MCLS Technology is What All the Hoopla is About

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Modern technology provides ways to make entertainment as well as tasks more efficient and enjoyable and the Muskingum County Library System finds ways to incorporate some of these new apps to improve literacy. 

MCLS Emerging Tech Assistant Michael Hughett explained how one of the apps the library has adopted called Hoopla, provides an online streaming service that offers information and entertainment to any and all of your devices.

“Hoopla is our mobile app for books, be that audio books or a digital version of books,” Hughett said. “It also has music, movies and television shows kind of offered all in one spot. And we have over 4,000 audio books, still growing and 2,000 plus, I think, videos that we have in that system now.”

Hoopla is offered through all of the Muskingum County Library System’s branches and was incorporated during the pandemic to show how the library can be of service beyond the traditional brick and mortar style approach.

“They can download the app, go right in through the prompts to set up a new account. It’ll ask for their library card and the pin that they would’ve set up, no different than if they were going to use a computer here at our library and then once they go beyond that point, you can go to chrome.google.com/webstore. You would look up Hoopla Digital and it should be the first result you get. You would hit, basically, ‘add to browser.’ Once you have that, if you go on Amazon and you’re looking for a new book, it’s going to tell you if we already have that,” Hughett said.

For more information about Hoopla and other services the library has to offer you can visit MuskingumLibrary.org