library, which is also classed as a main town branch, and 153,214 books were issued in the same period.

Out of the 11 main town libraries Witham had the third least number of visitors and handed out the second lowest number of books.

But a further 15,425 people used the Witham Mobile Library to borrow 24,359 books.

At Tye Green Library, which falls into the suburban branch category, there were 36,996 books issued to 30,532 visitors.

In Coggeshall 34,379 books were leant to 27,814 visitors, 37,972 to 19,655 visitors in Hatfield Peverel, 27,046 to 18,746 people in Kelvedon, 12,300 to 8,529 visitors in Silver End and 15,229 to 10,252 people in Wickham Bishops.