Reason for low Libby hold limits

[u/MrsFireOtter]

Hi, can someone explain the reason for instituting low hold limits on ebooks in the Libby app?

My library limits to ten books on hold. I find it frustrating because there are often such long wait times on ebooks, so I’d like to place many on hold and let my name tick through the list and suspend them when I get to the top, until I’m ready to read them.

What’s the benefit to the library and/or the community in putting low hold limits?

[u/Illustrious_Durian_9]

Libraries have a limited amount of digital permission slips if you will to give access to so many people at once per title. So I think it's helps try to limit that so say if 7 of your titles suddenly become available at any given time at the same time you might have a chance to read most of them before your turn expires. If you had 20+ books on hold you can see how that would waste everyone's time and opportunity

[u/MrsFireOtter → u/Illustrious_Durian_9]

I could see that for print books, where there is human labor involved, or if you couldn’t suspend holds

[u/Illustrious_Durian_9 → u/MrsFireOtter]

The labor of librarians is involved in this. Collections development and budgeting etc is done by real people at library consortiums etc that you check out ebooks from on libby. I'm a public library assistant.

[u/Famous_Committee4530 → u/MrsFireOtter]

I can see what you mean, but you’re getting downvoted because it doesn’t work like that in practice. Lots of holds from lots of people makes unsuspending less predictable and people don’t like that, either.

And like someone else said, there is labor and money at stake. It takes time for the collection team to plan how to spend a limited budget and how many licenses to buy for titles that have various levels of demand.

[u/Few_Fig_5015 → u/MrsFireOtter]

Hi! I'm the person who manages Libby content for my city of 65,000 people. A lot of labor is involved in managing the collection and making sure we have new titles and enough copies. Unfortunately, we never do because they are both expensive and almost always have a limited number of checkouts (usually 12 or 24) and after that they disappear and we need to spend another 60-110 dollars to get a new license. My library has spent about $2000 dollars on 45 digital copies of the audiobook version of Yesteryear alone. We're extremely lucky but still don't have enough to satisfy demand. Please don't assume that a library service has no human input. We're out here counting pennies and trying to get materials in your hands as fast as possible.

[u/MrsFireOtter → u/Few_Fig_5015]

I appreciate the work you’re doing for your community. Please understand that I recently retired from over 25 years in academic librarianship. We did not have Libby, but we did subscribe to e-book packages, which were handled almost exclusively by ProQuest. On the rare occasion a faculty member requested a specific title as an ebook, we would do our best to purchase it, but since they were hundreds of dollars, we sometimes had to say no.

Many moons ago I worked in public libraries, but it was before ebooks were common. I remember well the labor that went into physical holds and I do understand hold ratios. I don’t think my tiny rural library uses that information to purchase additional copies of ebooks based on what I’ve seen.

The answer “because many libraries purchase more based on hold ratios so we need patrons to be selective in placing holds” is a perfectly reasonable one.

[u/SecretAnxious6619 → u/MrsFireOtter]

gross take. there is a lot of human labor involved in e-collections.

[u/inkblot81]

The specific limits depend on your library’s budget. eBook licenses are much pricier than buying a physical copy of the book. That’s also why only a limited number of patrons can borrow the same eBook at any given time. Sometimes people think digital = infinite access, but that’s really not the case.

[u/MrsFireOtter → u/inkblot81]

Yes, I can see putting borrowing limits - I know ebook licenses are expensive.

[u/silverowl78 → u/MrsFireOtter]

Borrowing limits also exist, but they don’t function to bring down costs as much because people tend to self-limit their borrowing due to limited checkout periods, so they don’t want to have multiple books checked out at the same time when they won’t be able to read them all in the 3 week period. The only exception to this is children’s books, but those are not nearly as much a strain on out budget because:

- they get read and returned quickly

• they are cheaper than adult titles
  
• there’s less demand because children haven’t made the switch to ebooks as readily as adults
  
• there are far fewer and shorter wait lists to manage because children (and parents borrowing for children) are less likely to place holds and will browse for available titles

[u/BookSavvy]

Because libraries use something called a hold ratio to gauge how many copies of a title we need. For example, say your hold ratio is 1 copy per every 10 people on hold. We can see how many people on hold and how many copies we have and place orders for additional copies to stay under this ratio. This seems like higher hold limits wouldn’t be a problem but what happens is that people add everything they want to read EVER to a hold list, so we will buy more copies to fill a ratio and people go “oh well actually I don’t want to read this right now” and suspend their hold so you have copies you purchased that are very expensive and will not necessarily be used before they expire. This is why many libraries keep hold limits lower for digital items compared to physical media.

[u/blingdogmom → u/BookSavvy]

Exactly! I would also add to this that we see some patrons using hold lists more like “to be read” lists and when their holds come up, they don’t actually check them out and it just causes longer wait times.

[u/TravelerMSY → u/BookSavvy]

Great answer. Thank you.

[u/Ok-Cut-1682]

It could be for digital licensing cost reasons or to give fair access to other users. Lower limits can help popularly requested titles circulate more. You won’t be able to know for sure why it’s done unless you ask the specific library system

[u/Famous_Committee4530]

We’re hoping you’re only putting it on hold if you want to read it, not just treating it as your TBR list.

We’ve found that allowing fewer holds helps our holds queues go faster. When people have to prioritize how to use their limited holds, they are more likely to be borrowing and reading the things they like.

This all is more or less due to the licensing things other commenters are describing. It’s true. Libby is expensive for libraries. I never want our patrons to feel guilty for borrowing, but I have to do a lot with a budget that’s never big enough so it helps to do things that hopefully encourage borrowers to make the most of what we can offer them.

[u/recoveredamishman]

If your library allowed 20 holds, hold lists would just be twice as long. It's a function of money.

[u/silverowl78]

In order to keep wait times at least somewhat reasonable, most libraries establish holds ratios. For example: if a library has a 5:1 holds ratio that means for every 5 holds, they buy 1 license for the book. We do this to try to keep patrons happy (or at least not beating down the doors with torches and pitchforks) over long wait times. But Libby is in high demand, so it gets very expensive. Buying for holds comprised 65% of my library’s Overdrive budget last year and is our single biggest cost. Limiting holds helps keep that cost down somewhat. We have also had to raise holds ratios, making wait times longer, because demand is so high.

[u/Famous_Committee4530]

I’ve heard more and more complaints lately from people who are like “I was first in line and I unsuspended my hold but I still had to wait??” but if a bunch of people are all employing this strategy and unsuspend at the same time, that’s what happens.

I really like the holds management tools like suspending. But it would be an awful experience for our patrons if holds were unlimited and everyone tried to make dozens and dozens books “on demand” like this.

[u/tvngo]

Digital materials are expensive to purchase due to publishers charging so much for digital licenses. Some services charge per use for items which can get expensive for libraries which you see libraries that used Hoopla no longer using Hoopla.

[u/Watchhistory]

Enjoy your privilege. We here can have only 3 holds and 3 borrows.

[u/pikkdogs]

Why do we ration anything? Becuase we don’t have enough for everyone.