By Michelle Mears, Rolling Hills Library Director
I hope that many of you have at least tried an e-book or e-audio on your mobile device or computer. If you haven’t, now might be a good time to give it a whirl. If Santa brings you a new tablet or upgrades your phone, you can try out one of our online services.
But you need to know there are changes on tap for our “virtual” branch to make it simpler to use and more enjoyable.
To give you some background, it hasn’t been all that long that Missouri libraries have been offering e-books to users. Our library started around 2011 with the MoLib2Go consortium, which is provided by OverDrive. Today their app is called Libby and is our most used e-book resource. Usage of e-materials on all our online platforms has been steadily climbing after years of slow growth and now it is up about 20% over last year.
Just like potato chips, it’s hard to limit yourself to just a few, so over the years we added more and more online services. During covid, when physical access to the library was limited, we added some digital resources to our virtual branch so people would not be without books during a difficult time. Also like potato chips, it’s usually too late when you realize you have had too many.
The library needs to go on kind of a digital “diet” to streamline our offerings and keep to our budget for books and other resources.
Here’s what’s going down
We are going to end some of these app services and combine them into one new platform. Libby will continue to be available, but Boundless, Hoopla, and Blackstone will end in December 2025, and CloudLibrary will take its place. We understand that some of you may be upset about this decision, so let me explain.
First, pricing for digital titles is much higher than the same titles in print. Where we might pay $18 for a hardcover book with our negotiated discounts, the e-book version could be $60 for only 24 months of access, and the e-audio version can be as high as $120 each.
For an “always available” resource like Hoopla (no holds or waiting), we pay an amount per checkout between $.99 and $3.99. Our Hoopla usage started out at six titles per user per month, went up to 12 during covid, back down to six earlier this year, and now we are down to just three and our monthly bill is still close to $5,000 per month, just for Hoopla. That is more than 20% of our total collection budget for the whole year. Hoopla has become unsustainable.
Second, people tend to load just one app on their device and stay with that even if it means they miss out on some great stuff on other platforms. Only the savvy users will switch between different apps and search for titles in multiple places. One solution to this is to reduce the number of apps we offer so they can access more from fewer “visits” to the virtual branch.
We understand there are many people who are voracious readers, but again we have to impose limits so we can serve the greatest number of users with the funds we have available.
Finally, we have leveraged our sharing networks so our users can get the benefit of more than we can afford on our own. Libby is a shared resource across 110 Missouri libraries, which puts a lot of value into the pot but also results in longer wait times because more than 2 million people are sharing those titles.
CloudLibrary is also part of a consortium but will be shared among less than 20 libraries and will offer some of the best features of Hoopla, such as having graphic novels, streaming video and no reserves for some titles. Users will also be able to recommend titles to purchase, and we certainly want to buy things we know will get checked out.
We know that many of you have enjoyed Hoopla for the past five years and hope you will give CloudLibrary a try when it launches in mid-December.
These days public libraries have to be nimble and ready to make a change when circumstances change. We continue to work hard to serve you and welcome your feedback and input. You can send any questions, concerns or feedback to us at help@rhcl.org.
Thank you, and as always, (H)Appy Reading!
