Author: backstage

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Holidays on Hoopla

We’ve been posting a lot about Hoopla recently – and for good reason! There’s so much available with no wait for library patrons! It’s all FREE for them with their Allegheny County library card.

And with Holidays on Hoopla, users can get great content to make their season merry & bright. From heartwarming Thanksgiving stories to enchanting Christmas adventures and the radiant glow of Hanukkah traditions, Hoopla has the perfect mix to entertain all ages and spirits high throughout the holiday season.

The Holiday Food & Entertaining collection has recipes, tips, and hosting inspo.

Holiday Entertaining

There’s kid-specific collections for Thanksgiving, Christmas & Hanukkah!

All collections

And what romance lover can resist the Countdown to Christmas Hallmark+ BingePass collection?!?

Hallmark+ BingePass

This is just a portion of the holiday & winter collections available! With these resources, you’ll find social media assets and flyers to spread the word about these great collections.

And if you’re looking for additional Hoopla promotional materials, you can find those in the full Hoopla Resource Center. There’s great content to share all year long!

-Richelle, Sewickley Public Library

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Hoopla “Bonus Borrows” has your Halloween horrors!

Did you forget to check out some creepy DVDs for your spooky party…and that old copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary just won’t cut it? BUT you also already used up all your borrows on Hoopla? Well don’t forget about “Bonus Borrows”!

Available the last week of the month for those of us who don’t plan ahead, these don’t cost one of your five checkouts and you can feel free to binge on them all! For the last week of October, it looks like Hoopla has us covered with plenty of screams & chills in their bonus movies selection.

– Heather Auman, Western Allegheny Community Library

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Craftsy on hoopla

While we are all familiar with Creativebug, there is another crafting site available for our patrons and that is Craftsy on hoopla.

There are hundreds of different types of crafts to learn with Craftsy. And several are available as BingePasses. They range from the basics of sewing, knitting or crocheting to artisan breadmaking, journaling and sketching.

Craftsy is a great compliment to Creativebug.

Tracy – Monroeville Public Library

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Family History Month with Ancestry.com

October is Family History Month, which makes it the perfect time to begin researching your family’s heritage using Ancestry.com. 

The database, available for in-library use, allows users to search census records, birth, marriage & death records, military records, newspapers, and other documents. There are billions of records available to search from all over the world. 

To get started, click Begin Searching, then enter in as much information as you can about your relative. 

The results will return a variety of formats, and numerous results that meet the criteria that you entered.

If the results that appear are not what you’re looking for, you can narrow down your search by using the filters along the side. These allow you to specify the document type that you are interested in, the location of the record(s), and the date that the records are from.

Some records have a family tree attached to them which can lead to other family members. This is not available for all records. Ancestry does allow for some documents to be printed, such as family trees and Census records. For others, printing of the original document is not available, instead users can get a print out of the information that was featured on the document.

Happy searching!

Erin, Bridgeville Public Library

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