The Read With Us Lounge: Let’s Talk About Library Holds

Have you ever wondered why it seems like all of your library holds come in at once? You look at your account and it says you’ll be waiting weeks for your books, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, you get notifications that four of them are suddenly available.

Weird, right?

The reason is actually pretty simple: your library placed an order.

Well…it’s a little more complicated than that.

Most libraries place orders on a regular schedule—maybe once a week. When they do, they look at demand for popular titles and often follow a collection development policy that says they’ll purchase additional copies once a book reaches a certain number of holds.

Those new copies have to go somewhere, and that’s where the magic happens.

In most shared library networks, holds are filled locally whenever possible. Here’s what that means: let’s say there are hundreds of holds on Yesteryear, and my library orders several new copies. The people who have placed holds through my library will be the first to receive those new copies because my library purchased them.

Once the local holds have been filled, those copies begin circulating throughout the network. But if someone in my town places a hold later, one of my library’s copies will usually make its way back here the next time it’s checked in so it can fill that local request.

So when your library orders more copies of a popular book, a whole batch of holds gets filled at once. And if you’re reading the same bestselling books everyone else is, it’s not unusual for several of your holds to become available on the very same day.

Has this ever happened to you?

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Comments (9)

  1. Yup! This happens all the time. I’m fortunate too because the county I live in (Montgomery) has a lot of libraries, so when I request a book it can come from any number of sources. I’ll look at the list of books I’m in queue for and decide to request another book – older and not as popular – to fill time while waiting for my “newer” books and then wham – all of them are available the same day! Honestly, it is not a bad problem to have.

  2. The Hold Book Flood is absolutely A Thing! I use Libby most frequently (so digital or audio books) and I really love the ability to pause holds, still stay in line, but the overflow of books can move on to the next reader in line! I am thankful every day for libraries… I don’t even want to imagine what my days would be like without the library!

  3. This happens to me ALL THE TIME! I often try to space out my holds because even though I do read more than one book at a time, there’s only so many I can read at once. And no matter how much I try to space them out, it always seems that several come in at once. I’m glad that at least there’s an option to suspend a hold so I don’t lose my space but also have to option to wait, but it’s funny nonetheless how often it seems to happen! It just happened to me over the weekend — I had three holds come in at once. One I paused and two I borrowed (both shorter audiobooks, so I was sure I’d be able to get through one in a couple of days and get to the other one).

  4. Yup, this has happened to me, but it’s not really a problem. One of my libraries used Libby and the other uses Cloud Library, and like Kat said, I like Libby because I can pause holds if I want to wait for the book(s) that have come in. My biggest issue is the long wait for holds. Right now I’ve got a four month wait for Villa Coco and “several months” (which seems to mean more than three) for Dissection of a Murder. I know that’s not the libraries’ fault, but sadly, not enough money. Next time I pay my taxes I might attach a note that says give it all to the library!

  5. This happens all the time even though I try to space out my holds. Recently, I had a two month wait for Villa Coco and it came in a week later because my library purchased a copy!

  6. Yes, though it’s less troubling now that most of my books come via Libby. It’s wonderful to just suspend a hold till there’s more time (or till it’s almost time for a new book).

  7. Yes, a love/hate situation! I try to use my WTR list on Goodreads for this, but I have not been successful in spacing out my hold requests on new books very well. The library seems to get all the new books in at one time, even those that were not published at the same time, and they all hit my pick up list at the same time. I am then under pressure to read quickly because the check out period is the same for all of them. YIKES! The problem is mainly with real books, not digital ones. Digital holds are certainly easier to manage. Many of the books I want to read are not available digitally, so I read a mix of digital and actual books. Having said all of that, I love my library!

  8. It has happened to me but now I check my holds every now and then and pause one if it looks like they will come in at the same time.

  9. Fascinating! And . . . it happens to me all the time! Thanks for shedding light on the Mysteries of The Library! 🙂

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