An Open Request to OverDrive: two ways to reduce library costs

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With the effective shuttering of the IMLS, the executive branch has declined to execute the laws and funding Congress has approved, freezing $180 million dollars intended for libraries. Lawsuits are doubtless pending, but in the meantime, thousands of US public libraries who use this funding for digital books are now facing budget shortfalls.

In Canada, public libraries also face budget challenges. They anticipate that the trade war will increase their materials costs, which will require collection budget reallocation and fewer dollars for digital books.

What can we do?

There are two features that OverDrive could implement which would help reduce the cost of digital books for all libraries. Both have been proposed to OverDrive via account reps, but it may be a good time for libraries to join ReadersFirst in the request that OverDrive push cost-saving features to the top of their product development roadmap.

Enable a Save For Later list in Libby

In 2023, my Overdrive consortium requested an analysis of our patron hold behavior and learned that 20% of our holds over the course of the year were canceled by patrons. This behavior confirms what we have long suspected, that patrons are using holds not just for books they want to read asap but also for books of more moderate interest.

75-80% of my consortium's annual budget goes toward fulfilling holds:

  • adding copies in compliance with our holds ratios

  • replacing expired copies with holds

We believe that our high hold cancelation rate is due in part to the fact that the Hold button is the only low-barrier option Libby patrons have when they want to keep track of titles of moderate interest. A prominently placed Save For Later button on each title would give many patrons a welcome alternative to placing a hold, reducing total hold counts. Such a feature would also delight our avid readers, who are always browsing for new authors and titles, and who currently have no easy way to keep them in a list. (OverDrive has pointed out that Libby offers tags for this scenario, but tags are not low-barrier.)

Allow libraries to configure hold postponement

ReadersFirst reported in January 2025 on a large urban library that tested how often postponed holds are tying up copies and not allowing them to circulate. They found:

  • 40% of their copies were waiting to fill holds rather than circulating, and it believes that this is due to patrons who are high in the queue postponing copies back and forth to each other

  • Because almost all ebooks are licensed for 24 months, allowing copies to be stuck in in "postponement ping pong" minimizes the number of times copies will circulate before expiring, an avoidable waste of library funds.

To address this issue, we propose that libraries be able to configure the hold postponement feature to better control costs and maximize the value of time-limited licenses.

  • Libraries should be able to disable the postponed holds feature.

  • Libraries that enable the feature will be able to limit the number of times a patron can postpone a hold. Currently, it is indefinite.

  • Libraries that enable the feature will be able to limit the length of time a patron is able to postpone a hold. Currently, it is 180 days.

This functionality will help libraries manage costs by improving the turnaround times on each of our copies. It will also provide better patron service since we will be able to optimize the experience for patrons who avidly want to read the titles on hold. At the moment, these patrons are disadvantaged on behalf of chronic-postponer patrons.

Summary

While some library systems have little dependency on federal funds, many of the large digital consortia of libraries have historically used federal funds to provide digital books to rural communities. These OverDrive features would provide much needed relief to those systems.

In addition, we encourage OverDrive to pass along every sale that publishers offer. And, as always, we encourage both OverDrive and publishers to consider whether this time of economic challenge for all of us — libraries, publishers, distributors, and authors — would merit the lower prices that would allow libraries to grow their collections rather than continually shrink them.