Core Ebooks Interest Group

Hi all!

My library system was preparing to implement Hoopla in January, but after attending the Wisconsin Library Association conference and listening to Alison Macrina's presentation, Holding Library Vendors Accountable to Privacy and Information Equity Values, we are reconsidering our decision. We are delaying our system-wide Hoopla implementation until know more about how Hoopla adds content to its collections and what control we have over the items found in those collections. If you are unfamiliar with Allison's work with the Library Freedom Project, here is a link to some of that work. Here is a very brief presentation one of my consultants put together for our library system when looking into this issue. 

If your library or system provides Hoopla, I'd be interested to know if you've had conversations with patrons, staff or Hoopla about misinformation, non-inclusive content or content from hate groups within the resource, and how you are curating your content and collection development policies.  I'm especially interested to know if you've reached out to Hoopla about their practices and policies.

Thank you! 

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Sherry Machones
She/Her/Hers
Library System Director
Northern Waters Library System
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Alison is fantastic!

I did email Hoopla and Overdrive previously about that content and push back on their adding so much material with little to no review of it. I think the more customers who can discuss this with them, the better.

You can curate all of the content in your Hoopla collections and filter out any material that you don't want to offer your customers. Many libraries filter by price, but you can remove specific titles as well if they don't align with your collection development policies.

Jessica Russell
Assistant Director, Collection Services
sno-isle.org

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Jessica Russell
Assistant Director, Collection Services
Sno-isle Libraries
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Original Message:
Sent: Nov 30, 2022 10:20 AM
From: Sherry Machones
Subject: Problematic content in Hoopla

Hi all!

My library system was preparing to implement Hoopla in January, but after attending the Wisconsin Library Association conference and listening to Alison Macrina's presentation, Holding Library Vendors Accountable to Privacy and Information Equity Values, we are reconsidering our decision. We are delaying our system-wide Hoopla implementation until know more about how Hoopla adds content to its collections and what control we have over the items found in those collections. If you are unfamiliar with Allison's work with the Library Freedom Project, here is a link to some of that work. Here is a very brief presentation one of my consultants put together for our library system when looking into this issue. 

If your library or system provides Hoopla, I'd be interested to know if you've had conversations with patrons, staff or Hoopla about misinformation, non-inclusive content or content from hate groups within the resource, and how you are curating your content and collection development policies.  I'm especially interested to know if you've reached out to Hoopla about their practices and policies.

Thank you! 

------------------------------
Sherry Machones
She/Her/Hers
Library System Director
Northern Waters Library System
------------------------------