Are you looking for a great way to keep track of all of the shows and movies you’ve watched? Or is one of your patrons wondering which streaming service has all 22 seasons of Midsomer Murders? Then JustWatch might be the site/app for you and your patrons.
It’s also a great way to find something new to watch. The main page features different categories to scroll through.
But the big selling point to JustWatch is seeing which streaming services carry the show or movie you are looking for. What is really nice about JustWatch is that, even if you don’t sign up for an account, you can still find this information.
Another great feature, is that includes services like hoopla and kanopy, not just the major subscription based services. And the site clearly shows whether a title is available to buy or rent and how much that will cost.
If you’ve ever assisted a patron with an interlibrary loan request, then you know that it can sometimes be a challenge to find bibliographic information about the item that they want. The website WorldCat is a great solution. WorldCat connects you to more than 10,000 libraries worldwide and searches a number of different formats, including DVDs, CDs, and articles.
When you open the record of an item, it lists the Author, Publisher, ISBN, and OCLC number. For DVDs, the record also lists the actors who starred in a film or TV show, which can be helpful when there are multiple records with the same title. From there, you can simply copy and paste the information into the ILL form.
The thing about holiday collections in libraries is that for the one month of the year that they are featured, they are in such high-demand that our shelves clear out. (An excellent problem to have!) So how do we supplement our physical collections with available holiday content? Answer: hoopla!
Unlike other digital collections, hoopla materials are always available. When staff direct patrons to the resource, we can rest assured that the suggested title we recommend will be there. And fortunately, hoopla makes it even easier to recommend titles with curated holiday collections!
From Halloween to Christmas, hoopla supplies curated content to fit the needs and whims of library patrons of all ages. Not only does hoopla provide quality content in convenient collections, but they also offer marketing tools & social media assets to make it easy to promote to your patrons!
The holiday promo tools include flyers, social media images, and links to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas & holiday Bonus Borrows collections. There is even a link to examples of library social media posts to make your library’s promotions that much easier!
Find the links for posters, Facebook, Instagram & Twitter graphics next to each collection.
Go ahead and stick printed flyers out with your physical holiday collections to promote these always available collections!
I personally enjoy the digital catalog of holiday collections on hoopla. Brings me back to flipping through holiday store catalogs as a child and circling all of the toys I wanted, but now it’s all the books and movies I want to check out. It even links directly to the content in hoopla, making it a one-stop-shop! You can share the link to the catalog directly with your patrons in your social posts or on your website.
Need more promo ideas? Head to the hoopla resources page for additional marketing tools & assets. They provide a vast array of promo materials for any time of year. And don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page because there is a ton of info there, too! I find the Quarter Assets to be especially helpful because they highlight timely themes (e.g. Cookbook Month in October, National Native American Heritage Month in November, etc.)
True confession time…my favorite website is IMDB. I can lose all track of time clicking from movie to movie and list to list.
I love it that after a search and a click, I can see what other movies a particular actor or actress was in that is currently driving me bonkers.
I love it that I can see the entire list of Halloween films in order with summaries when another one comes out and I need a refresher of the franchise.
I love it that I can quickly see what is playing at my favorite theater, buy tickets, and be on my way to two hours of losing myself in a film.
I also love it that it is super helpful when patrons call with similar questions and a healthy obsession with their favorites.
