Thursday, September 22, 2016

Challenge #4: recommend Hoopla to a patron!


This challenge gets right to the heart of what we do at OPL. This week, we're challenging you to recommend Hoopla to a patron! This can be at the reference desk, more casually on the floor, or even on your own social media account.



Your humble challenge-preparer (it me) often works on the ref desk in the Main Library Children's Room, and now that Hoopla's live, I find myself recommending it all the time! Whenever a family checks out a pile of movies, I tell them about Hoopla and show them how to find it on our website. The other day, I had an email from an org that resettles refugees that mentioned lots of families staying temporarily in hotels while waiting for permanent housing, and asking for help entertaining their B-O-R-E-D BORED kids. In addition to recommending they visit our branches, get cards, and check out books and toys, I mentioned that they could use Hoopla to download kids' movies to their smartphones (most have them) and watch them in their hotel rooms, where there is no wifi.

And how about you?

Report in the comments:
Where, when and to whom did you recommend Hoopla? How did they respond?

25 comments:

  1. I recommended Hoopla to a patron yesterday. She came in for an e-Book Help appointment to learn about Overdrive. She was feeling "out of the loop" among her friends for not knowing about OD sooner. After we covered everything about OD, I said: "Want to know another great way to download audio books?" In 2 minutes we had her account set up. She was impressed with how much simply it was compared to OD. Additionally, the first two books on the screen were exactly the two she wanted in OD but had to put on hold. I explained that she could start listening right away. She was ecstatic. She also beamed: "And now I know something my friends don't know yet. I can't wait to show them!"

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  2. Every day I seem to be signing up multiple patrons for library cards, and I always recommend our online services like Discover and Go and now Hoopla. The online services in general seem to take a lot of people by surprise, so it's great to get them excited about it.

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  3. I told the SRP iPad winner about it just yesterday! Since items are always available, I feel like it is a much easier sell than overdrive, especially for kids.

    I also found a book about foster parenting for another parent when we didn't have anything available at the branch. It was extra nice because the nonfiction available on Hoopla was much more recent than what I was finding as a regular book.

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  4. I don't generally work with patrons directly, but seriously (I wish I was kidding) I recommended it to my doctor because they were listening to bad music while I was in a somewhat compromised position with stirrups just the other day. Does that count? I also added Hoopla to our Your Library eresources bookmark, put it on the homepage of the website, and talked about it on our FB and Twitter page. I'm giving myself credit for this one. :)

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  5. I recommended Hoopla at the checkout desk to a patron who was checking out a Marvel comic last week. I told him about the selection, ability to read on the go and being able to read panel by panel. It was his first time to OPL and was really excited about the service! I gave him one of the new 'FREE with your library card' bookmarks and he left with a smile. -Rebekah R.

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  6. I told an english teacher whose classes I was visiting about Hoopla and she was interested because she's teaching using graphic novels. I got to demo Hoopla for the classes and they were told that reading on a tablet would be allowable for their "free reading" time. The teacher was excited that The Walking Dead was available because she had been watching the tv series and had been meaning to read the books.

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  7. I recommended it to a friend that likes to play audio books for this kids to listen to during breakfast. Before this he was downloading a lot to his phone. His kids are 4 and 2 and the Magic Tree House books are good for both.

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  8. I recommend it ALL THE TIME at work, and I demoed it for a friend who loves graphic novels, when she was at my house. She mentioned a title (I forget what) and Hoopla had it! So I was one of the cool kids for like 5 seconds and that was fun. (Margaret)

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  9. I demonstrated it to my one-on-one ebook help appointment patron today. FUN.

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  10. I usually am not working directly with patrons, but i did recommend it to some friends at a soccer game. They seemed very interested in trying it out--it is not a hard sell at all!

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  11. I've recommended it to a few patrons. One man in particular was really excited about being able to stream tv-shows and movies as he'd recently had to cancel Netflix. Between Overdrive and Hoopla he'll still have access to content. Now if we could just up the limit....

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  12. I recommended Hoopla to a brand new patron today at the Circ Desk after she got a new card. She was asking questions about Overdrive and I asked if she knew about Hoopla. She didn't, so I gave her a quick tour of the site. She got excited when she saw that you could check out graphic novels. She said she was going to go home and check it out more today. Success!

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  13. I'm working on an eresources bookmark for teens with Tom and have Hoopla listed. I had one of my volunteers look over the bookmark draft to see what she thought and if it had enough "teen appeal". She saw the hoopla section and got very excited about the resources! I did a quick tutorial with her on my phone and she said she couldn't wait to log in.- Xochitl

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  14. I recommend hoopla to teens who are the ones who use more their tablets, laptops and of course phones. I let them know that they can watch movies for free which they love and also read on the go.

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  15. I informed a friend and former library employee about hoopla and helped her set it up on her tablet.

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  16. I informed a friend and former library employee about hoopla and helped her set it up on her tablet.

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  17. I recommended it to a patron who was excited about being able to use the library wifi to download it and then actually watch the movie at home.

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  18. Hoopla promotional materials arrived just before Thursday Toddler Time at Golden Gate - at least 19 adults are now aware of Hoopla at OPL

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  19. oh and I posted about Hoopla on Nextdoor... the following week an elderly woman who hadn't been to the library in 10 years come in with her iphone looking for help on downloading/using Hoopla

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  20. We have e-book/device help sessions on Saturdays at the Dimond Branch that are lead by one of our staff members, Alice McCain. I recently had a woman come in asking me for help with her holds on Overdrive. After I helped her I showed her Hoopla on my phone and signed her up for an appointment on Saturday to work with Alice more in-depth. She was so excited about being able to download a movie to watch later.

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  21. I gave a tour of Main's first floor to a group of teens yesterday. When pointing out the graphic novel collection, I made sure to mention hoopla, its graphic novels AND of course the music/movies/books component.

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  22. Hey Remy! There isn't, and it's something I've mentioned to them. The best thing to do is look under categories in each topic, and you'll see some language collections--for example, Movies have the categories Chinese Cinema, French Film, Hindi Language, and Spanish Language.

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  23. I've recommended Hoopla to a few people. I find it easier to explain than overdrive. Just download the app and login, then watch stuff or download it and watch it at home!

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  24. recommended to patron who was updating her card. she hadn't heard about hoopla before.

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  25. I recommended it to a mom who comes every week with her kids. She doesn't have internet at home, and she says she doesn't have it on her phone. It was the end of the day, so we were rushed, but I'd like to follow up with her and see if we can download to her phone -- they are totally the target for this.

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