I am not reading five books a day. I don’t think anyone is.

People are limited to five books a month.

The problem is that the entire county is limited to 5 books a day. So if five people check out one book before 9 am, no one else in the entire county can check out a book or movie on Hoopla that day! That seems like a low amount of books available when there are 5 separate library buildings in the county.

There are more than 100,000 people in the county but those 100,000 people can only check out 5 Hoopla books in a day - which means that 99,995 people cannot use it. That is 5 books - not 500,000.

This just happened to me the other day also. I called the library and spoke with a lady about it. She told me that Hoopla only allows a certain number of electronic check outs per library district and that when you get that message it means they have met the limit for the day. She told me it resets at midnight. The next morning I went in and checked out the book with no problem. I know it has nothing to do with limits per person because this is the only time I tried to check out a book electronically so I certainly had not used up any "5 per person or per month" limit.

Don't forget about the 425,000 people in Lake County. I live in Lake County, but Sumter County gave me a free library card, so I also have access to the Hoopla books.

No wonder we hit our daily limit earlier and earlier each day!

And I had no idea that Lake has over 400,000 people!

Did she tell you what the daily limit was? I sent an email to the library. And they told me that the monthly limit per cardholder is 5 - which I already knew. I then sent another email asking if the daily limit was 5 books but they didn't give me an answer. I am not sure why they won't tell us - it is a public library paid for with our tax dollars.

If people have concerns about the library, the Sumter County Public Library Advisory Board meets
twice a year. I believe the meetings are open to the public.

The bylaws specify that meetings will take place on the first Thursday of May and November. However, that seems optional as the May meeting was apparently held on May 28, 2024.

The first Thursday in November is November 7.

I believe the meetings are held at the Pinellas location.

I finally got an answer from the library.

Sumter County has allotted specific funds for Hoopla checkouts for the fiscal year. Those funds are divided by 12 months and then by the number of days in the month to create a Daily Spending Limit. This process allows equitable access to Hoopla for Library cardholders. Reaching the Daily Spending Limit is based upon the cost of each checkout. Hoopla, and the publishers selling to Hoopla, set the costs of each checkout. The costs vary among publishers and formats (eAudio, eBooks, eComics, eVideo, and eMusic). The Library's average daily spending limit averages $280 per day.

Five books per day is costing the library $280 per day? That's $56 per book. Maybe you should all get together and petition the County to discontinue the Hoopla service entirely. That's a lot of taxpayer dollars wasted. You can BUY an e-book from Amazon or Google Books for less than $20 and in most cases, less than $10, and when you're done reading it, it's still yours. No limits, daily or monthly. No need to reserve it - you buy it, it's downloaded to your device, and you can read it whenever you feel like it.

When I originally called the library, I was told over the phone that Hoopla was limited to five books a day for the entire county. This did not seem right so I sent several emails to the library and finally got the answer that the budget is $280 a day.

(I expect that the person who answered the phone did not know the hoopla budget. I was at the pinellas library last week and asked the librarian about the hoopla budget and she had no information on it.)

$280 a day is a little over $100,000 a year. The cost seems to vary depending on whether it is a movie, an ebook, or an audio book. And some publishers appear to charge different rates per item so it is impossible to calculate how many items can be checked out per day. If everyone checked out books, we could probably get more books per day than movies.

I doubt that the library is paying $56 a book. At least I hope they aren’t!

As for buying a book, how often do you read books more than once?

I had a problem with my reader yesterday and went to the library today for help.

Local expert helped me and asked her about this.

We can individually take out 5 books at one time and have 5 books on reserve.

She was not aware of daily limit for county so no help there.

Asked her why Lake and Marion have access to Sumter but we do not. She had no idea why and agrees it makes no sense.

When you buy an ebook from Amazon, you can download it to as many Kindle ereaders as you want, although only about 6 people can read it simultaneously. My problem with borrowing ebooks from the library is that I usually have trouble finishing the book before it is due to be returned. Also, if you like to read the new best sellers, there is always a long waitlist for the book.

It depends on the book. But that's irrelevant. At $280 per day expense for "product" - and a 5-book-per-day limit for the entire county to download books, that comes to an average of $56 per book. You are saying everyone /can't/ check out books, because there's a 5 per day limit for the entire county.

If we are to go by what you are being told, the daily cost divides into the per-book cost by $56 per book. Unless you're saying the $280 per day is the total cost for the library to be open and in business, including all downloads, e-whatevers, electricity, maintenance, toilet paper for the rest rooms, internet service, employees, and purchase of physical product for their shelves? Or is that $280 for all online services, including internet service, a server, subscription to Hoopla, all other subscriptions, and all internet activities within the building as well?

I mean, this thread is about one specific service, and you toss in that $280/day factoid. If you mean that the $280/day covers anything OTHER than the 5 books per day per county, it's a good idea to say so. But if we are to go by ONLY what we read here - it comes to an average of $56 per book, at 5 books per day, divided into a total of $280 per day allotment.

That just seems to "crazy" to believe; not that I doubt you were told that, but, at least try calling one more time. You will surely get a different employee who will explain the policy much more CLEARLY.... think the person you talked to just not tops in communication.

Oh how nice that would be, I agree, what do you think are the chances that any politician is going to tell you the truth ? ? Surely they KNOW what their constituent's prefer... but I highly doubt that what constituent's want enters into the formula for politicians of EITHER party !

Thank you for taking the time and doing the research ! Often too much "guessing" goes on on social media sites like this !