With big changes to Hoopla coming in the next few weeks, you might get questions similar to what we experienced when we changed lending limits in 2024 – namely, patrons wondering how exactly they’re supposed to keep track of the hundreds of book titles they’ve vaguely mentally filed away, promising themselves they’ll get to them one day. Now that Hoopla might not be so instantaneous, it might be a good time to remind them of a core feature in their Bibliocommons account to help people bookmark their planned checkouts: the For Later shelf.
Patrons can search any item in the catalog and, with a click of a button, add it to the shelf. The biggest benefit here, in the face of these Hoopla changes, is that all of the availability info is right next to this button, so it promotes physical library use if they’re unable to get this item through Hoopla.
Once books are added to your shelf, you can view your shelf and easily move items around once you’ve read them.
From this Manage Item menu, you can mark that books are completed or in progress, or remove it entirely from your shelves. You can also add tags to your books, which is what makes For Later your best option on Bibliocommons – you can create a “Hoopla wishlist” tag, so you can easily filter out everything else and just view the items you’re hoping to get on Hoopla in the near future.
Of course, Hoopla has its own bookmarking feature – you can add items to your favorites and view them through your profile. I don’t think this feature is utilized to its fullest potential: you can filter by audiobook or ebook, but otherwise you have to just scroll through all the items to find what you’re looking for, which is not ideal.
Hopefully it’s smooth sailing as we implement these changes, but it’s always helpful to remind patrons about existing features they can benefit from.
-Jaime, Penn Hills Library