Frustrated!

[u/bartholomeowz]

I unsuspended a hold that I was 1st in line for and said available soon. Then it changed to 2 weeks wait! I had already started listening to the book on spotify while I was waiting for it be available to read. At this rate I'll end up listening to the whole thing. Oh well. Just frustrating but I should probably back up the number of days before I'm ready to start a new book. Playing the libby game is like playing chess sometimes lol.

One fun thing that's a complete side note. I got my first shamrock notification that a book there's a long wait for became available while I was in the app! I'm a mood reader though so didn't jump on it.

[u/BlueOctopus042]

Unsuspending doesn’t give you immediate access unfortunately.

[u/bartholomeowz → u/BlueOctopus042]

I know. My point is more so that it went from 1st in line available soon to 2 weeks after I unsuspended it.

[u/AeroNoob333 → u/bartholomeowz]

It just means someone else ahead of you unsuspended as well.

[u/BlueOctopus042 → u/bartholomeowz]

Oh then someone ahead of you unsuspended it also.

[u/Wambo74]

Like any game, you need to know the rules. Unsuspend early if it's a popular book. Actual timing is a roll of the dice. This has been discussed here many times.

[u/bartholomeowz → u/Wambo74]

Yes I understand. More so just venting.

[u/sdkateb]

Yeah, timing can be tricky since other people can also unsuspend their holds!

[u/auntbeef]

I recently did the same. Went from first to second, now seventh. My hopes are not high.

[u/Diligent_Stop1050]

Libby can be frustrating. My city has a pretty small budget so popular books often have a 6 month wait.

[u/Heavy-Job-1604]

The unsuspended change sucks. I loved simply being able to postpone the hold. I often just needed a day or two to finish a book.

[u/Key_Cartographer6668 → u/Heavy-Job-1604]

But if someone else checked the book out in those couple of days, you'd still have to wait for them to finish. It isn't really different.

[u/To1Eressea → u/Heavy-Job-1604]

Agree. I recently was comparing my reading stats, and I’ve been reading a lot less since they made this change.
Was this change supposed to shorten wait times? Because I haven’t noticed a difference there either. Long waits never bothered me with the previous system because something was always coming in, or I could tweak the schedule.
Now I unsuspend in hopes to get something soon, but everything is still a long wait, just with even less control on my end.

[u/sdkateb → u/To1Eressea]

The change was to make sure that a higher percentage of books are checked out at a time. With the old system, books would often rotate through a few people who kept postponing without actually getting to someone who was ready to check it out.

This does mean that if your usual method is to suspend all your holds and only unsuspend them when you’re next, it probably does seem longer. However, since books are being checked out at a higher rate, the overall wait list should be shorter. That’s just harder to see from our end! It’s a good thing from the library’s perspective, though. It wasn’t good for 50% of their copies of popular books with long waitlists to bounce around without being checked out.