[Publib] Publib] Patron requests limits

[Jennifer Arnott]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Sharon Foster <fostersm1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am also curious about this. I can understand having a high limit,
> but I can't imagine why a patron would ever feel the need to reach
> that limit. What if even half of their holds became available at the
> same time? Is a high limit on number of holds related to a high
> threshold of the ratio of length of hold list to number of items
> owned?

Speaking as a patron here (I'm a librarian, but at an independent high
school, and holds aren't generally a big deal for us...)

- I average 3-12 books a week from the public library, depending on
content, whether I'm on vacation, etc. (And I read almost all of them,
though there are times I get something home and realise it's not what
I'm up for right now, and return it.)

- My library system (Hennepin County, in Minnesota, which now includes
the Minneapolis libraries) has an amazing selection and range of
resources. However, my local branch is relatively small, and at least
2/3 of what I want to read isn't available there.

- Holds in our system take varying lengths of time - sometimes they
show up in 2-3 days, sometimes a week or 10 days, even when they're
apparently on the shelf according to the catalog.

- Often, I want to read books in sequence (mystery series, etc.) and
usually want the next 2-3 on hand at any given time -  since I read
fast,  I could go through those 3 books in 3-5 days depending on my
available reading time. So, I request 3-4 books in the series at once,
and wait for them to come in, then read in sequence.

- And of course, I usually have some (between 5-10) holds on books
that aren't available yet (they're in the system as being ordered, but
aren't available, they're books with lots of requests, etc.)

All of this means that a 20 book hold limit would be okay, but a 10
book limit would mean I'd only be able to have a very limited number
of longer-term holds (the places they're most useful) and would have
to request and stop by my library multiple times a week to be able to
clear out existing holds and then set new ones. That's often not
convenient to my schedule (work during the day, have meetings or
commitments after work sometimes that mean I can only get to the
library 2-3 days out of a given week reliably.)

With a larger number, I can put in a bunch of requests at once,
suspend the ones I don't need immediately, or just let them show up in
their own time (which usually is staggered: by the time I'm through
the first batch, the ones that took longer to arrive have shown up.)
If I do get, oh, a dozen at once, I'll still be through most of them
within a week or 10 days.

Hennepin allows 100 holds per account, which is way more than I ever
get to - but I have been up in the 30 item range fairly regularly.
(Usually over my vacations, when I'm doing a lot more reading and work
on ongoing research projects where I want a number of titles for a
short period of time.)

Jennifer Arnott