Come See Us at ALA in Chicago

The ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition is on the horizon, taking place in Chicago June 22-27. We’ve made our travel plans, and we’re looking forward to connecting with our many library partners. So come see us! You can get all the latest information on Midwest Tape, hoopla digital, and Dreamscape Media at Booth #4420. Our booth hours are as follows:

Friday, June 23:                 5:30pm – 7:00pm

Saturday, June 24            9:00am – 5:00pm

Sunday, June 25               9:00am – 5:00pm

Monday, June 26             9:00am – 2:00pm

We’ll have a few special guests making appearances at our booth as well. Stop by and have a book signed!

Sarah Beth Durst has written several novels for young adults, and burst onto the adult fantasy fiction scene in 2016 with The Queen of Blood, winner of a 2017 Alex Award from ALA/YALSA. The second book in the Queens of Renthia series, The Reluctant Queen, will be released on July 4. She will be at our booth on Saturday from 2:00 to 3:00pm.

Shea Fontana has written for the animated children’s TV show Doc McStuffins and the movie Twinkle Toes Lights Up New York, among many others. One other project she’s been involved with is DC Super Hero Girls, and her latest outing is the graphic novel Summer Olympus, featuring Wonder Woman! You’ll find her at our booth on Sunday from 10:00 to 11:00am.

Kate White is a bestselling author of mystery and thriller novels whose most recent release, The Secrets You Keep, released in March of this year. This fall she’ll release Even if It Kills Her, the first new installment in her popular Bailey Weggins mystery series in five years. She will be at our booth on Sunday afternoon from 3:30 to 4:30pm.

Dates and times for these author appearances are subject to change, so be sure to stop by our booth ahead of time to make sure they still hold. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

hoopla Is Great for Summer Reading!

With Victoria Day behind us in Canada and Memorial Day coming up in the United States, there’s no denying that summer is on its way. If the kids in your community aren’t yet out of school for the season, they will be soon.

Which means it’s time for summer reading! Libraries have offered summer reading programs since the 1890s to keep children engaged and bridge the gap between the end of the school year in summer and when it begins again in the fall. The ALA website asserts that summer reading programs help to keep kids’ skills up during their time off, encourage reluctant readers (audiobooks and comics are excellent in this area, as well), and engender reading as a lifetime habit. Some of my own fondest memories from childhood summers involve entering the cool hush of the library from the bright heat outside and wandering among the shelves, picking out a giant stack of books to take home and read.

Spending time at the library is priceless, and that’s never been more true than it is today. But if your library participates in hoopla, it makes summer reading even easier, more convenient, and more fun! Kids can now take home slightly smaller stacks of books, thanks to the great content available on hoopla. That’s also nice for road trips—no need to take a ton of physical books along when you have access to so many on a phone or tablet! They can also check out something new as soon as they’re finished with what they have, even if they’re out of town with family or when the library is closed for the night. And when it’s time for a change of pace, they can always supplement their regular reading with an audiobook or a comic or graphic novel.

Kids are attached to their devices, while their parents, teachers, and even doctors are concerned about the amount of time they spend in front of screens. It can be especially difficult to manage during the summer, when their time is less structured. Combining hoopla and summer reading is a win-win in this area as well. Kids can still use their devices as they immerse themselves in an eBook, audiobook, or comic through the hoopla app. There’s plenty of content to keep them occupied, from Sesame Street eBooks for the youngest readers through to the DC Rebirth comics series for the older crowd.

Supercharge your library’s summer reading program with hoopla digital. If you aren’t currently using hoopla, you can visit library.hoopladigital.com to learn more, or call 800.875.2785 with any questions.

hoopla for All Occasions

hoopla digital is a great tool for everyday use—an audiobook for your commute, a workout soundtrack for your trip to the gym—but it can also be the perfect way to mark a special occasion or event. Here are just a few of the ways hoopla can help with things that are going on now or coming up soon.

There are still nearly three weeks left in May, which since 1949 has been designated as Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental health can be a difficult subject for many people to deal with, but hoopla can help. We have collections of movies and TV shows, eBooks, and audiobooks that explore various aspects of mental health. This can be a very useful starting point for patrons who may not have anywhere else to turn.

Dating back to 2006, May has also been recognized as Jewish American Heritage Month, honoring the contributions made by those of the Jewish faith to the history and culture of the United States. To that end, we’ve put together a collection of movies that fit the bill, including classics like Yentl and Fiddler on the Roof.

Everyone knows that Mother’s Day is this weekend…right? Don’t forget about Mom! To help, hoopla has a collection of eBooks all dedicated to the joys and trials of being a mom, as well as an audiobook collection focusing on mothers and daughters. And for patrons lucky enough to be spending some time with Mom this weekend, they can check out an album or two from this selection for tunes that are the perfect companion for the perfect day.

Speaking of music, hoopla is always the go-to source for the hottest new tunes. Patrons can log in every #NewMusicFriday for all the day’s new releases. Already this month we’ve added the second album from country music powerhouse Chris Stapleton, and today sees the release of the Bob’s Burgers Music Album, an eclectic collection of whimsical songs from the hit animated TV show performed by a variety of artists.

Whatever the occasion, hoopla has something to go along with it. And the best part? Patrons can access it 24/7, with no worrying about holds. It’s always at your fingertips—literally!

hoopla for the Holidays...and Beyond!

It’s that time of year again - the holidays, where you may feel as if you are scrambling as you wrap up the current year and begin planning for the New Year. Knowing many patrons will be turning to your libraries craving music, movies and more, to try out on their new gadgets, we wanted to remind you that we are here to help make things easier for you. 

Not to worry! By having hoopla, you’ve already prepared yourself to manage the increase in patron demands during and after the holiday season. By incorporating hoopla into your library’s services, you have instantly expanded your content collections by over half a million unique titles!

With hoopla’s extensive offering, we would like to share a couple of quick tips that will provide you peace of mind knowing that you have found the simplest solution for staff and patrons:

TIP 1: Have funds available before year end? No problem. Should you wish to put year-end funds on deposit with us, we can assist by providing you an invoice for any amount you see fit. Simply reach out to your hoopla Customer Support Specialist for assistance!

TIP 2: Funds already available on account? Try doubling the number of circs allowed per patron for the holiday season. This is a great way to thank your library customers for their patronage and support during the holidays! Many libraries take this as an opportunity to incorporate hoopla into tech and device trainings, as well! Library users love to test drive hoopla on new devices!

We hope you find these tips helpful as you plan to share hoopla with your library patrons for the holidays! For more ideas or to discuss these end of year options further, please reach out to your hoopla Customer Support Specialist by calling: 1-800-875-2785.

eAudiobooks are in High Demand!

Since hoopla digital’s inception, we have been committed to providing your patrons immediate access to the largest depth and breadth of content in the market. Our present collection – YOUR collection - sits at just over 500,000 titles, across six unique formats, and is growing every day.

Despite the interest in digital video and music, eAudiobooks continue to be the highest circulating format across all of hoopla. Audiobooks on hoopla represent 35% of our total circulations thus far in 2016, and at this time over 95% of all audiobooks on hoopla have circulated at least once! With eBooks and Comics combined taking up 18% of our total circulations within their first year, it’s easy to see that hoopla digital has become more of a book platform than many had anticipated!

We believe that the popularity of audiobooks on hoopla digital stems from the longevity of this format in the library space. When hoopla came to be, our libraries already had a core audience for eAudiobooks. That audience, however, was tired of waiting. When given access to content that is instantly available, library patrons seem to simply flock to it – regardless of what the content might be! Our culture’s appetite for entertainment is insatiable!

Many of our libraries are finding value in providing patrons instant access to the broader range of titles in hoopla, as opposed to buying individual copies in the former single-copy use models. When a patron requests a title, more and more of our customers are first looking to hoopla for that content before making a purchasing decision. If able to satisfy one request for a single transactional fee, why buy a copy and risk it only circulating once or twice, collecting cyber-dust?!

We understand our libraries often order eAudiobooks well in advance of “street dates,” with efforts to generate excitement and holds. Since hoopla is not an Acquisitions model, it is often difficult for our libraries to make decisions on what to buy from single-copy vendors vs. what to wait for on hoopla.

We want to make this easier for you. Providing you more visibility on what will be available on hoopla will be a continued, primary focus of ours in 2017. Our first step in this process is providing you with our publisher spotlight, which you may find below. This spotlight focuses on the top publishers we work with in the industry, highlights those that provide us same day and date content, and displays those from which we have a 3 or 6 month embargo, etc. We provide you this in hopes of providing ease of mind, so you can make appropriate content decisions and avoid unnecessary single-copy purchases.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52250544e4b00ee5ef2cefde/t/581b31622994ca08212a97a1/1478177133324/hoopla+Publisher+Spotlight+email.pdf

A Winner Has Been Selected!!

First and foremost, I want to take the time to thank each and everyone of you that took the Halloween Holiday as an opportunity to share hoopla with your library cardholders and communities! We absolutely loved seeing all of the pictures submitted through our Halloween raffle.

I am happy to share that a winner has been selected! Please help us congratulate the Glen Ridge Free Public Library in Glen Ridge, NJ as the winner of our iPad giveaway! We reached out to Library Director Jennifer Breuer yesterday to share this great news and she couldn't be happier!

While promoting hoopla for the holidays is certainly fun, there is a very important message that we wish to convey with all of our efforts: Your Shelves are Never Empty on hoopla! We know that during these times of year there is high demand for seasonal content for a very short window of time. We realize how difficult it can be to have enough copies on hand in your physical collections to satisfy such a need. You understand the value of speaking to this short term demand during the holiday season with hoopla, and we want to help you convey that same message to your patrons!!

Keep your eyes peeled for your next marketing kit - filled to the brim with seasonal promotional items that should take you right through to the New Year (and beyond!). We've many good things in store for you in terms of content for the holidays!

Thank you, as always, for placing your trust in us, and please let us know what further we can do to support your efforts!

hoopla for Halloween!!

Has everyone received their hoopla for Halloween promotional kits?!

hoopla offers something that no other digital service or physical media does - instant scalability! This is especially important around the holidays, when everyone wants the same content at the same time!

To assist you in sharing the great Halloween horrors and spooky soundtracks hoopla has to offer, we have sent each of our partners a promotional kit - which includes posters and shelf-talkers as well as kids' cards for Halloween hand-outs and Trick or Treat bags - as well as a special opportunity for you!

This year, we’d like to reward one library with a brand new iPad Air 2, just for making the hoopla in-library materials above part of your Halloween decorations and sharing your photo(s) with us!

Simply decorate, shoot and send your photos to https://a.pgtb.me/h3ClJs.

(All photos must be received by Oct.31, 2016 to be eligible for our drawing to be held Nov. 1, 2016.)

In need of more Halloween promotional material? Simply visit our Marketing Dropbox for instant access and in-house printing: Find all these marketing materials and more here. 

New hoopla digital 4.0 Website Release!

Hello to All Library Partners:
 
We have some BIG news for you regarding the hoopla digital website, www.hoopladigital.com!
 
You’ll be seeing the latest site evolution in the next couple of days. The new hoopla 4.0 is scheduled for release Sept. 8, 2016, and we think both you and your patrons will find it as exciting as we do. One huge thing you’ll notice immediately is that the new site will truly be “our website,” co-branded with library partner names! After all, without you, hoopla digital just wouldn’t be possible.
 
More than the “facelift” that initially meets the eye, the new hoopla 4.0 features useful functional enhancements:

• More robust content discovery tools

Quick links to borrowed titles, favorites and history, as well as to each of the formats your library supports, create better, more personal user experiences. Users will be able, also, to learn more about the hoopla story.

• Faster, more responsive browsing

Whether you’re browsing on a phone or tablet, your mobile browsing experience will be faster and more responsive. As more patrons use mobile browsers, this will be a huge feature in their favor!

• Filtering feature for more targeted exploration

Filtering and updated category landing pages allow for quick browsing of collections and genres. Based on search preference, there are a number of filtering options from which the user can choose.

• Built-in audio players

No more new tabs or windows just to listen and browse! Audio players for music and audiobooks are now built right into the page, and can be played immediately while browsing.

• Updated Registration process

We’ve streamlined the registration process, simplifying the experience for new users!
 
***IMPORTANT TO NOTE***
 
Patrons will be logged out on browsers
Patrons will need to log in using their email and password (which they may or may not remember).  We’ll be glad to help in response to password inquiries, or patrons can use the “Forgot password” link to change it themselves. 
Please note also: If they’ve previously stored their password in their browser, they simply have to click the email sign in box, then click on their email that pops up and it will automatically fill in both their email and password for them.  Then they can just click login.
 
Tell your patrons, and be sure to watch for this release to come soon and the evolution to continue.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support and trust!

September is Yoga Month!

September is National Yoga month! We at hoopla are teaming up with Gaiam, a leading lifestyle brand and trusted name in yoga and wellness, to deliver exceptional yoga content and prizes for your patrons all month long. As many know, yoga has been proven to have many benefits: it improves flexibility and posture, can alleviate symptoms of depression, and provide better sleep quality to name a few. Yoga videos are always popular on hoopla, but we are making it a special focus this month to help your patrons discover everything they need to feel great on and off the mat. Namaste!  

Please visit the hoopla digital Facebook page and watch for posts on these collections and yoga giveaways. Remember, you are always free to re-post, share and re-tweet all of our content on social. That is what it is there for!

Below are some details to watch for:

Gaiam Social Media Giveaway:  Be sure to follow hoopla on Facebook and twitter for details!

Grand Prize - best in class Yoga Mat, carrying bag, block, and yoga strap

5 runner-up prizes – Best in Class Yoga mat

Featured title: Gaiam’s newest TV release brings all of their most popular yoga experts together in ULTIMATE YOGA COLLECTION.

Ultimate Yoga Collection brings today’s best yoga instructors together for the first time! Whether you’re a seasoned yogi or just starting to get your feet wet, the Ultimate Yoga Collection combines the best practices and routines from five unique areas: yoga for the morning, yoga for weight loss, yoga for your core, flow yoga and yoga for the evening. Join yoga masters Rodney Yee, Colleen Saidman, Chrissy Carter, Gwen Lawrence, and Kathryn Budig in this Ultimate Yoga Collection, and take your practice to the next level!

Curated collections: browse video, ebooks, audiobooks, and music collections for all things yoga!

-video:

   - Gaiam yoga - https://www.hoopladigital.com/collections/1796

                - kids yoga - https://www.hoopladigital.com/collections/1795

                - adult yoga - https://www.hoopladigital.com/collections/1798

- Music: https://www.hoopladigital.com/collections/1811

- ebooks: https://www.hoopladigital.com/collections/1810

- audiobooks: https://www.hoopladigital.com/collections/1814

Our Commitment to Keeping Your Costs Low

Since hoopla digital’s inception, we have been committed to providing your patrons immediate access to a depth and breadth of content that would be difficult to provide in a single copy use model. In the past three years, our collection has grown from a mere 13,000 titles to over 500,000! Even with this dynamic growth, our per-circ average remains just around the $2.00 (US)/$2.05 (CA) price point! Imagine if you were to purchase a collection of this size…Even at $20.00 per copy, that cost would be right around $10,000,000.00!

We continue to work diligently with the studios and publishers that provide us access to content for hoopla to keep your per-circ costs low. We are pleased to share that, effective 8/1/16, we now maintain content at no more than $3.99 (US) / $4.99 (CA) per circ!

A special thank you for sharing hoopla with your community... as our service grows, we are armed with more clout to acquire quality content at reasonable costs for you!