If you use Hoopla through Salem Township Library, you’ll experience some service changes beginning on March 1st, 2025.

We know that Hoopla is a popular service with our patrons, who enjoy the ability to check out ebooks, eAudiobooks, eComics, videos and music albums from the service. We also love offering Hoopla to patrons and will continue doing so. To make the service sustainable within the confines of the library’s budget, we’ve had to set new parameters.

  • Starting on March 1st, we are reducing the number of Hoopla checkouts you can make each month from five to four.
  • In addition, we are implementing budget parameters with our Hoopla service, which means that once the library has spent its budgeted amount of money on Hoopla checkouts per day, no more checkouts will be allowed for anyone until the next day at 12:00 am.

How Does Hoopla Work?

To fully understand the reason for the new parameters, it’s important to know how Hoopla works. Libraries that offer Hoopla agree to pay a fee for each item that patrons check out. Prices vary among items, but generally, an ebook checkout through Hoopla costs the library about $3. Movies and music cost about $1.50, and some eAudiobooks cost as much as $3.99. eAudiobooks tend to be the most expensive category as well as the most popular with patrons, so those costs can rise quickly.

These fees are charged immediately upon borrowing, regardless of whether or not the title was read, listened to, or watched.

The increasing popularity of Hoopla has been driving up the library’s cost since we began offering the service in 2021. During that time, the average cost per month has increased by 203.73%!

Also, out of the top 50 titles checked out on Hoopla over the last year, 100% of them are also available on Libby.

 

Cost Controls

We’re thrilled that patrons enjoy Hoopla. At the same time, we must control the library’s costs for a service whose overall expense is influenced by the cost of each checkout and increasing use by patrons.

Lowering the number of checkouts that individual patrons can make from Hoopla will ensure that more patrons can use the service each month.

Even though patrons are now limited to four Hoopla checkouts per month, many patrons don’t reach that number of checkouts. Our Hoopla service averages about 3.1 checkouts per patron, per month. So we believe the new parameters will give the library enough budgetary control while still providing access to Hoopla for our patrons.

Bonus Borrows are Free

Hoopla offers “Bonus Borrows” the last seven days of each month! Bonus Borrows will be a way for you to access a curated selection of content at the end of the month when you may be running low on borrows. These do not count toward your monthly limit, and the library is not charged for them. You can find a list of titles eligible for Bonus Borrows in the carousel on the app or on the main page in the final week of each month.

No Effect on Other Services

We want to emphasize that these changes affect only Hoopla. Other online services, such as Libby, will not change or be affected. No rules are changing for those services.

We hope this post helps explain some of the reasons for the new parameters on Hoopla. Thank you for your support of Salem Township Library, and if you have questions about the new Hoopla limits, please contact us.