Has PBS ever considered listing the place in line of a book on our bookshelf?  I would be curious to know how many books there are in the sytem and where I am in line.  I know that the reminder list will tell me how many are in the system, but it doesn't tell me my place in line.

You can't find out where you are in the FIFO line, but you can find out how many copies are in the system by putting the book on your Reminder list.  If you do that when you post the book you will know your place because you will be last in line.

I think I read they are considering putting this information on the book on your bookshelf.  I suspect they may not do it, though.  I think the reason why they don't let you know where you are in the FIFO lineup is because that may cut down on the number of books posted here.  If you post a book and see you are number 150 in the FIFO list, you may just decide to donate the book instead of putting it on your shelf.

Your question comes up quite often Patty, but the the best of my knowledge TPTB haven't said if it's under serious consideration.

I suspect they may not do it, though.  I think the reason why they don't let you know where you are in the FIFO lineup is because that may cut down on the number of books posted here.  If you post a book and see you are number 150 in the FIFO list, you may just decide to donate the book instead of putting it on your shelf.

I suspect that you're right.  Part of the reason that there's over 4 million books on the site is because there are about 1.5 million Patterson's and 1.5 million Kings.  That only leaves 1.5 million for everything else.

I have read other postings where I believe that PBS is considering how to best give people that information. Like someone said, it is not very useful to know that you are #56 out of 130 without also knowing how frequently the book is requested. If 25 copies fly out every month, then you have approx a 2 month wait to mail yours. if one copy goes out per month, then you have a 4 year wait.

I have seen other postings where people have said that PBS is thinking about how to display this info in a useful way, so hat people will get an idea of how long it will be before their copy is requested.

Also if someone orders a book from you and looks lthrough your shelf and finds another book they like and order it, then it skews the figures as you could have posted the book yesterday and the person in FIFO might have posted theirs a year ago.  Pat