TORONTO – The Toronto Public Library has introduced a free service that allows customers to download or stream thousands of movies and songs.
With just a library card, customers may access Hoopla, a Netflix-like service for libraries that offers access to music albums from a wide variety of genres, movies, educational television and documentaries. Content may be borrowed via a browser, smartphone or tablet and instantly streamed or downloaded with no waiting lists or late fees.
Users may borrow up to five items per month and borrowing limits reset on the first of each calendar month. Movies are available for three days and albums for one week.
“E-content is our fastest area of growth, with customers borrowing more than 2 million ebooks, eaudio-books and emagazines in 2013”, said Vickery Bowles, director of collections management at Toronto Public Library, in the news release. “We expect we’ll see even more growth this year with the introduction of online music and video.”
Hoopla is already in use in North Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Hamilton as well as many U.S. cities.
www.tpl.ca/hoopla
