Hello:
We are getting ready to launch a new digital media service
for the public. It is called hoopla and will include streaming and downloadable
movies, TV shows, audiobooks and music. Before you get too excited about the
video I should let you know that it includes mainly older, non-blockbuster
movies and nonfiction TV shows. The studios are still hesitant to work with
public libraries so this is an experiment to see if this model will work for
studios and libraries alike. Whether eventually we will be allowed to provide
access to the more popular titles remains to be seen. The music studios,
however, are very excited about the new model and all the major studios except
for Sony are providing full catalogs. This means you can get current Billboard
hits to checkout. Checkout periods for video is 72 hours, music is 7 days and
audiobooks is 21 days. After that time period the customer will no longer have
access to the title and any download will be “returned”.
We will start by offering customers 4 check outs, regardless
of format, per a month. To understand why we are offering so few check outs,
you have to know a bit about the hoopla model. Hoopla charges the library per
check out. Prices range from $0.99 to $2.99 per title. We have set money aside
for hoopla for the rest of the fiscal year and don’t want to go through all the
hoopla deposit early on. Hopefully once we have been doing this for a few
months we will get a better feel for the usage and be able to adjust the number
of check outs accordingly.
We are planning to do a “soft” launch of hoopla next week.
This means that we will put it on the website for customers to use, but won’t
advertise it. Beginning of January we will start promoting the service among
our customers. This week I would like you to explore hoopla and try using one
of your check outs. The hoopla website is www.hoopladigital.com.
You will need your library card to sign up and get started. While it would be
nice for you to plunge straight into hoopla as the library customers will do,
there is a hoopla webpage on the Staff Training Portal. The direct URL to the
website is https://sites.google.com/site/hplstafftraining/learningresources/libraryfunctions/hoopla.
There are basic instructions, videos and FAQs. The webpage, especially
the FAQs, are a work in progress so please be patient with us as we finish.
Sincerely,
Marianne Lorio
Multimedia Specialist
Houston Public Library
832-393-1514
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