I am a library lover to the core.
Whenever we’ve moved (which has been MANY times), getting a library card is one of my top priorities and I usually have it in hand even before I have a new drivers license.
And, naturally, I want to make sure I’m taking advantage of all the services my library offers.
One of those services is Hoopla.
If you’re new to Hoopla, here’s how it works!
Everything you should know about Hoopla
Hoopla is a digital service for libraries that provides access to audiobooks, ebooks, music, movies, and television.
You may already be familiar with Overdrive/Libby, which is one of the most common digital library services. Here’s how Overdrive and Hoopla are different.
Overdrive is a platform, and libraries are responsible for purchasing and adding content to their library’s Overdrive system.
So your library may have a very sad little collection of audiobooks or ebooks on Overdrive or your library might have an enormous, robust collection with many copies of the most popular titles. It’s 100% dependent on how much money your library chooses to allocate to their Overdrive selection.
Hoopla, on the other hand, is a standard set of materials. So as long as your library uses Hoopla, you’ll have pretty much the same materials in your Hoopla account as anyone else anywhere in the country (this isn’t 100% true, but close enough that most people won’t see a difference between their Hoopla catalog and another library’s Hoopla catalog).
The other main difference is that Overdrive materials work just like regular library books. There is a set number of copies and if they’re checked out, you’ll have to wait in a hold line until they’re returned.
Hoopla instead limits YOU to a certain number of checkouts per month (this number depends on your library – my current library limit is 5 Hoopla checkouts per month, but I’ve used libraries with a 3/month limit and others with a 15/month limit. Again, this is dependent on your library’s budget).
But because they’re limiting your number of checkouts, there aren’t hold lines – every item in the Hoopla library is available for checkout at any moment. You’ll never have to wait! This is one reason that people LOVE Hoopla.
You can favorite items on Hoopla so you don’t lose track of what you want to read, watch or listen to.
And you can turn on Kid settings so that only kid-friendly materials are shown in search results.
The length of checkout time varies depending on the material – movies are usually only checked out for 2-3 days, while audiobooks and ebooks are usually 14-21 days.
Does my library offer access to Hoopla?
So. . . .that all sounds great. Now how do you know if your library offers Hoopla?
If you want to use Hoopla, you can sign up for a free account. As part of that sign-up, it’ll use your current location to see if your library offers it (if it does, you just add your library card number and pin and you’re ready to roll!).
You can also look at this map which shows all the libraries that have Hoopla access.
If your library DOESN’T offer Hoopla, you can certainly request that they join.
What devices can I use Hoopla Digital on?
You can use Hoopla through a browser on your computer or tablet, or they have apps for the Apple store, Google Play, Amazon, Apple TV, Chromecast and more, so it’s really simple to use on any device you have.
The bad news is that it’s a pretty terrible skill – the reviews are awful and I’ve personally never been able to get it to work.
Have you used Hoopla? Or do you have questions about Hoopla works? I’d love to help!
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Photos by Heather Mildenstein
We love hoopla! My 7 yr old, especially, uses it so much to listen to the Boxcar Children every afternoon. I first read Boxcar with my son and then switched to the audiobooks after you wrote about how your kids liked them. Thank you!
I used to use Hoopla when the Salt Lake County Library had it, but it doesn’t look like there is currently much access in Utah. What library are you accessing it from?
I still have access through my North Carolina library card!
We love Hoopla! My library has 5 checkouts/month and we use it exclusively for audiobooks for the kids. We also use our Alexa devices to play Hoopla and have not had problems with that? We have to say, Alexa ask Hoopla to list my titles and then we select one to play. Hoopla only lets you listen on one device at a time, so if you are currently using your phone to listen to Hoopla, you won’t be able to listen on the Alexa. Otherwise, we’ve had good luck with it.
Does Hoopla work with a Kindle? Thanks!
Unfortunately no.
I just listened to all of the Harry Potter books via Hoopla! The wait was crazy long on Overdrive, so it was perfect to snag them from Hoopla.
We have sign-ins for all four people in our family on Hoopla. Here’s a tip for juggling multiple accounts that all need unique email addresses, which Hoopla does. We have one standard email address we use for things like this, and you can add the plus sign and then some extra characters before the @ sign to get a new “unique” email address that still goes to your standard email. Hoopla thinks it’s a new email address, but email providers (at least gmail) ignore anything after the plus sign so it still goes to your normal email.
I do this for my kids because they don’t have email of their own. So we have, for example, myemailaddress+p@gmail.com for a kid named Polly (not real) and myemailaddress+r@gmail.com for another kid (also not real). Each email is linked to their own library card, so this isn’t gaming the system to get extra checkouts, it’s just giving me easy-to-remember “unique” email addresses so I can easily sign the whole family up for Hoopla.
Gee, that’s a long explanation. Not sure if it’s helpful to anyone…
Super helpful! I’m definitely going to start doing this. Thanks for sharing!
How do I access audiobooks on Hoopla? Does my library just not offer them?