Abby Hargreaves writes: “Many of us have done it: You place a hold on a library book with the best intentions and then life gets in the way or you decide you’re not interested in the book after all and so you don’t pick it up before the expiration date. On occasion, I get patrons who express shame for—from their perspective—making library workers do meaningless extra work. It’s true that there is a fairly involved process tied to getting a book from its home in the stacks to the hold shelf, but to say doing that work is meaningless if the patron ultimately doesn’t pick up the book is inaccurate. There’s plenty of value in abandoned library holds.”