Serial Holding

In the past I've written about serial borrowing, in which, drunk on the possibilities of borrowing nearly any book I want, I borrow them all at once.

A spin-off of this phenomenon is serial holding, in particular, serial holding of new books. This is a tricky proposition as new books are in greater demand than the old or merely recent, and as it is hard to gauge that demand, often enter the library's system in small quantities.

In the last month or so my holds queue has witnessed the arrival and delivery of the following titles: Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance by Dean Wareham, Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier and Neil Gaiman, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu, and The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel.

While none of these titles currently top best seller lists, they share in common, that relative to their audience, they are new and in demand. They are also titles currently in my possession or recently in my possession. Finally, I have not had the chance to crack the spine on a one of them (no doubt to the annoyance of those waiting for them).

Call it a case of too many new books and not enough time. I have to admit, I'd love to have these titles aging on my shelves for just the right moment.

Coming soon: the April tally.

That uncertain feeling

I just got back from the library on my lunch break and it hit me that I had nothing to pick up from the holds shelf. I cannot recall the last time this has happened.

Holding

Last night on A Daily Show, John Stewart interviewed former political operative Allen Raymond on his book of campaign dirty tricks How To Rig an Election.

With the presidential primary campaigns in full gear, this is one of several books on the topic currently floating around, and one I probably would have picked up on my lunch break this afternoon.

Instead I placed a hold through the library. The library's one copy of the book is currently being processed and I am number 7 in the holds list.

I am posting this as a place marker as I am to see how long it takes before I get the book.

Update:

I checked out my copy of How to Rig an Election on 2/28, the day after I was contacted that it was available. By my count it took 37 days for me to get my copy. At the time of my request there was one copy in the system. I just check the library's holdings and they now have eight, reflecting some demand for the book.

For this title - which I read completely - the wait was acceptable. In fact, it was a good but not great book, but one that I would have bought nonetheless. Waiting for the book to become available definitely saved me money.

On a related note, once I place a hold on a book I rarely cancel it before it comes in. I think this reflects my needs as a reader and the Denver Public Library's ability to respond in a timely fashion to those needs.