Director Briefing - June 23, 2025

Director Meeting | Friday, June 27 at 10 AM at System HQ

This Friday is our Director Meeting at System HQ. The topic will be Collection Management.

As a reminder, these are informal meetings at OWWL HQ on topics pertinent to Directors, with time for chit-chat following. The next Director Meeting, topic TBD, will be Friday, August 1 at 10 AM.

Budget Kit Now Available

The 2024-2025 Budget Planning Kit is now available. This is a great resource for planning, decision-making, and advocating for your library (and yourself) by comparison to others in our System.

Let Kelly or me know if you have any questions or if there is anything not included that you would find helpful.

2024-2025 Budget Kit Consolidated.pdf

Freedom to Read Passed the Legislature

Late Tuesday night, Freedom to Read passed the legislature! Now it moves on to Governor Hochul.

Thank you and well done to everyone who wrote, called, and otherwise supported Freedom to Read.

Holds Refresher

Dan sent out a great reminder last week on some of the recent changes to holds, check it out below.

Hold-related Changes

Hold sort order prioritizes the owning library

Holds will be fulfilled in queue order. However, the targeter will now prioritize holds placed for pickup at the owning library. This means that patrons placing a hold for pickup at your library will have priority for items you own, even if they're further back in the holds queue.

New age-based hold protection options

Holdings staff can now choose to apply age-based hold protection to an item for two weeks, one month, or two months by selecting the appropriate option from the Age Hold Protection dropdown in the Holdings Editor.

Hold targeter runs every 48 hours

The targeter previously ran every 24 hours, but now runs every 48 hours. This increases the chances that you will be able to fulfill a hold with your own item if the hold happens to be placed on a day that you are closed.

Hold targeter prioritizes pickup library, then open libraries

If a patron selects your library as the hold pickup location and you own an available copy of the title, the hold targeter will select your copy. If you do not own an available copy, the targeter will prioritize selecting a copy at an open library.

No opportunistic capture in first 48 hours

If a patron selects your library as the hold pickup location and you own an available copy of the title, only that copy will be able to fulfill the hold for the first 48 hours. If another copy of the title is checked in anywhere in the first 48 hours, Evergreen will not capture it for the hold. After the first 48 hours, a checked-in copy can be captured opportunistically.

Considerations

These changes come with some important implications to consider:

Consider limiting or avoiding age-based hold protection

Because your items will now prioritize fulfilling holds at your library, you may want to evaluate your use of age-based hold protection. You may find that you can be more selective about how many items need age-based hold protection. You may also find that you can set your items to have one month or two weeks of age-based hold protection -- or perhaps they don't need to have age-based hold protection at all!

Several libraries have phased out or greatly limited age-based hold protection. This helps to limit cases where there is no local demand for a title, but an item's age-based hold protection settings prevent it from fulfilling a hold elsewhere. Don't forget: The changes that have been made mean that if one of your patrons places a hold for pickup at your library, they will be first in line for your item. Thank you to libraries who have already evaluated their use of age-based hold protection and have reduced its use or phased it out.

If you have any questions about your library's use of age-based hold protection or would like help reviewing relevant data, please email evergreen@owwl.org.

Pull list diligence

Be diligent about checking your holds pull list at least daily. More often is better! Because the targeter runs less frequently, it's especially important to be diligent about checking your pull list whenever you are open. If you cannot find an item on your pull list, please mark it missing immediately so Evergreen will retarget the hold. Do not delay marking an item missing.

Be careful with item holds

With limited exceptions, placing a hold on a title will usually be better and more efficient than placing a hold on an individual item. When you place a hold on a particular item, only that single item -- the single barcode -- can fulfill the hold. That means if the item you select can't be found, the hold will end up on the Hopeless Holds list. On the other hand, if you place a hold on the title as a whole, any available hold-eligible item could fulfill the hold.

Avoid taking items away from holds

We've received a few questions recently about some hold oddities. When we investigated, we found that an item had been captured for a hold, but was later removed. Unless absolutely necessary (e.g., the item is captured for a hold but then chewed up by a puppy loose in your library before the patron can pick up the hold), please avoid interfering with a hold once an item has been captured.

Policies

In addition, please be aware of the following policies from EAC / OWWLDAC:

Patron PII on public hold shelf slips

OWWLDAC approved the following policy on 3/7/2025:

Public hold shelf slips must not contain patron PII, such as full names, library card numbers, phone numbers, or email addresses. Instead, libraries must use an anonymized identifier, such as a portion of a patron's name and library card number, to facilitate easy access to materials while maintaining patron confidentiality.

We have resources and a sample available on OWWL Docs. If you need any assistance in updating your hold shelf slips, please email evergreen@owwl.org.

Report processing

The Report Processing Schedule was approved last year. It includes several hold-related screens and reports that are important to review (and take action on) regularly to ensure a smooth experience for all libraries' patrons. These include:

- Pull List for Hold Requests: In Evergreen, process daily
- Hold Shelf: In Evergreen, process weekly
- Hopeless Holds: In Evergreen, process weekly
- High Demand: Scheduled report, process weekly
- Old Holds: Scheduled report, process monthly

Questions?

If you have any questions, please email evergreen@owwl.org.

HBR: Tip of the Day

Don't Let Your Flexible Schedule Burn You Out

Flexibility is a blessing—until it isn’t. When you try to do everything for both your work and your family, burnout can sneak in fast. The key is to approach flexibility strategically, so you’re fully present when it matters most. Here’s how.

Define what’s enough. Without clear boundaries, you’ll always feel behind. Set standard work hours and define the personal commitments that matter most to you. Equally important: Give yourself permission to skip the less-essential ones.

Clarify where you add the most value. You can’t do it all. Audit your calendar and meetings to eliminate low-value tasks. Focus your work hours on activities that drive the greatest results and impact.

Be willing to make people unhappy in the short term. Setting boundaries means some requests will go unanswered. That’s okay. Protect your time by scheduling around your priorities, not around others’ expectations.

Be really on; be really off. Stop trying to be available 24/7. Establish clear rules for when you’re off work—and stick to them. This allows you to be fully engaged both at work and at home.

Read more in the article, Is Your Flexible Schedule Burning You Out? by Elizabeth Grace Saunders