Noah Davis: The My Holds section of the Brooklyn Public Library app is an exercise in patience and serendipity. The display shows where you are in line and no other information. I’m always first on the list for the esoteric history book(s) I'll read occasionally to fulfill my role as a middle-aged cliché. I’m fourth for Open, Andre Agassi's 2009 autobiography, ghostwritten by celeb whisperer J.R. Moehringer. Thirteenth for Paved Paradise, Henry Grabar’s work detailing how parking explains the world. Somewhere in the forties for Glossy. You get the idea.
Then, the app offers a waiting game. The number moves from whatever to first to "In Transit" to "Requested Item Ready For Pickup" in fits and starts, with no respect for any logical progression along the space-time continuum. It took five months for Open to arrive, which should be impossible given the three-week check out time before a book becomes overdue. But, the BK Library understandably having done away with late fees, the penalty for keeping a book beyond its due date is now solely karmic. The parking book came to me within a couple weeks, the dozen people ahead of me apparently focused on speed reading for new knowledge to bolster their tweet threads. With Glossy, I moved up at a glacial pace, then suddenly jumped from 38th in line to “you have a week to get your book.” Perhaps the library system, seeing the demand, purchased many new copies of Marisa Meltzer's excellent work.
I try to have four to six books requested at a time. Adding something to the list is simple: a catalog search, a tap, another tap. Instantaneous and frictionless ordering, followed by slow and unknowable delivery. The lack of immediacy and the randomness of arrival is a feature, not a bug. I like the idea of half a dozen physical objects meandering their way to me, showing up whenever. The intervening period divorces the book from whatever online hype cycle or algorithm-fueled piece of content led me to request it in the first place, letting me just read the work for what it is.
When a book finally does arrive, the 21-day due date shot clock adds an appropriate level of haste without tipping into added stress. The best reading takes you on a journey. A low-stakes adventure before the book even arrives is a perfect bonus.
Noah Davis is the co-founder of editorial studio Three Point Four Media. The studio has a fun newsletter, too.
I work for the department that buys the books you're putting on hold and it is fascinating to see it from your perspective - will be sharing it around the office! I am often a bit embarrassed by how long some people have to wait for their books and it's lovely of you to think of the experience as a feature, not a bug. Also, yes, we do buy more when there are a lot of holds (we even have some little equations to sort out which things most urgently need more copies).
I’ve turned into an ebook person and have such similar feelings about checking my Libby holds! But in that case the due dates are real - they’ll zap it back after 21 days. If it looks like you won’t finish it in time they’ll give you the option to try and extend your loan. Sometimes for a book with a hold it works so you get it right back; otherwise, better try and finish or it could be another 4-5 week wait.