The Seattle Public Library Is Reducing Our Maximum Digital Holds. Here’s Why.

Starting Tuesday, March 19, The Seattle Public Library is reducing the number of maximum holds allowed on e-books and e-audiobooks from 25 to 10.

Please note that if you have more than 10 holds on digital books at that time, you won’t lose any of these holds. You just won’t be able to place new holds until you’re within the new limit. Also, the limit for digital borrowing has not changed – you can still borrow up to 25 digital books at a time.

While the vast majority of our patrons won’t be affected by this change, we want to explain why the Library needed to reduce the holds limit to manage spending and meet increasing patron interest in digital books. In the Q&A below, we also share some tips for alternative tools you can use for tracking books you want to read and making the most of your Library account.

Why did the Library need to make this change?

If you’ve started borrowing digital books from the Library in recent years, you’ve been part of the biggest shift in library lending in recent history.

Although the popularity of digital books was rising before 2020, the pandemic accelerated this trend. At The Seattle Public Library, annual checkouts of digital books almost tripled from 2015 to 2022, as did costs.

The Library has increased investment in digital collections to meet patron interest. Unfortunately, because of the way digital books are priced for libraries, meeting increased demand has come at a cost that has become unsustainable.

Why are digital books so expensive?

As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version.

This is because publishers use a licensing model for selling e-books to libraries. Each copy of a digital book title requires a purchase of a license. While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year.

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 become astronomical.

In 2023, 62% of the Library’s spending on digital books was used to purchase additional copies to fulfill holds placed on popular titles.

As you can see in the chart below, Library costs for meeting increased patron interest in popular e-books have nearly tripled since 2015. Reducing the number of holds the Library allows can help us better manage these costs, which will allow us to continue providing a broad and diverse selection of e-books and e-audiobooks, and to meet patron demand all year.

Is this change being made due to the City’s budget challenges?

No, this change is part of routine service assessments and adjustments the Library makes to ensure we are aligning our services with our current budgetary and staffing resources. The Library has been monitoring rising costs of digital books for several years and has been assessing the best course of action to manage these increasing costs. The change to our maximum holds limit for digital books is being made now so that we can continue to maintain reasonable wait times as costs and popularity of these materials continue to rise.

That all makes sense. But I use my Libby holds list as my “to be read” wish list. What else can I do?

If you tend to place holds on digital books through the Library’s online catalog, we encourage you to check out the “Shelves” feature in the online catalog, which allows you to tag books you want to read in the future. If you use OverDrive’s Libby app to place holds on and borrow digital books, you can use the “Tags” feature to easily create a wish list. Check the Libby Help section for more information.

Do you have other suggestions for finding great digital books that are available without a wait?

Yes! You can check out hundreds of e-books and e-audiobooks right away, with no holds, through OverDrive’s Always Available collection. It includes a wide range of popular e-books and e-audiobooks, and the collection is always changing. Look for the Always Available collection in the e-book catalog or, in Libby, look for the Available Now section.

Further reading: If you’re interested in learning more about the topic of digital book pricing and how that affects libraries, you can explore further at this GovTech article: “Behind E-Books, Libraries Find Restrictions and High Costs.”

– Elisa M., Communications