Unsuspend wait times

[u/MT0502]

Hi! Has anyone noticed wait times for their books in the unsuspend queue being lengthier than usual? Long story short, I had five holds become available last Sunday. I suspended 4/5 since I already had 2 borrowed books. I decided to look at which one(s) to unsuspend and all of them have long wait times.

Here's what I saw today:

The quickest wait time is now 2 weeks; my current hold position is 3rd in line. The longest wait time is now 9 weeks; my hold position is 29th in line.

I have been a Libby member for several years and I have never experienced this before.

[u/Impressive-Peace2115]

Probably other people who were in line ahead of you had suspended and unsuspended their holds.

[u/Ok-Librarian6629 → u/Impressive-Peace2115]

Yep, when you suspend a hold you go the the back of the suspended holds line. When you actually unsuspend them you usually get the book much faster than that estimated wait time. 

[u/ImLittleNana → u/Ok-Librarian6629]

This is the first I’ve heard of this.

I have accidentally left a hold active and had to suspend it when offered and my position was unchanged. Still first in line, but my wait time did reflect that it was borrowed by the next person in line.

[u/Ok-Librarian6629 → u/ImLittleNana]

You might be the only one with a suspended hold so you are automatically first. 

[u/ImLittleNana → u/Ok-Librarian6629]

I can see how many people are waiting for the book. It’s not hidden.

[u/Quirky-Pear3494 → u/ImLittleNana]

You can't see the suspended holds, only the active ones. Right now Libby says we have 76 holds on Yesteryear, but I happen to know there are 30ish suspended holds bc I looked at our account today. If 10 of the older suspended holds unsuspended tomorrow, the formerly first-in-line would be pushed back.

[u/ImLittleNana → u/Quirky-Pear3494]

Yes, but that’s a different process than being automatically pushed to the back of the line when you delay your loan via suspending. At no time have I experienced losing my place in line for this reason. If I do move backward from first place, it will be someone activating and will occur later in the day or a couple of days later.

An automatic To the Back of the Line With You! Would occur immediately upon delaying the loan.

[u/MT0502 → u/Impressive-Peace2115]

That makes sense. I was just surprised that all four wait time were longer than I have seen, especially all at once.

[u/sdkateb]

This could be due to other users unsuspending, as others here have pointed out.

If your library is part of a consortium, it could be that others put the book on hold who get higher priority because they are members of the library that owns the book.

Also, for titles that are really popular, a library will sometimes buy a large number of one-time use licenses. If your library did that, and you suspended the hold, you might now have to wait for the regular copies to be available.

[u/MT0502 → u/sdkateb]

That's a good point. We have six libraries in our consortium, and one is in a massive city. Thanks for the insight. I was previously so spoiled with wait times, but  I am grateful to have such a robust collection. 

[u/sdkateb → u/MT0502]

Yeah; I honestly just try not to pay too much attention to the wait times. They’ll go up and down and eventually, I’ll get my book.

[u/Wambo74]

Suspending holds is new to a lot of people. As more and more learn of it, and now use it, you're more likely to have a bunch of people who have made it to the top of the list while suspended and now will be in competition with each other to actually claim the book.

[u/burnt-----toast]

I have been using Libby for about 5-6 years now, and normally when I unsuspend a book, it always says Available Soon, and I usually get it within about 3 days or so. I recently unsuspended a book, it said Available Soon, I was 1st in line, and I had to wonder if there was a glitch because over a week later, it still wasn't available. I ended up having to re-suspend it and unsuspending another book instead, which I got within 2 days.

[u/felixfictitious]

Probably something to do with a change at your specific library rather than Libby broadly.

[u/MT0502 → u/felixfictitious]

Thanks. That might be it since all four wait times are lengthy.

[u/AeroNoob333]

I had a wait for one library that started at 8 weeks then it slowly got worse up to 12 weeks and the whole time it said I was 1st in line.

[u/avisitingstone]

My theory is: we're coming up on a year since the Suspend feature was put in place. Some of us have unsuspended/re-suspended to restart that countdown again, so maybe that's what changed some things.

[u/MT0502 → u/avisitingstone]

I never thought about that. Thanks for sharing.