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The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

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Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#121

Post by everforward »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #37
dmbche wrote: post #8

"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly bec…

Don't forget that printed books also have license fees included in their price. The printer also has the data there and could just print extra copies and sell them at cost+profit but they're not allowed to because copyright. I don't think a latest bestseller should be in a library in the first place. Maybe a couple of years later when the hype has died down if it's still a good book, they can have it for the few peop…

I find it reasonable to stock the latest best sellers. They’re almost inherently culturally important because of their popularity. It’s important to provide a means for people to participate in that culture, even if they can’t afford the book.

I’m also generally happy when people read long-form content outside of school. I’ve certainly been guilty of not reading anything longer than a news article for long stretches.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#122

Post by kazinator »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #97
UncleOxidant wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why aren't they reducing the maximum number of non-digital holds? (or did they already have that limit?)

Santa Clara county (California): > Limits. You may borrow at any one time, 100 total items per library card, including up to 10 console games and up to 30 DVDs/Blu-rays. https://sccld.org/borrowing-policy/

Borrowing limits are not holds.

Also, per-borrower limits are different from per-book limits.

A limit of 20 holds for a given e-book means that at most 20 people can wait in a queue for the opportunity to be the next borrower.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#123

Post by michael1999 »

briandear wrote: post #106
esrauch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound nefarious for them to loan power tools somehow, while it seems like it's just an identified community need niche that they can service that no other organization will, the same as offering free tax advice or ESL classes or anything else.

[flagged]

You lost me at roads. You seem to like free stuff just fine.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#124

Post by kazinator »

dagw wrote: post #107
itsgrimetime wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they prohibited from reselling the licenses?

Depends slightly where you are, but often the ebook licenses are time limited, often to 1 year. So not only can't you resell the licenses, you have to keep rebuying them.

Public libraries really should stay away from e-anything, in my opinion. No library would purchase anything of the sort under my watch.

Obviously, since patrons check it out, there is demand for it. Well, so what? There is demand for cocaine and porn; should public libraries offer that?

Demand for something doesn't ipso facto oblige a library to provide it.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#125

Post by DangitBobby »

Terretta wrote: post #117
briandear wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Just because some members of the community need power tools doesn’t mean we all benefit from that. We all benefit from police, fire, ambulance, and roads — we all don’t benefit from free power tools. Lol, roads. Taxes should only cover public walkways and public transit between walkable areas. And I'm not even sure about sidewalks. First, they require roads, and we already tossed those. I mean sure, we all use road…

> Lol, roads. Taxes should only cover public walkways and public transit between walkable areas.

Whoa, I don't want to pay for you to walk around, I personally glide inches above the ground.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#126

Post by kazinator »

dmbche wrote: post #8

"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly bec…

> To maintain reasonable wait times

Cutting the queue to an arbitrary number does nothing for wait times!

All it does is throw away information about the demand.

If there is a 15 hold limit, and it's fully occupied, we don't know whether the demand for the book is exactly 15, or whether it's actually 45, with an invisible backlog of 30 people having been turned away from being formally registered in the hold queue.

Those waiting to read the book now face an extra hurdle: they must repeatedly play a time-wasting lottery in order to obtain a spot in the queue. Someone who had been trying to get into the queue for weeks can have it sniped away by someone who gets in on the first try.

The only reason for trimming hold queues is if there is some resource problem; like they are running out of space in the database for tracking holds or something.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#127

Post by bbatsell »

kazinator wrote: post #126
dmbche wrote: post #8

"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly bec…

> To maintain reasonable wait times Cutting the queue to an arbitrary number does nothing for wait times! All it does is throw away information about the demand. If there is a 15 hold limit, and it's fully occupied, we don't know whether the demand for the book is exactly 15, or whether it's actually 45, with an invisible backlog of 30 people having been turned away from being formally registered in the hold queue. T…

They are reducing the number of media items a single person can have on hold, not the total number of holds on a single item.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#128

Post by itishappy »

gerad wrote: post #51
yareal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People read for reasons beyond pleasure. I might be doing a study or comparing authors, I might be reporting on history or researching someone. I might be doing a comparative analysis. Ten checkouts seems low enough that it's likely to get regularly cause problems. 100 checkouts seems too high. So start bisecting. 50? Almost certainly too high. 25 maybe reasonable. They also might have p90 checkout rates and found th…

Also, if you have kids then you check out tons of books at a time.

Get 'em a card! There's no minimum age!

I got mine in elementary school... My "signature" is in all caps with backwards letters!

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#129

Post by toomuchtodo »

briandear wrote: post #106
esrauch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound nefarious for them to loan power tools somehow, while it seems like it's just an identified community need niche that they can service that no other organization will, the same as offering free tax advice or ESL classes or anything else.

[flagged]

Terrible take. Libraries provide enormous value to communities.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/12/11/libraries-in...

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#130

Post by utensil4778 »

briandear wrote: post #106
esrauch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound nefarious for them to loan power tools somehow, while it seems like it's just an identified community need niche that they can service that no other organization will, the same as offering free tax advice or ESL classes or anything else.

[flagged]

Because being a good person means giving a shit about literally anyone else.

Sorry, but you're a bad person. "I got mine, fuck you" makes you a bad person.

A normal, functioning society uses its excess resources to help everyone, including assholes who think they're the most important person on the planet.

One tenth of one percent of your taxes went to teaching a toddler how to read, or teaching a teenager how to fix their bike. Someone who can't afford otherwise rented a DVD to watch with their family and you're mad about that.

You're the worst kind of person, and the entire reason that our society is so sick.

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