Hoopla Service Update

If you use hoopla® through the Enoch Pratt Free Library, you’ll experience some service changes beginning December 2024.

• Starting December 1, we are reducing the number of hoopla checkouts you can make each month from ten (10) to five (5).
• In addition, streaming video and music will no longer be available on the hoopla platform. Customers will still have full access to the same robust collection of ebook, audiobook, and comics offerings on the platform.

We know hoopla is a popular service with our customers. In order to make this service sustainable with equitable access to all customers within the library budget, we’ve had to set these new checkout limits.

How does hoopla work?

To fully understand the reason for the new limits, it’s important to know how hoopla works. Libraries that offer hoopla agree to pay a fee for each item that customers check out. Prices vary among items, but on average, ebooks and video through hoopla cost the library about $2 per checkout. Audiobooks are more expensive, with some costing as much as $3.99 per checkout. Audiobooks are generally the most expensive category as well as the most popular with customers.

Over the past year, hoopla usage has grown to more than 5000 unique users who have checked out at least one item per month, and this number continues to grow. As of the end of June 2024, hoopla costs at the Pratt increased 160% over the previous year, due both to increased usage and to the addition of audiobooks to the platform in mid-2023. If no changes are implemented, current projections indicate that our yearly costs will increase by an additional 65% by the end of June 2025.

Cost controls

We’re thrilled that customers enjoy hoopla. At the same time, we must control the library’s costs for a service whose overall expense is influenced by the price of each checkout and increasing use by customers. Lowering the number of checkouts that individual customers can make from hoopla will ensure that more library cardholders can use the service each month while helping to control costs.

Even though customers will be limited to five hoopla checkouts per month, most cardholders will not notice a reduction in service. In September 2024, 77% of Pratt Library users checked out five or fewer titles. Removing streaming video and music from the platform allows us to continue offering high quality ebook and audiobook content on the platform, which are by far the most popular available formats. Streaming video will continue to be offered on Kanopy, and there is significant overlap between the offerings on the two platforms, including the entire Great Courses series that is currently available through the hoopla BingePass.

No effect on other services

We want to emphasize that these changes affect only hoopla and not other streaming or download services such as Libby/OverDrive and Kanopy.