Starting May 1, IPDPL cardholders using hoopla will see some service changes. Due to a combination of factors, the library is reducing the number of hoopla checkouts to three (3) items per library card per month. Cardholders will still have full access to the complete catalog of eBooks, audiobooks, movies, TV shows, and more that hoopla has to offer.
This decision was not made lightly. We know hoopla is a valuable service for our cardholders, and we understand that this change may be disappointing. Unfortunately, rising usage and increasing costs have made it necessary to reduce the number of monthly checkouts in order to keep hoopla available to our community.
These material costs can be best explained as ‘owning vs. renting’. When the library buys materials (like books, movies, Playaways, and more), there is a one-time cost for that item. The item gets added to our permanent collection and can be checked out repeatedly with no additional expense to the library. Hoopla charges the library a fee each time a cardholder borrows or renews a title, whether it is an audiobook, eBook, Binge Pass, or any of the other items hoopla has to offer. The fees for each item vary, ranging from $0.49 per checkout to $3.99 per checkout, with audiobooks being the most expensive.
The issue with hoopla’s ‘pay-per-use’ model is that the more popular the service becomes, the harder it is to control the budget and the more expensive it is to maintain. From 2023 to 2024, the number of items checked out from hoopla increased by 34%, while the cost of those items increased by 42%. The library’s average monthly expense for hoopla in 2023 was $2,106. That cost increased to $2,992 in 2024. For 2025, we are averaging $3,200 per month for hoopla. If we were to continue at that expense level, we would exceed our annual hoopla budget by the end of May.
Even though cardholders will be limited to three checkouts per month, most cardholders will not notice a reduction in services. On average, only about one-third of IPDPL’s cardholders access materials through hoopla, and most of those cardholders do not use all their available checkouts each month. Lowering the number of checkouts will allow us to continue to offer hoopla as a service while controlling overall costs.
IPDPL wants to continue to offer hoopla to our patrons, but it is not the only service available for digital materials. eBooks, audiobooks, videos, and more are available through an entire suite of platforms available for free with your IPDPL library card, including Boundless, Ebsco’s eBook collections, Kanopy, Libby, Teen Book Cloud, and Tumble Book Library, to name a few.
The checkout changes outlined here only affect hoopla usage. Checkout limits and guidelines for all other digital platforms remain unchanged. Additionally, hoopla’s Bonus Borrows program will continue to offer unlimited checkouts from a select catalog of titles for the last seven days of each month at no additional cost to the library. We encourage patrons to explore the Bonus Borrows section each month, especially those who have used their three checkouts already.
While the new checkout limit may inconvenience some users, lowering the limit is necessary for us to maintain a sustainable level of use for our entire library community. We will continue to monitor use and costs to keep hoopla available within the library budget.
Please reach out to library staff if you have any questions or need help with hoopla or any of our other digital platforms. IPDPL will continue to offer our How to Library series of programs that explore and offer guidance for the resources available through our Digital Library. Please visit the Events Calendar on our website for more information on these programs.
Thank you for your understanding.