Harry Potter and the Minuteman Library Network

[mabfan]

As a Library Trustee, I take a more than casual interest in what goes on with our extended library network. I know that there are already copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince being processed for our system, which covers forty-one town and college libraries. If you click here, you get the Top 50 requests for books in the network, and it's no surprise that Harry Potter is number one.

But for more specific information... If you click here, you should get the network's page for the Harry Potter book. And near the top of the page, you will find the number of requests that have been made for the book:

"1351 holds on First Copy Returned"

Gack.

I imagine the number might climb throughout the course of the day...

Comments

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

1351 holds on First Copy Returned"

Good lord.

I may have to wait for my copy to be delivered, but I'm thinking it still will be a shorter wait than the person who is 2nd on that list.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

And now it's 1354 holds on first copy returned...

This has the potential to keep me entertained all day.

[cheshyre]

http://www.mln.lib.ma.us/Top50.htm

Oh, that's nifty. Hadn't known about that.

Though I don't think I've seen it reach even triple-digits before, i have noticed in the past high numbers of holds on books by Lemony Snicket and other popular YA authors well before release

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Wow... and I thought this was an exaggeration!

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

It's now up to 1359 holds on first copy returned...

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Do people know where they are on the list?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. Whenever I've filed a request, I've never been told how far down the queue I was.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I imagine some of those people are in for a lot of frustration... I wonder how many would decide to go buy it instead if they knew how long the wait was going to be.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

See below...looks like that might be happening.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Now it's at 1355 - are people buying it and relinquishing their holds?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Possibly. They may be realizing just how long it'll take until they get a library copy.