It’s that time of year again where avid gardeners are planning out their summer designs. Did you know that Libby and Hoopla has a large collection of Gardening materials?
https://libbyapp.com/search/acla/search/query-Gardening/subject-31/page-1
https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=gardening
Next time a patron asks for gardening books, don’t forget to check out the e-resources and all they have available!
Gabi – Robinson Library
This week is more of a life improvement tip than a professional pick-me-up. As (most of us, I assume) are residents of the wonderful Allegheny County, we are entitled to a lot of electronic library resources—particularly the titles available in Libby. Despite the best efforts of the DRC, some titles are simply too popular, and waitlists can sometimes extend into weeks and months. Sure, you could just find another book to listen to/read, but wouldn’t it be nice to have even more options for borrowing?
Enter the Free Library of Philadelphia.
But wait—we do not live in Philadelphia, how is this relevant? To answer, I would like to emphasize this paragraph from the Free Library’s website:
“A Free Library card is available at no cost to anyone who lives, works, pays taxes, or goes to school in the City of Philadelphia. In addition, anyone who lives in the state of Pennsylvania can obtain a Free Library card without charge.”
This would be a great time to mention a user can load several library cards onto their Libby account. My most recent and favorite success is South to America by Imani Perry. Recommended by a coworker, I was disappointed to see the waitlist extending into the double-digit number of weeks. But, with my handy-dandy Free Library of Philadelphia card, all was not lost:
The process for getting the card was simple and painless, and you can get started HERE. Because I am not a Philadelphia resident, the approval took a little longer (a few days) than for a typical Philly-dweller. Having two large libraries’ worth of electronic resources is proving a vast quality of life improvement.
I am curious if you have any hacks you have learned over your years in the greater PA library system! Please email me at smithc2@einetwork.net if you have any issues getting a Philadelphia card or want to swap tricks.
Happy reading.
Cameron R.S. Smith – Cooper-Siegel Community Library
As always, updates are plentiful in OverDrive land! The sun has officially set on the WMA and WMV formats, with a few exceptions. It turns out that the deadline spurred a few audio publishers into action and we have a few WMA stragglers that will stick around for conversion to MP3 by mid-June.
There were some WMA titles with active holds and those patrons have received an e-mail notification that their hold will not be fulfilled. We will also be receiving a list of the WMA titles in our collection and will be checking for a supported format that we can purchase.
OverDrive Listen has also arrived. Like OverDrive Read, OverDrive Listen allows patrons to listen to audiobooks directly in their browser, rather than downloading the files onto their device. You can also still bookmark, notate, and highlight as with downloaded files. Find more information about this new format in the OverDrive help pages.
Starting June 1, there is more happening on the holds front as well. Patrons can now get a better idea of how long they’ll be waiting for requests. Rather than the total number of holds for a title, they will see a whole number ratio that represents the number of holds per copy.
And, finally, there’s more news about OverDrive’s new “Dyslexic font” option. Starting on June 1, patrons will have the option to enable this font through their account settings on the OverDrive site itself. This heavier-weighted font increases readability for patrons with dyslexia. The feature, when turned on, will work site-wide.
Jeff, South Park
Guess what! Patrons can now select audio books as part (or all) of their monthly allotment of eight Hoopla titles. No more fielding confused inquiries about why that format isn’t enabled.
The circulation period for audio books is 21 days. As with the other formats (video and music), patrons can stream the content in their browser or use the Hoopla app to stream or download.
A link has been added to the countywide eResources landing page and the annotation has been updated. The changes are being made to the CLP website too.
In other Hoopla news, there is some exciting new video content available, including:
(I’ll watch anything with Paul Rudd or Don Cheadle.)
TAKE NOTE: Some of these newer movies have a loan period of two days rather than three.
I hope you and your patrons are enjoying Hoopla. Feel free to share your favorite Hoopla content in the comments.
Sarah (CLP)