We have not grappled with eBooks in awhile. The pastor of one of our new members wants eBooks in the collection. Those of you who have experience with having eBooks in your church’s collection: would you share your recommendations as well as experience? Click here for all our previous posts about eBooks. Perhaps some of you can update information you find in these posts.
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I love the idea of suggesting Hoopla to people. I find it to be a great resource for myself!
I have no desire to try to have ebooks available through our library, mainly because of expense (based on my conversations with my public library's librarians).
These days many books of interest to church libraries, from conservative to more progressive congregations, are available through the Hoopla service supplied by Midwest Tape exclusively to public libraries. The advantage to Hoopla books is that an unlimited number of copies of a title can be checked out simultaneously.
https://www.hoopladigital.com/home
Whenever I am publicizing a book owned by my congregation's library I also check to see if it may be available to borrow through the local public library's Hoopla account. If so I publicize this information as well, and provide a direct link to the title in the Hoopla database.
Hoopla supplies both ebooks and audiobooks. The public library providing the service pays a fee to the provider each time an item is checked out rather than having to purchase it while estimating future demand. Each library also determines the monthly limit on checkouts per library card, depending on their budget and anticipated level of use.
Using the Advanced Search within Hoopla, you can search by publisher's name for those publishers you typically acquire for your library. Among those religious publishers whose ebooks--AND/OR audiobooks--are available through Hoopla are Baker Books, Tyndale, HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Zondervan, Chalice Press, Eerdmans, Broadleaf Books, Church Publishing, and Westminster John Knox. These are the ones I've identified. You may find others as well.
Even if you choose not to publicize Hoopla titles to your congregation, the service provides a useful way for church librarians to evaluate some titles before making purchase decisions.