Ebsco Technical Support lowered the timeout time from 30 minutes to 15 minutes. What this means is that when a user navigates away from a book, it will be 15 minutes before the book is free for another user. In my testing, it was actually about 25 minutes before the book was available.
When a user tries to open a book in use, they are prompted to 'Hold' the book. I was so surprised to find the hold feature doesn't work. Below is the response I got from Ebsco tech support.
I sent a frank e-mail to Ebsco tech support, Ebsco sales, and Lyrasis about how unacceptable these platform limitations are and asking that we have unlimited use on every book in the eBook Collection until the platform is upgraded to include a working Hold feature for every book and the ability to close or logout of a book.
In the meantime, I hope this information helps in your transactions with patrons.
~MEP
Hi Mary Ellen,
That particular eBook is not available for download, which may be why it is not showing up as a 'Hold' for you. Since it cannot be downloaded there is no official 'checkout'... all checkout is done on a temporary basis behind the scenes. Essentially, when a user is reading a book in the browser they have the book 'checked out' for 10 minutes. At the end of this 10 minute window the book will be released to the public again or, if the book is still being accessed, it will be 'checked out' again.
Since the checkout is not one of days but one of minutes the hold option doesn't do anything... the book will be available when the current session is over. I hope that makes sense but if you have any questions about what I've written please let me know.
If you have any eBooks that are available for download that are also showing incorrect hold behavior please let me know and I can take another look.
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