A report examining what books university students borrowed last year gives an insight into their interests. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The novel Ordinary World by contemporary Chinese writer Lu Yao appeared more often than other titles on the list. It's a realistic story that describes the changes in contemporary urban and rural society over the years through a family's stories.

Online fictions like The Grave Robbers' Chronicle by Xu Lei, who's better known by his pseudonym, Nanpai Sanshu, and Things in the Ming Dynasty, a collection of semi-historical stories by online writer Shi Yue, were also prominent on the lists.

The data also show foreign fiction is particularly popular among college students.

Several works by Japanese writer Higashino Keigo, who's known for such mystery novels as The Devotion of Suspect X, are among the most borrowed books.

Titles by such other foreign authors as Haruki Murakami and Gabriel Garcia Marquez also enjoy huge popularity.

The report's results suggest Chinese students' habits are different from US university students, who favored The Republic by ancient Greek philosopher Plato and The Clash of Civilizations by US political scientist Samuel Huntington, according to data collected by the Open Syllabus Project in 2015.

"The readers are the true judges," Zhejiang's provincial library's director Chu Shuqing says.

"They choose books that allow them to truly enjoy reading."

Libraries should innovate to develop book-selection methods that help readers find good books.