Do You Feel Lucky?
We always love adding new books and other items patrons have requested, opens a new window to our collection. But especially with more popular new media, opens a new window, it can often feel inevitable that you will be added to a long hold queue.
To give patrons a chance to skip those wait times, a certain number of copies of popular new titles are marked as “Lucky Day” copies, meaning that they cannot be placed on hold. As a kind of lottery system, patrons can stumble upon these copies of popular books, movies, and more waiting for them on the shelf, regardless of the length of the existing hold queue.
In addition to getting a chance to check out a hard-to-get title, Lucky Day copies are also a gift to patrons who come to the library in person. “It's just kind of like a common thing for popular new titles to not be available in the building, and we wanted to make coming into the library a more positive experience for those patrons,” explained Kevin Corcoran, Cataloging and Collection Development Supervisor.
Where to Find the Lucky Day Copies
Lucky Day copies can be found on the “new” shelf in each section of the library. “There are Lucky Day copies of things in new AV, new fiction, new nonfiction, and there's fewer but still some Lucky Day copies that you might be able to find in the new children's books too,” Corcoran said.
The Lucky Day copies are now visible in the online catalog as well, but are only meant to inform patrons that there is a copy available in person.
If there is a Lucky Day copy on the shelf, it will be labeled as “Available but not holdable” in the online catalog. You can still click to place a hold, but you will just be added to the end of the existing hold queue for the non-Lucky Day copies. The only way to claim a Lucky Day copy for yourself is to come into the library and find it on the shelf before it’s picked up and checked out by another patron.
“If we have a lucky day copy, it almost certainly means that we've got multiple holdable copies too,” Corcoran said. “So what I always think is a safe bet is to place a hold on the holdable copies, then see if you can find the Lucky Day copy in the library. Then if you don’t find one on the shelf, at least you’re already in line for a hold.”
Keeping the Lucky Day Copies Up-to-Date
To meet the needs of patrons, the Cataloging and Collection Development team monitors the collection of holdable and Lucky Day copies on a weekly basis. “We're always adding new holdable copies, and we also determine if we want to add more lucky day copies too,” Corcoran explained. “If something super popular has a hundred holds on it, we’ll make sure to have more than just a single Lucky Day copy of it.”
So next time you’re in the library, you might want to take a closer look around the “new” shelf in your favorite section. It might just be your lucky day.
