Welcome to February! This month, we’ll be taking a look at how to place and manage holds.
Just like with physical books, students have the option to place a digital title on hold when there aren’t any copies available to check out. From their Sora account, they can see how many holds they currently have placed, their estimated wait time for each hold, and have the option to edit or cancel their hold.
Within OverDrive Marketplace, you also have the ability to place and manage holds for your students AND SO MUCH MORE!
How to Manage Holds
Watch this 18-minute video to learn more, and to see holds management in action!
From OverDrive’s Managing Holds in Marketplace video above, you were shown the two major aspects to managing holds:
- Holds Manager – Holds Manager is a tool that will automatically order titles based on either the number of holds on titles or by a holds ratio. The Holds Manager can be set to different thresholds based on each collection and format individually and can be updated at any time.
The WSDLC utilizes the Holds Manager to help make sure students across the state don’t have to wait too long for a title to become available. As of 2021, the shared collection’s Holds Manager is set to purchase new titles based on the number of holds: The Juvenile and YA ebook and audiobook collections are set to purchase one copy for every five holds, and the Adult ebook and audiobook collections are set to purchase one copy for every three holds.
Schools that have an Advantage Account can also set up their own Holds Manager for their own purchased titles. This works in the same way; the Holds Manager can be set to build carts based on a holds ratio or number of holds and can have a price cap set. To do this, Marketplace users must have the Holds Management permission set on their account (if you don’t have this, reach out to the WSDLC OverDrive team and they will be able to get this set up for you). Once logged in to Marketplace, click on the Shop dropdown menu, and select Automate Carts (OverDrive Insights), then Holds Manager.
You can read more about how Holds Manager works here: What is Holds Manager and How Do I Use It? - Current Holds Report – You can see all holds that are currently placed on titles by running the appropriately-named report Current Holds. This report is found in Marketplace through Insights > Current Holds.
There are two main parameters that you can run this report by: By Title or By User.
➤ Title: Running the this report by Title allows you to view each title that your users currently have on hold (including preorder titles), and gives you an estimated time for how long your students are waiting for holds.
➤ User: Running this report by User will allow you to the number of holds for each user ID.The Average Wait Time is updated daily, and the Current Average Wait Period includes active holds placed by users who’ve borrowed a title in the last 90 days.
If you are looking for the holds for only your students, and not the entire consortium, adjust the Branch filter by selecting your school.
Another way that the WSDLC works hard towards keeping holds down is by utilizing OverDrive’s Lucky Day feature.
Lucky Day
Lucky Day is a Marketplace curation feature that sets aside copies of titles that can’t be placed on hold or renewed. This allows users to skip the waitlist for popular titles, whether it’s a new title or a classic that everyone is wanting to read, and borrow them right away.
In the WSDLC, this collection is populated at the consortium level, and all content access levels will still apply. Titles that are purchased and placed into the Lucky Day collections can be checked out on a first-come-first-serve basis, and are available for a 14 day loan period with no renewals. Because these titles are on a first-come-first-serve basis, you may notice titles come and go from the Lucky Day Collection; this is normal! As books in this collection a checked out, they are removed from the collection but once returned, they will become discoverable within this collection once again.
Advantage accounts can also create their own Lucky Day collections with titles that have a minimum of one copy in the circulating collection already. Watch this 18-minute video to see more about Lucky Day, and how to use it at your own school!
Materials for Students and Educators
To end this month’s Flipped Classroom, we’re making sure you know about two great resources that you can share at your school to help your students and educators utilize holds to the fullest!
This first resource was created by one of our WSDLC members! Jennifer Peterson of Menasha Joint School District created this (excellent!) video to show students how to get the titles they placed on hold.
From Jennifer:
If you are like me, you realize that most of your students and staff don’t know how to access their Sora books on hold once they place them. My Students are crazy about putting books on hold, but not so much about actually getting those books which causes a slow down. So I made this quick, quirky video in hopes of helping students and staff. [WSDLC Members can] [f]eel free to use the idea or the video.
Thank you so much for sharing, Jennifer!
OverDrive has also put together a Holds Training Kit that includes:
- 1 easy-to-follow PDF for K-12 educators on managing holds in Marketplace,
- 2 short videos about holds in Sora – great for students, staff, and parents alike, and
- a marketing graphic for educators to share.
You can download a ZIP file of these materials by clicking here.
And this brings us to the end of another Flipped Classroom!
If you have any questions, or would just like to know more about getting started with OverDrive, we encourage you to schedule a 20-minute one-on-one session with OverDrive. Contact the WSDLC OverDrive team (wsdlc@overdrive.com) to schedule a session or ask a question.
If you have questions specifically about the WSDLC consortium, you can contact wsdlc-info@wils.org.
Join us again next month to learn about Curation!
You can view the full year’s training plan and revisit previous Flipped Classrooms here: WSDLC Training Schedule