FLP additions?
 

I haven't seen any new ebook (Overdrive) additions in over a month at FLP. Has their been any changes/info in regards to ebooks at FLP?

Thanks.

I don't have an answer, but I've noticed the same thing with their audio books. Seems ages since they've added any new ones.

Three months at least. I'm seeing the same.

Of course. I just paid to rejoin for the express purpose of borrowing audiobooks, so OF COURSE they'd stop getting new audiobooks!

FWIW, I have a sister in Philly who says they're fundraising to acquire more ebooks, so my guess is that they've blown their budget for the fiscal year. I have no idea when that ends.

I just hope they've already allocated the funds for the new Harper Lee (the site says they've got 15 copies on order), since I'm second on the hold list. With such a good spot, I'd hate to have to take my chances elsewhere.

#179 :(

Condolences. I clearly was lucky; I must have stumbled on it right after it was listed, because the number skyrocketed quickly.

As an aside, I wish Philly hadn't gone back to a three-week checkout period. It really drags out a waiting list. I have nothing to back it up, but my sense is that most people let their books expire, rather than returning them once read. I hope I'm wrong.

Right, I had no idea you could return books early until just now. :smack:

I figured this would be popular. Personally, I don't have any interest in Harper Lee's books. ;)

However, I did decide on a whim to reserve a copy, so I am #2 on 2 copies at the Dallas Public Library.
Come July I will offer it first-come-first-served or most-worthy-IMAO on MobileRead. :)

I emailed the Philadelphia Library about no new additions and here's the response I got:
Hello,
Thank you for your email. You are correct. We have added fewer titles than usual to our Overdrive collection in the past few weeks. Our priorities for licensing ebooks are to fill holds for people who are already on the waiting list for particular ebooks and then to add new best sellers to our collections. However, as the our fiscal year comes to a close we have had to adjust our purchasing for the library's limited budget. We hope to begin adding new titles soon as our budget allows. In the slightly longer term, our purchasing will return to normal when our new budget year begins on 7/1/2015.
Also, in the meantime, please also take a look at our Freeding collection of ebooks. Here you'll find titles that are not available in Overdrive. Also, if you are a fan of audio books, take a look at Hoopla and OneClick Digital. You'll find links to our Freading, Hoopla, and OneClick sites on our Digital Media page: http://search.freelibrary.org/digitalmedia.cfm
I hope this information is helpful to you. Thank you,
Jamie
Free Library of Philadelphia

Librarian Jamie is to be commended for a very nice response, quoted in the last post.

Philadelphia is far from a wealthy city by US standards. The physical library collections aren't all that up to date either.

The same thing happened with one of the Harry Potter books some yrs back. Everyone and his/her brother/sister seemed to want to read it and I don't know if I ever did get my chance before giving up on waiting and buying a copy of my own.

The nice thing about FLP is that they try to keep the wait lists reasonable, I'd say at about "10". FLP has The Girl on the Train has 1204 people on the waitlist, but has 110 copies; my local library has 407/5. Go Set A Watchman has 379 people on the waitlist and 15 copies (and I bet the number of copies will go up when it is released). I'm 26 on Watchman (at FLP), so I expect to get it in about 14 days.

I'm at 263 for Go Set a Watchman at FLP; my home library--now using Axis 360--doesn't even show it yet. Unless it has disastrous reviews, I'm sure I'll buy it long before I'm able to borrow it.

The wait lists for audio books is even worse than for ebooks. I think most people don't know they can return audios early, so everybody keeps them for 3 weeks.