With a fresh infusion of tax revenue approved by voters last year, the De Soto Library is whipping up some “Hoopla” for its patrons.
Starting Feb. 18, the library will offer the Hoopla digital media service to its growing menu of digital resources, following a nationwide trend of libraries offering digital materials.
Library director Tony Benningfield talks about Hoopla like a kid describing his favorite video game, particularly as it compares to the Overdrive digital service the library has offered for some time. Overdrive provides only one copy of an item at a time, resulting in weeks-long waiting lists for many items.
“Hoopla is not the same,” Benningfield said. “It’s a pay-per-use (collection), so nobody has to wait in line. It should complement what we already have with Overdrive very well. Both of them bring different types of materials. Where Overdrive has e-books and e-audiobooks, where you can listen to them while you drive, Hoopla has those two things plus comics, television, movies, and music.
“If you have a library card, it’s free. There will be limits on it because it’s pay-per-use (charged to the library). And we don’t know exactly how much it’s going to cost us yet.”
He added that the library won’t limit how many patrons use Hoopla, but will limit each patron to a maximum of four items checked out at a time.
“It (the four-item cap) is the only form of control we have,” he said. “If we just turn everybody loose it could cost us $10,000 this year, we don’t know. From the research I’ve done, all the other libraries that have this say it’s extremely popular, and it grows every year. There’s even some ways you can stream it to television.”
Hoopla is just one of many new library resources and programs funded by Proposition L, approved by 62 percent of De Soto voters in April 2019. It called for an increase of just over 16 cents in the property tax levy that supports the library, raising the levy to 35 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. The increased tax revenue started flowing late last year.
As promised, the library expanded its hours of operation starting on Jan. 6. It’s now open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday – previously it closed at 5 p.m. on every weekday except Tuesday, when it was open to 7 p.m. – and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, three hours longer than before.
Other new resources
Besides Hoopla, the library also has acquired a lengthy menu of new online information resources across a broad swath of subject matter, ranging from legal forms and automobile repair to Missouri and U.S. history, current issues, health and medicine, career development and genealogical research.
Neither is the library standing pat on its traditional offerings – printed books.
“We’re expanding and updating our physical collection as we promised,” Benningfield said. “We’ve doubled our book budget. We initially started with fiction because that’s what is checked out the most.”
The library’s approximately 1,300 card holders, he added, include a bunch of voracious readers.
“We have a couple handfuls of patrons who just read everything,” Benningfield said. “They’re never satisfied. That’s kind of the top for me, to try to keep those people happy. They come in and say, ‘Well, you don’t have anything for me today.’ And I say, ‘Stop reading so fast!’”
To help patrons access the digital resources both inside the library and outside it, the library has hired Forward Slash Technology to provide 24/7 technology support and to update the library’s 10 desktop computers – and much more.
“They’ve built us a plan to upgrade our entire network, our wireless access points, our switches, our firewall,” Benningfield said. “We’re going to be more secure and we’re going to be safer, (with) more patron privacy.”
The library also is offering Wi-Fi “hotspot” devices that can enable patrons who don’t have internet access at home to get it through the devices.
“So far, we’ve got good results (with them). They work off the Sprint tower network. People will be able to take these home for 14 days and have free unlimited internet (access). Punch in the password and you’re connected. One of my staff took (one) on a trip down to southern Missouri and she said it worked the whole way, on their devices in the car.
“We’re starting with seven (devices),” he added. “I have a funny feeling we’ll have to get more.”
Library board president Linda Bean noted that the hot spots can be checked out just like a book and will provide a valuable service.
“The hot spots will be great because there are a lot of people around here who don’t have internet access,” Bean said. “You can hook up three or four devices to a hot spot.”
Teen zone coming
The interior space in the library will change this spring. Benningfield hopes to convert the northeast corner of the building – currently an informal art gallery and open meeting space – into a teen-friendly zone, complete with TVs and video-game systems. The library will even host video-game tournaments as an extra draw.
“We need that safe space for teens,” he said. “What else do teens do in town? Here they can at least make friends, do something educational, and the statistics have shown that when teens come into a library, even if it is just to play video games, they’re going to look at the books; they’re going to pick something up. So that’s the idea.”
Other improvements
As to the building itself, the director said he’s confident recent exterior repairs are keeping water out, enough so that he’s replaced a number of stained ceiling tiles.
He said he’s looking into incentive programs to upgrade to LED lighting and improve energy efficiency, and possibly to replace the building’s troublesome HVAC system. After all, the first item detailed in the Proposition L ballot language was “renovating aging library facilities.”
In the meantime, Benningfield is streamlining and modernizing everything from the library cards themselves (now one for each member of a family so kids have their own cards) to “Books on Wheels” for homebound patrons, to the educational programs the library offers.
One such program is “Grow with Google” for small business owners. The library’s website (dspl.missouri.org) opens with a survey to elicit ideas for new programming.
“Reaching the homebound, expanding services to children and teens, and helping small business are my top three goals this year, besides fulfilling all my (Prop L) promises,” Benningfield said.
Bean said the upcoming building improvements will be “mostly maintenance stuff” focused on making the building more useful.
“It’s an older building, so you have some older-building issues,” she said. “But it’s functional and it’s accessible; it’s right downtown. It’s in a good spot. So we’re going to work with what we have and try to make it something that our patrons really enjoy coming to.
“I’m excited about all the things that are going on in the library. We’ve got a real enthusiastic librarian, and our other employees also are hard-working and excited about the upgrading and keeping the library fresh. So I’m real excited about the direction it’s going in right now.”