Submitted by coffin on
OverDrive released some new functionality on the site!
1. Suspend a Hold
This feature allows users to temporarily suspend a hold in the waiting list. The user’s position will continue to advance in the queue while their hold is suspended, but the hold will not be filled.
After the suspension ends, the title will continue to advance until the hold becomes available. If a user advances to the first position in the waiting list while the hold is suspended, the system will skip ahead to fill the next available hold.
Familiarize yourself with the new Suspend a Hold and Auto-Checkout features by watching the demonstration here: http://cc.readytalk.com/play?id=duizd3.
2. Hold Auto-Checkout
Users can now set their preference to ‘auto-checkout’ a hold when the title when it becomes available.
Users who select this option will receive a notification when their title is available confirming that it has been checked out and can be found on their Account bookshelf. Users who do not choose this option will follow the current hold notification process.
If a user is unable to borrow the title at the time it becomes available (because they have already reached their maximum checkout limit, for example) they will be sent the current hold notification email and will have the full hold pickup period to make their checkout.
3. Maturity Settings (which we already have as beta testers)
Two options that allow users to customize their browsing and discovery experience based on content maturity level now appear on the Account > Settings page:
a. The ability to exclude certain content from browsing based on the maturity level (Juvenile, Young Adult, General Adult, and Mature Adult). This allows adult users to exclude titles for younger readers and young readers to exclude adult-only titles from their experience.
Note: Levels have been re-named for clarity based on partner feedback after last week’s preview.
b. The option to “mask” all Mature Adult cover images with a basic cover image.
Both settings are set to show all content/covers by default. Libraries who would like to mask Mature Adult cover images for all users by default can do so by request.
4. “Recommended for you” collection
After a user signs in, a collection of recommended titles will appear on the homepage. Recommended titles will be available for checkout and suggested based on titles the user currently has checked out or on hold. If a user does not have any checkouts or holds, this collection will not appear.
5. “And” Boolean Searching
Based on partner feedback to improve search results, default search behavior has changed from “OR” to “AND.” Now that this has changed, the number of results returned for a search will likely be lower than with the current behavior, but this change will meaningfully improve the relevancy of the results.
6. Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements
Corresponding OverDrive Help articles have been added/updated as part of this release.