Manage Holds

How to Manage Library Holds

The only thing I’ve found that I don’t like about Libby is that it’s too efficient.

If three people are waiting for a particular book and the library’s borrowing period is three weeks, Libby will give an estimate of nine weeks as the wait for that book. The thing is, most people return their library books early. So that nine weeks could turn out to be two weeks or some other length of time.

When I am deciding which books to place on hold, I try to space them out. I try to select a variety of books with short hold times and other books with longer hold times. The catch is that you never know how long the hold period will really be.

Invariably, just when you’re really involved in a book, you’ll get a notice from Libby that the book you’ve been waiting for is now available. This is what the notice looks like:

Click on "Borrow" and it will take you to the "You are borrowing [title]" screen. If you need a book right now or if you’re one of those people who likes to have two or more books going at one time, then go for it! All you need to do is click the big "Borrow!" button to borrow the newly available book. 

Note that this screen tells you how many days your borrowing period will be. It also shows a facsimile of the library card for the library from which you're borrowing.

If you're not ready to borrow the book right now, click on the < Your Holds button at the top of the screen. This action will NOT borrow the book and will leave it on your Holds shelf, which looks like this:

 

From here, you can Borrow, Manage Hold, or Deliver Later. 

Click Borrow if you want to Borrow right now. Click Manage Hold if you want to go to the screen where you can Cancel the hold. (It's the "never mind, I don't want it" button). 

Click Deliver Later if you want to borrow this book at some time in the future. This will take you to a screen saying "You are scheduling [title] for later delivery."

The cool thing here is the slider. It defaults to the minimum extension, usually seven days. You can move the slider left and right until you find your desired number of days. 

Keep in mind that this is not a guarantee of when you'll receive the book. It depends on how long the other library patrons keep the book. It's kind of like letting someone go ahead of you in line at the supermarket - but you don't know how many items they have.

If you're happy with the number of days you selected, click "Update Hold!"

That action will take you back to your holds shelf, and it will show the new estimated date.