'Astronomical' hold queues on year's top e-books frustrate readers, libraries

Anyone hoping to read the Ottawa Public Library's most popular e-books of the year may find themselves waiting until well after the holidays, and librarians say major publishers are to blame.

The Women by Kristin Hannah, a bestselling novel in which a young American woman serves as an army nurse in the Vietnam war, is the library's most popular book of 2024.

But despite offering 75 copies of the e-book, the library's waitlist currently sits at about 1,200 people. With a maximum borrowing period of 21 days, someone placing a hold on the e-book today could be waiting well over a year before it comes available.

"It's really a challenge when a book is so popular," said Sarah Macintyre, division manager of client services with Ottawa Public Library (OPL). "Our clients end up waiting a fair amount of time to get access."

Queues are similar for other titles on the library's list of most popular books of 2024.

Louise Penny's The Grey Wolf, for instance, currently has about 750 holds on 50 copies. The same goes for non-fiction, with nearly 300 people waiting on 26 copies of Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation.

Although the year's biggest titles may yield the longest lists, Macintyre said a diverse readership means a wide range of books can generate hundreds of holds.

It's a phenomenon that's been around since digital material first entered library catalogues, but a pandemic-driven surge in e-book popularity suggests queues may be longer than ever.

In response, both readers and libraries are adapting — but librarians say the root cause of the backlog remains the same: restrictive e-book publishing practices.

Because e-book distributor Overdrive doesn't make hold information available, Macintyre said OPL can't provide specific data on how long readers are waiting for e-books. The data she can access tells a clear story of increasing demand, however.

The number of OPL Overdrive users ballooned in the first year of the pandemic — and has swelled from 50,548 in 2019 to 77,190 in 2023.

In line with users, e-book checkouts went from 887,069 in 2019 to more than 1.1 million the following year.

The high cost of e-books compared to physical copies makes it difficult for libraries to keep up with demand, Macintyre said.

Depending on the title, public libraries may pay two or three times more for an e-book than they pay for its print edition. In some cases, the e-book may be up to six times the price, librarians told CBC.