Libby and Hoopla from the Staff Side

I was OverDrive employee #70, there from 2008 to 2011, back when we were still helping patrons sideload WMA files with Windows DRM. I've seen the vendor side from the inside.

If you search "Libby vs Hoopla," you'll find hundreds of articles explaining which app is better for patrons. Bigger catalog or broader access. Wait times or instant borrows. Those are real differences and they matter.

But none of those articles are written for the person who has to evaluate the contract, explain the budget line, or answer when a board member asks why the library is paying for both. This is that version.

How the money works

This is the part that matters most and gets discussed least.

Libby (OverDrive) operates on a licensing model. Your library purchases individual titles, either as one-copy-one-user licenses (OCOU, which behave like physical books: one patron at a time, the license eventually expires or hits a checkout cap) or as cost-per-circ metered access for some titles. You build a collection. You choose what's in it. You pay upfront.

The economics vary by publisher. A Big Five ebook license might cost $55 for 26 checkouts or two years, whichever comes first. Some simultaneous-use titles cost more but serve unlimited patrons at once. HarperCollins library ebook prices have increased 17.3% annually since 2022. Hachette audiobook licenses went up 36% between 2025 and 2026. These costs are set by publishers, not OverDrive, but they define the economics of the platform you're using.

The upside: you know what you're buying and you choose what's in the collection. The downside: you're carrying inventory risk. Titles you license that nobody checks out still cost you money.

Hoopla (Midwest Tape) operates on a pay-per-circulation model. There's no upfront collection cost. When a patron borrows something, your library pays per checkout: historically $0.99 to $3.99 depending on format and title (audiobooks at the higher end), though rates have been volatile since Midwest Tape's 2025 repricing, with some libraries reporting per-checkout costs several times what they paid the year before. You don't select individual titles; you opt into the catalog. Most libraries set a per-patron checkout limit (often 5-8 per month) to control costs.

The upside: zero wait times, no holds queues, no unused inventory. Every dollar you spend corresponds to a patron actually using something. The downside: costs scale directly with demand, which makes budgeting harder to predict. A viral TikTok recommendation can move through your monthly allocation in a week.

Libby rewards careful curation and lets you stretch dollars on popular titles by managing holds. Hoopla rewards breadth and eliminates the single biggest patron complaint about library digital lending (wait times). Most libraries that can afford both, use both. They solve different problems and the problems don't overlap much.

Collection control

This is where the day-to-day experience diverges most.

With Libby, you're a selector. Your staff builds the digital collection the same way you'd build a physical one: browsing OverDrive Marketplace, reading reviews, watching hold ratios, buying more copies of titles with long wait lists. You control what's in the catalog and what isn't. That's meaningful work, and it's work that reflects professional judgment.

With Hoopla, you're an administrator. You choose which content categories to enable (ebooks, audiobooks, comics, movies, TV, music) and you set borrowing limits. But you don't select individual titles. The catalog is the catalog. Midwest Tape's content partners determine what's available, and your library opts in at the category level.

For most libraries, this tradeoff is manageable. But it has a specific consequence worth understanding.

The content quality problem

Because Hoopla's catalog is aggregated rather than curated, it's been affected by the flood of AI-generated content hitting digital publishing. 404 Media reported in February 2025 that AI-generated ebooks were appearing in Hoopla's catalog: titles by authors who may not exist, with machine-generated cover art and text. Library Futures has been raising the issue as well.

The problem is structural: Hoopla's model depends on broad catalog access, but there aren't yet metadata standards to flag AI-generated content reliably. After the 404 Media report drew attention, Hoopla acknowledged the issue. That's something, though the scale of the problem, and the lack of reliable metadata standards to flag AI content, means it's an ongoing challenge rather than a solved one. I wrote about this more in the context of AI in library tools generally.

Your library pays for each of those checkouts. With Libby, a questionable title never enters your collection unless you select it. With Hoopla, it's in the catalog by default, and you pay when a patron checks it out.

This isn't a reason to drop Hoopla. It's a reason to understand the tradeoff you're making and to push your vendor for better tools to manage it.

Data and privacy

Both platforms handle patron data, and both have meaningful differences in what they retain and how.

Libby has genuinely strong privacy practices. No ads, no data sales, no third-party tracking. Security researchers found the app's traffic "essentially free of third-party services." The privacy policy, updated November 2025, is stronger than most consumer apps. The app retains reading history locally on the device and syncs to OverDrive's servers for account continuity. Give them real credit here. They've done this well.

Hoopla also states it doesn't sell patron data, but the privacy picture is less examined publicly. Because every checkout is a billable transaction, Midwest Tape necessarily maintains detailed circulation records tied to library accounts. The data they retain includes what was borrowed, when, and from which library, because that's how billing works.

For both platforms, the practical question is the same: what does your contract say about data retention, data portability, and what happens to patron data if you leave the platform? Forty-eight states plus DC have laws protecting library record confidentiality. Your vendor contracts need to comply whether they mention it explicitly or not. If your contract predates 2024, it almost certainly doesn't address AI features or modern data practices. Worth reviewing before renewal.

Contract terms

This is the part most staff never see, because it's handled at the consortium or director level. But understanding the contract structure matters.

Libby contracts are typically negotiated at the consortium level. Your state or regional consortium negotiates pricing tiers, and individual libraries participate through that agreement. Contract lengths vary, often multi-year. The content you've licensed remains accessible for the duration of the license terms (checkout limits or time-based expiration). If you leave, your unexpired licenses may or may not transfer depending on contract language.

Hoopla contracts are more commonly negotiated at the individual library level, though some consortia have arrangements too. The pay-per-circ model means there's less upfront commitment, which can make the contract feel lower-stakes. But the terms around data, service levels, and exit conditions still matter.

For both, the questions worth asking:

• What's the contract length, and what are the renewal terms?
• What happens to your collection data (selection lists, holds data, usage analytics) if you leave?
• Can you export circulation data in a format another platform can use?
• What content do you lose access to immediately upon exit?
• Are there minimum spend commitments or early termination fees?

In most cases, patron reading history from either platform is exportable as a CSV but not importable anywhere else. That's a switching cost that matters even if nobody writes it into the contract.

What you give up with each

Every platform choice involves tradeoffs. Here's what each one costs you beyond dollars.

Libby costs you flexibility. You're locked into upfront purchasing decisions, so if patron tastes shift, your budget is already committed. Wait times frustrate patrons and generate complaints you have to field. And you're dependent on a single platform, owned by KKR, that serves the large majority of US and Canadian public libraries, with all the concentration risk that implies. A library that drops Libby is rare enough that it makes regional news.

Hoopla costs you curation control. You can't shape the collection to reflect your community's values and needs the way you can with a selected collection. The AI content question is a direct consequence of this model. Budget predictability is harder for two reasons: costs follow demand rather than planning (a viral booktok recommendation can blow past your monthly cap), and the vendor can reprice the catalog under you, as the 2025 rate increases that drove a wave of hoopla cancellations showed. Hoopla's catalog, while broad, also has more limited Big Five availability than OverDrive.

Both platforms cost you portability. Switching from either takes real planning. Your data, your patron relationships, and your institutional knowledge about what works are embedded in their systems. That's the nature of platform dependency in library tech generally, and it's worth naming when you're signing a multi-year agreement.

Alternatives worth knowing

Even if you never switch, knowing what else exists strengthens your position in any vendor conversation.

Palace Project: an open-source reading app developed by LYRASIS. Palace can aggregate content from multiple sources, including OverDrive, into a single patron-facing app. It's not a replacement for OverDrive or Hoopla (it still relies on them for content), but it gives your library a branded reading experience you control. If you're interested in reducing dependency on any single app, Palace is the project to watch.

cloudLibrary (OCLC): a third commercial digital lending platform with a curated selection model similar to Libby's. OCLC acquired cloudLibrary from Bibliotheca in April 2024, and WorldCat integration followed in 2025. Smaller market share than Libby, but the OCLC backing and catalog integration make it worth asking your consortium about.

DPLA Content Exchange: the Digital Public Library of America has been building partnerships that give libraries permanent ownership of ebook titles from independent publishers. DPLA and IPG announced an agreement for buy-once-own-forever ebook access with interlibrary loan rights. A fundamentally different model from both Libby and Hoopla, though the catalog is smaller and focused on independent publishers.

None of these are drop-in replacements at scale today. But they represent real options that are maturing, and knowing they exist broadens the set of arrangements you can credibly evaluate at renewal time.

What I'd do with this

I wouldn't tell anyone to pick one platform over the other. The right answer depends on your budget, your community, your staffing capacity for collection development, and your tolerance for different kinds of risk.

What I would do:

Start by reading the actual agreements, not the marketing materials. Know the term length, the exit conditions, the data provisions. If you're part of a consortium, ask for the consortium agreement too. You can't negotiate what you haven't read.

Track your per-checkout cost on both platforms. For Hoopla, this is the sticker price. For Libby, divide your annual OverDrive spend by your total checkouts. The comparison can surprise you in either direction.

Ask Hoopla what they're doing about AI-generated content: what filtering or flagging tools are available, how they vet new content partners. These are reasonable questions for a vendor you're paying per checkout. Ask OverDrive where the platform is headed, too. The DeBevoise hire and the Dungeon Crawler Carl exclusive are signals worth following up on. What does the product roadmap look like, and what does it mean for your collection decisions?

Look at Palace Project even if you're not ready to adopt it. Having a credible alternative in your back pocket changes the dynamic of every vendor conversation. And talk to colleagues who've made different choices. If your library uses both platforms, talk to one that dropped Hoopla. If you only use Libby, talk to someone who added Hoopla. The most useful information about vendor relationships comes from other practitioners, not from sales reps.

The bigger picture

Library digital lending is a two-vendor market for most practical purposes. Both OverDrive and Midwest Tape built products that solve real problems for libraries and patrons. Market concentration still has consequences regardless of intent, and understanding those consequences is part of doing the job well.

The patron-facing question is simple: which app should I use to borrow books? The staff-side question is more interesting: what are we actually buying, what are we giving up, and what are our options? Those are questions worth sitting with, especially as contracts come up for renewal and the platforms continue to evolve.

There isn't a perfect digital lending platform to find. There are tradeoffs you can live with and negotiate around. That's the job.