The Death of Digital Media Services

Hoopla and Libby Are Going the Way of the Microfiche

Hello, readers.

It’s been a while. I tore my distal biceps tendon and for a while, the muscles in the two parts of my left arm were no longer connected. It made writing articles on Substack and satirical briefs and bulletins on Instagram next to impossible.

If interested, this is what happened to my arm:

As you can see, a healthy tendon should not be completely torn.

After surgery about a month ago, I was basically not allowed to use my arm. Even typing with my left hand was not possible, since stretching to reach the “Q” line on the keyboard put a strain on the muscles in my forearm.

And you know I love my “Q” words—quail, quiet, queue, etc.

And believe you me, the last thing I wanted to do was have to go through that surgery again due to microtears.

So, all my creative output the last few weeks has been reserved for my right hand only, making obscure literary memes and writing “witty” comments on other account’s posts. God save us.

Needless to say, it’s good to be back.

While in recovery for the last month, I even found it difficult to hold a book open, so I’ve even neglected my TBR pile (which is piling up and now bears a resemblance to a load-bearing beam).

That means I have been doing a ton of audiobooking (I’m not sure that’s a proper gerund, but let’s go with it for now).

I’ve been listening to The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert and I just finished Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things for my book club.

Both of these books were streamed from Libby, a free service through my local library that allows me to borrow ebooks and audiobooks. I also regularly use Hoopla, another digital media service offered by my public library, but this time, I can also check out movies, music, and comics. I’ve recently downloaded The Palace Project, as well, which has quickly become my favorite of all the formats. Check it out and download it now, but more on this later.

Now if you’re like me, you juggle both digital and physical media and have a healthy diet of both based on your preferences and situation. For example, I would rather read a physical nonfiction book before bed, but listen to fiction on audiobook as I do chores around the house. However, I also enjoy nonfiction audiobooks when I’m at the gym, and often will read a brand new fiction books in their physical form on vacation.

I absolutely loathe ebooks and avoid them like middle school kids avoid summer reading.

So that might mean on one given month, I am reading more physical books than audiobooks, but based on the situation, there are times I might listen to more audiobooks.

The point being here that there are times when I will not utilize Libby or Hoopla for months at a time. This was the case before my unfortunate injury. I was reading both H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and Sunrise on the Reaping, the latest installment of the Hunger Games series.

So now it’s the end of May; I’m looking to load up on digital content while on the mend because I can’t hold a book up for more than a few minutes. I’m hoping to maximize the borrowing capabilities of both apps, but something seems different.

I noticed that literally all of the borrowing limits, holds, and load periods have changed or been adjusted on both Libby and Hoopla. Drastically so on Hoopla.

So what the heck happened?

Within the last few months, the two major library media streaming services have all had to change the ways that they do business. Hoopla had planned for quite some time to change their business payment models, but the changes to Libby is a direct result of federal funding cuts.

First time you are hearing about these budget cuts? I wrote about them at length in my article in March titled “You’re Library is Under Attack.” Read more here. In this article I explain the real reason why DOGE dismantled the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

And if you’re wondering why Trump fired the Librarian of Congress, that’s easy: he’s a racist prick. Please do not believe the Queen of Spin, Karoline Leavitt, when she says that the Librarian of Congress was “putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” Somebody please tell her that the Library of Congress is a research and copyright library, not a place where kids can go to check out books.

Anyways, let’s focus on Hoopla, since the restructuring of their payment plans with libraries started long before the Trump administration’s DOGE cuts.

First, let’s start with their ridiculously high fees. Libraries pay a fee to the publisher each time a user borrows content (e.g., eBooks, audiobooks, movies), which can become very unsustainable as usage increases. This is a pay-per-use model which can lead to unpredictable costs. How can a library properly budget for this year to year? Libraries face increasing pressure on their budgets, and the cost of Hoopla can be a significant strain, especially when combined with other rising costs and inflation.

Now, larger library systems or consortiums that previously supported Hoopla access for smaller libraries are sometimes ending their support due to the increasing costs, leaving individual libraries to make difficult decisions about whether to continue offering Hoopla.

As a result, most libraries have started by decreasing the borrowing limit for Hoopla. As for my own library, you can now only check out 5 items per month. It doesn’t matter if you accidentally borrow something or immediately return it because the audiobook narrator sucks, Hoopla is getting paid the moment you click “borrow.”

Lately, things haven’t been going well for Hoopla. Libraries all across the country have made adjustments or decreased their loan agreements, but most have just dropped it all together.

Here is the statement from a library in a neighboring town from where I live, which is actually quite helpful in breaking down the payment model.

“We know this decision will disappoint our Hoopla users. However, we are the latest in a string of libraries to discontinue Hoopla due to its unsustainable lending model.

It seems counterintuitive, but eBooks cost libraries far more than physical books. In the case of Hoopla, its hefty price tag is because of its cost-per-transaction business model. Hoopla charges the library every time a patron borrows an item. An item can cost up to $3. You can imagine how quickly this adds up for libraries.”

I applaud the director for calling out Hoopla specifically. Later in her statement, she says that the money the library will be saving will be reallocated to Libby (their competitor) and the purchasing of new titles in print.

Wait, weren’t ebooks supposed to be the future of publishing? Well, not anymore I guess. Seems like publishers got a little too greedy with their licensing agreements. What a blow to the entire industry.

But at least now you have Libby, right? Libraries can handle their predictable and manageable costs, right? RIGHT?

Not so fast.

If you don’t know, Libby is an app provided by OverDrive, who provides the underlying platform and content. Libby is the “user-friendly” app created to streamline the process of borrowing digital content, functioning as the digital portal to a library's collection of digital media. And it’s a great app: when you login, you have your bookshelf and your magazine rack. Loans and Holds are clearly marked and readily available; searching content is as easy as setting a filter or typing in a book/author.

Seems to good to be true, right?

Well, Libby has a more sustainable payment model and comes at a lower cost to the library, but prices for these platforms are increasing at a time when a lot of budgets are under review or being totally slashed.

Since most libraries in the United States pay for technology with federal funding, a majority of those libraries will now have to either fund their digital content collections through their already tight budgets or year-to-year state funding.

Your library might not get affected, you little rich, entitled asshole, but libraries in low-income or rural parts of the country might not be able to afford their computers, internet, or content streaming (all probably fall under the technology category) now that IMLS is no longer going to receive federal funding. While Libby itself is free to users, its content and functionality are dependent on libraries' ability to acquire and maintain digital resources.

I know of several libraries in my area that are being forced to make changes to Libby. One in particular recently released the following memo concerning their digital offerings due to budget cuts:

Federal funding pays for the platform Libby, which is used to access over 680,000 titles statewide. Funding to purchase ebooks and audiobooks has been reduced. It may be more difficult to borrow titles through Libby. Wait times will likely increase, and the selection of available titles will likely decrease.

As for my own library, I recently interviewed a librarian who did not want to be named in this article. She said that there have been some really difficult conversations about deciding how to use the dwindling elicense budget, and the director has also flirted with the idea to layoff part-time staff as a way to make up for the shortfall. For her library, there has been no talk of reallocating money from Hoopla into Libby, since there probably is no money to allocate at all in the first place.

So what now? First, check your library to see how federal funding cuts have affected your library. Your loan limits and lending periods might have changed recently, or your library might be dropping Hoopla all together before the fiscal year.

If so, check to see if your library has a partnership with The Palace Project (Yay! I didn’t forget to swing back and talk about it), but it might depend on what state you live in.

What is The Palace Project? According to The Palace Project website, who took its name from the idea that libraries are the “Palace of the People,” their goal is to “support public libraries in their mission to provide equitable access to digital content, while restoring the direct relationship between library and patron.”

The Palace Project app allows patrons to checkout items like other similar services, but its most significant feature is the ability to combine content from multiple e-content vendors (OverDrive, Baker & Taylor, LYRASIS [the main host of the content]) into one app, rather than having to switch between multiple apps.

Notice that OverDrive (the Libby company) even integrates with The Palace Project. Is that a sign of the future death of Libby? While OverDrive is still committed to hosting their content on Libby first and foremost, in the future, it might seem redundant.

So why might libraries be migrating over to The Palace Project? Well, let’s get right to the heart of the matter (and this article)—it is free to all libraries within the participating states. If you live in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington, you’re good! Download it. Use it. Enjoy it.

Each state can create a general “core collection,” that can hopefully provide e-content (mainly ebooks and audiobooks) for everyone. And hopefully, librarians are being a little more choosy now with their funds.

One drawback for users might be that finding a specific title may not always be possible. Restrictive publisher licenses and prohibitive costs means that a collection that is everything to everyone—while also avoiding long hold lists—requires exponentially more funding than is available and may not be the best use of taxpayer dollars.

So you might not be able to download the latest hot trashy beach read, but you can certainly find Pride and Prejudice, which is essentially the first great trashy beach read.

Therefore, libraries are focusing on purchasing and maintaining digital content that has perpetual licenses, since non-federal funding is usually one-time money; there is no guarantee that money will be available for these types of purchased each year.

If the publishers had their way, their licensing model would force the library to repurchase the entire collection again every two years, and publishers charge libraries much more for these titles than they do for individuals. I don’t think I have to say this, but just in case, paying for the same books over and over is exploitative and is not sustainable.

And as you now know, the federal government does that think that supporting libraries is a good or necessary use of their funds since an educated citizen is not in their best interests.