Free Library of Philadelphia discontinuing remote memberships

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

I get it. When you look at what the publishers charge for a single license, $50 doesn't go that far and you have to assume that those who pay for a card are at least relatively heavy users.

I borrow a lot of audiobooks through their Hoopla portal.

Still, if FLP wanted to cut back on the wait times, the obvious change would be to limit borrows to two weeks and not three.

Cutting off a source of revenue seems counterintuitive. But I'll take it on faith that this move makes sense for FLP.

Hoopla and Freading were the two options that kept me with FLP long after I was annoyed with the paucity of Overdrive selections.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I just realized that raising the price may have issues. Profitable borrowers, who only take out a few titles a year, would drop out, leaving you with those who borrow so frequently as to make profitability impossible, even at a much higher price.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Cutting off a source of revenue seems counterintuitive. But I'll take it on faith that this move makes sense for FLP.

I think SteveEisenberg's point might be part of it

[mitford13]

Never paid that much attention to the costs of these kind of long distance memberships (very, very lucky with my local libraries), but usually when I see ALA comments (complaints) about new-release book licenses they’re in the $60+ range per license. Not sure about Freading, but I also saw articles about Hoopla a while back that it was so unexpectedly popular the usage fees were wiping out library budgets early in the year and they had to throttle back user checkouts. Or cancel the service. I just can’t imagine the $50 fees from out of state could even be break-even. From a tax payer’s POV I would not be thrilled if my library offered those types of membership - that could be another pushback that Philadelphia is seeing.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Cutting off a source of revenue seems counterintuitive. But I'll take it on faith that this move makes sense for FLP.

Hoopla and Freading were the two options that kept me with FLP long after I was annoyed with the paucity of Overdrive selections.

Just for fun, I decided to take a quick and ad hoc look at a few numbers. Googling gave me a Hachette price of $84 on a library license for a book which retails for $14.99. Amortizing this over a year gives $1.60 week. A paid patron who reads two per week costs $300, or $250 net. The breakeven is at about 30 books a year, or two and a half per month. Even the maximum borrows of six books at a time kept for the maximum three weeks would result in about 100 books per year.

I did say this was ad hoc! There are a lot of factors involved both in the aggregate and per account, and I admit that using the Hachette license price on new books scales the dollar figure up significantly (it ignores books that are cheaper or whose costs have been entirely amortized), but I think it does show the potential for colossal losses on individual customers. This ties into both Steve's point about paid patrons who seek to maximize their use and Catlady's about FLP knowing the costs of servicing paid patrons.

I'll add that the timing, at the same time at the Macmillan embargo, strikes me as suggestive. I suspect it led FLP to take a long and hard look at the demand and the waitlists for new books. It's entirely possible that this is a sop to their local patrons, who'll see a shorter waiting list on the single Macmillan copy in the first eight weeks.

I suppose I was part of the problem in that case, as my m.o. is always to put holds at all my libraries on the new stuff I want and then I wait and see which lands first.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by mitford13

Never paid that much attention to the costs of these kind of long distance memberships (very, very lucky with my local libraries), but usually when I see ALA comments (complaints) about new-release book licenses they’re in the $60+ range per license. Not sure about Freading, but I also saw articles about Hoopla a while back that it was so unexpectedly popular the usage fees were wiping out library budgets early in the year and they had to throttle back user checkouts. Or cancel the service. I just can’t imagine the $50 fees from out of state could even be break-even. From a tax payer’s POV I would not be thrilled if my library offered those types of membership - that could be another pushback that Philadelphia is seeing.

You made my point while I was typing, but I'll add that entirely coincidentally earlier this week I asked my local library if they could add Hoopla to their electronic offerings, as some of the bigger area towns have. Nope! Too expensive (which is what I expected to hear, but I figured it couldn't hurt to put in the request).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

I understand why they're making this call and FLP OD has gone downhill, however, they're my only source for Hoopla and I borrow a ton of audiobooks there.

Can't you use Hoopla through Minuteman Library or Boston Public Library (the REAL BPL)?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can't you use Hoopla through Minuteman Library or Boston Public Library (the REAL BPL)?

BPL eliminated the audiobook component of Hoopla some time back and replaced it with RBDigital (which I don't like nearly as much).

As for Minuteman, however, I just assumed that my partner libraries would restrict other digital services to their own patrons according to the same logic that has patrons jump partners on hold lists (I've been stuck at fourth place on one list since last June!), but I have to admit I never looked into it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

BPL eliminated the audiobook component of Hoopla some time back and replaced it with RBDigital (which I don't like nearly as much).

As for Minuteman, however, I just assumed that my partner libraries would restrict other digital services to their own patrons according to the same logic that has patrons jump partners on hold lists (I've been stuck at fourth place on one list since last June!), but I have to admit I never looked into it.

To be honest, I don't know how, but somehow I'm no longer using Hoopla through FLP. I used to be using it that way. Now I'm using it with another library.

I'll try a different library and see what happens.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

BPL eliminated the audiobook component of Hoopla some time back and replaced it with RBDigital (which I don't like nearly as much).

As for Minuteman, however, I just assumed that my partner libraries would restrict other digital services to their own patrons according to the same logic that has patrons jump partners on hold lists (I've been stuck at fourth place on one list since last June!), but I have to admit I never looked into it.

Given that have have a BPL card, can't you get a Minuteman Library card? I just logged in to Hoopla via Minuteman and audiobooks are available.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by ElspethB

Oh dear. I hope other libraries don't follow suit. I borrow a lot from Brooklyn Public Library.

I had a good couple of years of remote membership of FLP, then I let it lapse as I was not using it so much. There were some prolific authors that I could not borrow from UK libraries, so I read my way through a big wish list

it would be good to know, though, what other big libraries still offer pay-for memberships options for non USA residents.
being able to join a usa library makes it possible to borrow kindle formats, which cant be done in other countries

[haertig]

If I were a local Philadelphian and found out that I was having to wait longer for eBooks because outsiders were borrowing a bunch, even if they were paying, I'd be a little pissed about that. The only upside for a local would be if the outsiders payments were buying a larger selection of eBooks to choose from. Of more copies of each eBook so that wait times were lower. I imagine that neither of these is the case in Philadelphia, which is why they made the change and killed remote memberships.

So while I would love to see a great number of remote libraries that would let me join, I can understand why they are few and far between.

[stumped]

I've been called worse things than " outsider"

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Given that have have a BPL card, can't you get a Minuteman Library card? I just logged in to Hoopla via Minuteman and audiobooks are available.

I took a look at the Minuteman site and it seems Hoople is tied to the individual member libraries, so someone who gets a card who isn't a resident of one of those towns won't be able to access it (and apparently not all the member libraries provide it to their patrons anyway which is the story at my local library within the state consortium). Good thought, but no joy. Fortunately, it hasn't become pressing for me.

[mitford13]

Originally Posted by issybird

I took a look at the Minuteman site and it seems Hoople is tied to the individual member libraries, so someone who gets a card who isn't a resident of one of those towns won't be able to access it (and apparently not all the member libraries provide it to their patrons anyway which is the story at my local library within the state consortium). Good thought, but no joy. Fortunately, it hasn't become pressing for me.

It’s a shame but maybe they’ll reassess down the line - definitely an ‘interesting’ time for libraries trying to balance digital vs paper demand...and the costs! My home library only had Hoopla for music but that seems gone now. They do have audiobooks via RBdigital but I don’t read those so don’t know how good that service is. Did just discover I can get Acorn TV via RBdigital, which was a pleasant surprise though I don’t watch a lot of TV.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

I took a look at the Minuteman site and it seems Hoople is tied to the individual member libraries, so someone who gets a card who isn't a resident of one of those towns won't be able to access it (and apparently not all the member libraries provide it to their patrons anyway which is the story at my local library within the state consortium). Good thought, but no joy. Fortunately, it hasn't become pressing for me.

I used to live in Lexington and Brookline. But even after moving from Brookline, I was still able to keep my library card.

I lived in Lexington and then moved out of state. When I moved back to MA, I eventually moved to Brookline and got my library card once again. Then I moved yet again and was still able to keep my library card.

For MA libraries, I have Library cards from BPL, Minuteman, Sails, C/W Mars, MVLC, OCLN, and Noble.