Anonymous
05/30/2025 16:19
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
I also agree vote for candidates who fund libraries!
As others have said -
Get familar with putting holds on books, and actively manage your hold list. If you like to read series in order, put the entire series on hold, freeze everything but the first one, and as the first one becomes available or close to it, unfreezer the next one.
I like variety- I read from one series, then a standalone, then another series, then something brandnew, then the next in series 1, etc etc. In order but not one right after the other. That helps.
I keep a spreadsheet of my holds! I update it weekly (Monday afternoons, I hope after all the weekend turn ins have bene processed). So I can tell if something is moving fast or slow.
And, look at other counties.
As others have said -
Get familar with putting holds on books, and actively manage your hold list. If you like to read series in order, put the entire series on hold, freeze everything but the first one, and as the first one becomes available or close to it, unfreezer the next one.
I like variety- I read from one series, then a standalone, then another series, then something brandnew, then the next in series 1, etc etc. In order but not one right after the other. That helps.
I keep a spreadsheet of my holds! I update it weekly (Monday afternoons, I hope after all the weekend turn ins have bene processed). So I can tell if something is moving fast or slow.
And, look at other counties.
Anonymous
05/30/2025 16:08
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Then vote for candidates who believe in funding libraries.
THIS. Libraries are so important for healthy communities.
Anonymous
05/30/2025 16:03
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:I'm in Montgomery County...I have to plan ahead. I can't just walk in to my closest library and expect them to have what I'm looking for. I go on the website and search the catalog at home. I can easily click Place Hold and they will transit the book to my Home library.
“Transit” the book? Do you mean “send,” “ship,” or “transfer?” As an avid reader, you should be able to write better than this.
Anonymous
05/30/2025 16:01
Subject: Re:Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Book rental is a thing. It’s called the library.
I think they’re looking for a way to pay and get more access.
Okay. That’s not a thing.
Anonymous
05/30/2025 15:56
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I'm in Montgomery County...I have to plan ahead. I can't just walk in to my closest library and expect them to have what I'm looking for. I go on the website and search the catalog at home. I can easily click Place Hold and they will transit the book to my Home library.
Yes, this is really the way to do it. But I do feel guilty about all the extra work it creates for the library staff (pulling the book, transporting it, shelving it with the holds, removing it if someone doesn't pick it up...).
Another thing that can be helpful (at least for MCPL) is looking through the books "On Order" and placing holds on those books before they're purchased/processed.
https://mcpl.aspendiscovery.org/?browseCategory=mcpl_on_order
Dont feel guilty...this is their job. If you didn't place the hold, they wouldn't be needed and they'd lose said job. You are keeping people employed. Also, you PAY FOR LIBRARIES with your taxes! Use the services you pay for!
Anonymous
05/30/2025 11:39
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Examples of book you can't find OP?
NP. Anything by the booktok authors has a wait list that's super long- Maas, Armentrout, Yarros (292 people waiting for her most recent book and I'm sure even more want it but are discouraged by the wait so they don't even both placing a hold). I like all fantasy though.
But I also couldn't find anything on the shelves for my kids either. I like to read chapter books at night to them. There wasn't any Percy Jackson! I probably could order from other libraries for those books, but I don't spend as much time trying to source kid books as I do my own.
Surprisingly I can find audiobooks much easier than ebooks. It seems they have unlimited copies of those. Wish I could read the actual books though.
I’m in MoCo and some popular books have hundreds of people in the queue. For example, I recently put James on hold and it was over 600. Similarly for The Women soon after it came out- I think I was #500 something.
But even with less popular/less recent books, there’s a good chance that the closest library doesn’t have it. I just order it from another branch. I guess I don’t expect every possible book to be available at the closest branch.
Why can’t they work with publishers to get more copies of ebooks temporarily the first year? They do have audiobooks.
They do. When ebook holds exceed a certain about, the library will acquire more copies. Then when a book is no longer popular they only keep a handful of ebook and audio copies.
Anonymous
05/30/2025 11:37
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I’m an avid reader and my prior county’s library often had tons of books I wanted to read. I moved to Loudoun about 7 years ago and pretty much haven’t had any luck since. I tried reading ebooks because you can get them easier but I just didn’t enjoy reading them as much.
For my birthday this year I got about 10 books and have enjoyed reading physical books again. So I made a list of all the books I wanted to read and… the library didn’t have a single one of them. The best I could get was a copy that would be available in 10 weeks. These aren’t brand new books, but they are popular ones. Part of the problem is that I like reading series and obviously I need to get them in the order I want to read them, which makes it really hard with library books. When books do come up in the queue for me, I’m in the middle of a different series and can’t drop everything to read the library books then.
Anyone else run into this issue? I wouldn’t even mind buying books, but it seems like a waste because I only want to read it once and would just donate after. Why isn’t book rental a thing?
Just buy the book and sell it after.
I just can't afford it because I would basically like a book a week x $15. I don't have enough time for online selling.
Just go to thrift books. You can get them for like $3 each.
I like interlibrary loan, but it doesn't sound like you have the time and patience for the leg work (no judgment on that).
I have looked on thrift books, eBay, Amazon- $16 is more like it. A few were $9 but most over $16.
I understand not having room for physical books but why are there unlimited audiobooks but not ebooks?
There are not unlimited audiobooks. I wait in the hold queue for them as well.
Anonymous
05/30/2025 11:26
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:In LCPL, you can use the Suggest a Title feature on the website to ask them to purchase books.
https://catalog.library.loudoun.gov/responsive?section=sap
You can use the ILL feature to ask for books from outside the system.
https://library.loudoun.gov/Services/Interlibrary-Loan
You can also explore the systems around Loudoun that offer reciprocal borrowing.
The following jurisdictions participate in the regional reciprocal borrowing program:
The cities of Falls Church, Alexandria and Winchester
The District of Columbia
Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Prince William, Clarke and Frederick counties in Virginia
Montgomery, Prince George's and Frederick counties in Maryland.
Does the library really need suggest a title when there are hundreds waiting for books on hold? Isn’t it obvious?
Anonymous
05/30/2025 11:25
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I buy from https://www.thriftbooks.com/ and https://www.wonderbk.com/ a lot, especially for my kids. Then I either donate the books or sell them back locally for store credit.
+1
We just need more books in circulation and need to keep purchasing books for publishers and the authors' livelihood (duh). We can't expect to buy one copy and pass it around forever and expect authors and publishers to work on that model.
I purchase a fair amount of books either from recommendations from the Week or from people discussing their works on NPR. I want to support all that. Then I put them info free libraries and find good things to read from there.
For the other items where I want a specific book but don't want to go broke (like hunting down all the books in an older series recommended here that might get expensive), I use the library and give it plenty of time.
The books op mentioned have sold millions. I don’t disagree with paying authors. It’s the middlemen who are getting rich here though.
Anonymous
05/29/2025 21:00
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Yes, this is really the way to do it. But I do feel guilty about all the extra work it creates for the library staff (pulling the book, transporting it, shelving it with the holds, removing it if someone doesn't pick it up...)/quote]
Don't feel guilty! It's what we're here for! - Librarian
Anonymous
05/29/2025 21:00
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
In LCPL you can also sign up for the weekly Wowbrary email, which shows you all the new acquisitions and lets you put holds on them easily.
https://www.wowbrary.org/signup.aspx?l=2227
https://www.wowbrary.org/signup.aspx?l=2227
Anonymous
05/29/2025 08:46
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:I buy from https://www.thriftbooks.com/ and https://www.wonderbk.com/ a lot, especially for my kids. Then I either donate the books or sell them back locally for store credit.
+1
We just need more books in circulation and need to keep purchasing books for publishers and the authors' livelihood (duh). We can't expect to buy one copy and pass it around forever and expect authors and publishers to work on that model.
I purchase a fair amount of books either from recommendations from the Week or from people discussing their works on NPR. I want to support all that. Then I put them info free libraries and find good things to read from there.
For the other items where I want a specific book but don't want to go broke (like hunting down all the books in an older series recommended here that might get expensive), I use the library and give it plenty of time.
Anonymous
05/29/2025 08:37
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:I'm in Montgomery County...I have to plan ahead. I can't just walk in to my closest library and expect them to have what I'm looking for. I go on the website and search the catalog at home. I can easily click Place Hold and they will transit the book to my Home library.
Yes, this is really the way to do it. But I do feel guilty about all the extra work it creates for the library staff (pulling the book, transporting it, shelving it with the holds, removing it if someone doesn't pick it up...).
Another thing that can be helpful (at least for MCPL) is looking through the books "On Order" and placing holds on those books before they're purchased/processed.
https://mcpl.aspendiscovery.org/?browseCategory=mcpl_on_order
Anonymous
05/29/2025 08:29
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
In LCPL, you can use the Suggest a Title feature on the website to ask them to purchase books.
https://catalog.library.loudoun.gov/responsive?section=sap
You can use the ILL feature to ask for books from outside the system.
https://library.loudoun.gov/Services/Interlibrary-Loan
You can also explore the systems around Loudoun that offer reciprocal borrowing.
The following jurisdictions participate in the regional reciprocal borrowing program:
The cities of Falls Church, Alexandria and Winchester
The District of Columbia
Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Prince William, Clarke and Frederick counties in Virginia
Montgomery, Prince George's and Frederick counties in Maryland.
https://catalog.library.loudoun.gov/responsive?section=sap
You can use the ILL feature to ask for books from outside the system.
https://library.loudoun.gov/Services/Interlibrary-Loan
You can also explore the systems around Loudoun that offer reciprocal borrowing.
The following jurisdictions participate in the regional reciprocal borrowing program:
The cities of Falls Church, Alexandria and Winchester
The District of Columbia
Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Prince William, Clarke and Frederick counties in Virginia
Montgomery, Prince George's and Frederick counties in Maryland.
Anonymous
05/29/2025 08:25
Subject: Libraries never have book copies!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Examples of book you can't find OP?
NP. Anything by the booktok authors has a wait list that's super long- Maas, Armentrout, Yarros (292 people waiting for her most recent book and I'm sure even more want it but are discouraged by the wait so they don't even both placing a hold). I like all fantasy though.
But I also couldn't find anything on the shelves for my kids either. I like to read chapter books at night to them. There wasn't any Percy Jackson! I probably could order from other libraries for those books, but I don't spend as much time trying to source kid books as I do my own.
Surprisingly I can find audiobooks much easier than ebooks. It seems they have unlimited copies of those. Wish I could read the actual books though.
I’m in MoCo and some popular books have hundreds of people in the queue. For example, I recently put James on hold and it was over 600. Similarly for The Women soon after it came out- I think I was #500 something.
But even with less popular/less recent books, there’s a good chance that the closest library doesn’t have it. I just order it from another branch. I guess I don’t expect every possible book to be available at the closest branch.
Why can’t they work with publishers to get more copies of ebooks temporarily the first year? They do have audiobooks.
Because Publishers don't want that. The library e-book "market" has become too powerful and it's eating away at their profits. No way they'd help out libraries (and, in turn, us) with that.
If libraries were new a new idea today, there's no way that Publishers would ever let that idea get off the ground.