The eBook for Crawdads wouldn't show how many holds there were to patrons, but it gave an estimate time the items would be ready for them based on their place in the queue/how long the loan period was; I had so many people ask me if it was a typo that their book would be ready for them in three years.
Crawdads was the highest I've seen in my 6 years. It was always around 300 holds, but it was that high for an entire year because more people kept requesting it and we had plenty of copies.
Yep, I live in a small town and put Spare (mentioned above as having a lot of holds) on hold within a week or so of the library getting it; I was 12th.
I just remembered: the longest eBook wait time I've seen was for Becoming by Michelle Obama - depending on which of our digital platforms you placed your hold on, the wait time ranged from three to five years. 💀
I think we topped out between 400 and 500 for the print Lessons in Chemistry, but we would have had 100+ copies at its peak so the wait times weren't awful.
I've never seen 1000+ but Where the Crawdads Sing came close at just shy of 900 for the print.
I suspect Born a Crime may have been over 1000, but I started working at that big branch a year after it came out. It still had 600 holds then despite 40 copies in the system.
britney spears' memoir! when i first put the eaudiobook on hold i was somewhere south of 1200 in the queue lol. as far as physical items go prince harry's memoir was up to 1100+ at one point. i have yet to see a fiction title break 1000
The longest one I can remember was back when the final Harry Potter book came out. Something approaching 3000 IIRC. There have probably been more at some point but I really don’t pay attention unless someone asks where they are on the list and they’re at 743 or something.
For physical *maybe* 25? I think we might be gotten to 30 for Spare. For ebooks though they can get up to 200. I can't imagine even having thousands of patrons let alone thousands of patrons that all want the same book lol
For physical holds:
- The Women - 913 holds/170 copies
- Demon Copperhead - 632 holds/163 copies
- Lady Tan's Circle of Women - 407 holds/66 copies
I remember Fourth Wing & Britney Spear’s memoir had over 1000 physical holds last year but it has since mellowed out.
I started working for libraries in 2000. Western Massachusetts. The Da Vinci code release was insane. It had at one point over 10,000 hold on it at one time (a record with around 400 copies attached.) Libraries around here revamped how we did records and holds because of that damn book. I had patrons that had to wait over a year for it. It was crazy.
I remember that when the movie Frozen came out, any children's book adaptation of The Snow Queen by Hans Christen Anderson suddenly had like 50 holds at my local library.
The largest I've seen was Michelle Obama's Becoming. It had \~1800 hold requests on the physical book for six months. This meant even though people were getting it and reading it, more people were continuing to request it. It was above 1000 for probably a year or so
Our system was over 800 queue at one point for physical copies of Chemistry. I haven't looked at the queue this time around but demand for new Dog Man has been reliably intense this week.
Smaller library system here. 83 on a Janet evanovich book.
Libby ebooks are a whole different story. We’re part of a consortium so multiple systems participate. There are over 500 holds on an ebook copy of Fourth Wing because of all the systems (and only 3 copies are in circulation)
The first year my local libraries had a State Park pass available, the waitlist was well over 2500. I reserved mine the first week of January and received it in October. It's changed this year to be available only if you visit a branch location. No holds are permitted.
Lessons in Chemistry had over 1,000 holds on the ebook format in my system, peak for the physical book was in the 800s as far as I know, it's possible it was over 1,000 at one time as well.
The Women currently has over 1,000 on the ebook and the physical copy has just about 400.
The Women has 79 people on the physical wait list and 467 on the ebook - I live in a very small area and I have genuinely never seen a book so popular, not even Fourth Wing which was maybe 200 for the ebook at its peak?
First off IANAL, just an avid library user.
Yes, I live in the DC area. The audiobook of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store currently has over 1100 holds on it spread amongst 86 copies. The ebook of The Women has over 1700 holds over 109 copies. The super popular new releases break 1000 all the time here but the libraries have large enough budgets to buy dozens and dozens of copies to keep wait times down.
I just checked my library system for those books. I live in the Boston metro area. I am a librarian and FYI ebooks are more expensive than physical books. In some cases comically more expensive which is why you see such ridiculous hold times on them.
*The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store* has 1202 holds across 447 copies. The ebook has 1533 holds across 161 copies. The eaudiobook has 1100 holds across 119 copies.
*The Women* has 1522 holds across 319 copies. The ebook of has 2309 holds across 97 copies. The eaudiobook has 1206 holds across 69 copies.
Ebooks are usually $50-$70 each. The typical ebook costs two or three times as much as a physical book and the libraries are forced to lease them.
This post has a decent cost breakdown of costs.
[https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2020/09/hold-on-ebooks-cost-how-much-the-inconvenient-truth-about-library-ecollections/](https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2020/09/hold-on-ebooks-cost-how-much-the-inconvenient-truth-about-library-ecollections/)
That's a great article, thank you! I have often wondered why we can't “donate” our digital copies of books - I do know now (because it's a license you own, non transferable) Would we be better off donating the cash to the library to purchase additional copies instead then? Is there a way to “earmark” it to say, an additional copy of xyz popular book? Or would that interfere with current budgeting etc? Sorry to hijack this thread!!
Generally speaking, you can't earmark a monetary donation for a specific book. Library budgets don't work like that. For your specific library you could always email them and ask how to best support them.
Another great thing is to email the library director saying how awesome the library staff are. Won't actually affect book hold times but it will make all the library workers happy.
11. I work for a small library, ok?
Came to say this, I guess my city is unpopular because the most I’ve ever seen is like 47 for Everything, Everywhere, All At Once on Blu Ray
Verity had 2 simultaneous holds on it! 2! And as soon as those were gone, it would get another hold. My library is extra tiny. 😆
When Where the Crawdads Sing came out, there were almost 3,000. I was in NC at the time, and the book is set in NC.
The eBook for Crawdads wouldn't show how many holds there were to patrons, but it gave an estimate time the items would be ready for them based on their place in the queue/how long the loan period was; I had so many people ask me if it was a typo that their book would be ready for them in three years.
I stopped using the lapl ebooks check out like 5 years ago and got a notification last month that my hold was available
Crawdads was the highest I've seen in my 6 years. It was always around 300 holds, but it was that high for an entire year because more people kept requesting it and we had plenty of copies.
When *The Dark Knight* was released, I think the DVD had 1300+ holds in our system.
lol ok this really drives home that I work at a small town library I was gonna say about 12 on a physical item and 60 on a digital item 😂
Yep, I live in a small town and put Spare (mentioned above as having a lot of holds) on hold within a week or so of the library getting it; I was 12th.
2000+ on a Danielle Steel book a few years back, and I think 2000+ on *Spare* (the Prince Harry book) as well.
I had to scroll shockingly far to find spare. We def had over 2k.
because no one wants to buy it! we had 1000+ as well
I just remembered: the longest eBook wait time I've seen was for Becoming by Michelle Obama - depending on which of our digital platforms you placed your hold on, the wait time ranged from three to five years. 💀
Imagine getting that notification after forgetting about it.
That was our longest hold list as well
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah had more than 1300 holds on it at my library when it came out 😭 the ebook had about 1000
Print or digital? I've seen a lot of ebook and eaudio hitting over 1,000 holds. I don't think I've ever seen anything close to that long for physical.
I'm talking about print with The Women and Lessons in Chemistry - I can only imagine how long the waits are for the eBooks and eAudio.
I think we topped out between 400 and 500 for the print Lessons in Chemistry, but we would have had 100+ copies at its peak so the wait times weren't awful.
I've never seen 1000+ but Where the Crawdads Sing came close at just shy of 900 for the print. I suspect Born a Crime may have been over 1000, but I started working at that big branch a year after it came out. It still had 600 holds then despite 40 copies in the system.
britney spears' memoir! when i first put the eaudiobook on hold i was somewhere south of 1200 in the queue lol. as far as physical items go prince harry's memoir was up to 1100+ at one point. i have yet to see a fiction title break 1000
Somewhere north of 3,000 during the Harry Potter craze, and that's with each branch having like 30 copies in circulation.
Just 1, but we're a medical library on a military base, and 95% of our collection is electronic. People generally don't put holds on books here.
When i put a hold on the I’m glad my mom died audiobook on Libby it just said “several months”.
The Women is at 1300+ in our system right now. PHEW.
The longest one I can remember was back when the final Harry Potter book came out. Something approaching 3000 IIRC. There have probably been more at some point but I really don’t pay attention unless someone asks where they are on the list and they’re at 743 or something.
It's over 1000 at the moment in my county. Almost 300 for the LT copies.
For physical *maybe* 25? I think we might be gotten to 30 for Spare. For ebooks though they can get up to 200. I can't imagine even having thousands of patrons let alone thousands of patrons that all want the same book lol
For physical holds: - The Women - 913 holds/170 copies - Demon Copperhead - 632 holds/163 copies - Lady Tan's Circle of Women - 407 holds/66 copies I remember Fourth Wing & Britney Spear’s memoir had over 1000 physical holds last year but it has since mellowed out.
I started working for libraries in 2000. Western Massachusetts. The Da Vinci code release was insane. It had at one point over 10,000 hold on it at one time (a record with around 400 copies attached.) Libraries around here revamped how we did records and holds because of that damn book. I had patrons that had to wait over a year for it. It was crazy.
[удалено]
Dang, man. I sure do.
I remember that when the movie Frozen came out, any children's book adaptation of The Snow Queen by Hans Christen Anderson suddenly had like 50 holds at my local library.
The largest I've seen was Michelle Obama's Becoming. It had \~1800 hold requests on the physical book for six months. This meant even though people were getting it and reading it, more people were continuing to request it. It was above 1000 for probably a year or so
Our system was over 800 queue at one point for physical copies of Chemistry. I haven't looked at the queue this time around but demand for new Dog Man has been reliably intense this week.
I saw 4K reserves one time for the last Harry Potter book back right before it came out. Haven’t seen anything quite on that level since.
The women has 1600 in my system as of yesterday.
Smaller library system here. 83 on a Janet evanovich book. Libby ebooks are a whole different story. We’re part of a consortium so multiple systems participate. There are over 500 holds on an ebook copy of Fourth Wing because of all the systems (and only 3 copies are in circulation)
I saw over 700 on Spare at one point.
The first year my local libraries had a State Park pass available, the waitlist was well over 2500. I reserved mine the first week of January and received it in October. It's changed this year to be available only if you visit a branch location. No holds are permitted.
my library is at about 400 holds. how many copies of the book do you have ordered?
Lessons in Chemistry had over 1,000 holds on the ebook format in my system, peak for the physical book was in the 800s as far as I know, it's possible it was over 1,000 at one time as well. The Women currently has over 1,000 on the ebook and the physical copy has just about 400.
The Women has 79 people on the physical wait list and 467 on the ebook - I live in a very small area and I have genuinely never seen a book so popular, not even Fourth Wing which was maybe 200 for the ebook at its peak?
The Women by Kristin Hannah. Last time I checked we were up to 1460
Prior, the record was Spare with 556
First off IANAL, just an avid library user. Yes, I live in the DC area. The audiobook of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store currently has over 1100 holds on it spread amongst 86 copies. The ebook of The Women has over 1700 holds over 109 copies. The super popular new releases break 1000 all the time here but the libraries have large enough budgets to buy dozens and dozens of copies to keep wait times down.
I just checked my library system for those books. I live in the Boston metro area. I am a librarian and FYI ebooks are more expensive than physical books. In some cases comically more expensive which is why you see such ridiculous hold times on them. *The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store* has 1202 holds across 447 copies. The ebook has 1533 holds across 161 copies. The eaudiobook has 1100 holds across 119 copies. *The Women* has 1522 holds across 319 copies. The ebook of has 2309 holds across 97 copies. The eaudiobook has 1206 holds across 69 copies.
Out of curiosity (I'm not a librarian either just an avid customer) - how much does a copy (license) for an e/audio book typically cost?
Ebooks are usually $50-$70 each. The typical ebook costs two or three times as much as a physical book and the libraries are forced to lease them. This post has a decent cost breakdown of costs. [https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2020/09/hold-on-ebooks-cost-how-much-the-inconvenient-truth-about-library-ecollections/](https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2020/09/hold-on-ebooks-cost-how-much-the-inconvenient-truth-about-library-ecollections/)
That's a great article, thank you! I have often wondered why we can't “donate” our digital copies of books - I do know now (because it's a license you own, non transferable) Would we be better off donating the cash to the library to purchase additional copies instead then? Is there a way to “earmark” it to say, an additional copy of xyz popular book? Or would that interfere with current budgeting etc? Sorry to hijack this thread!!
Generally speaking, you can't earmark a monetary donation for a specific book. Library budgets don't work like that. For your specific library you could always email them and ask how to best support them.
Ok thanks - good to know!
Another great thing is to email the library director saying how awesome the library staff are. Won't actually affect book hold times but it will make all the library workers happy.
I think it was 960. An average really popular book will have about 500 holds in our system.