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Hoopla vs Overdrive for Audio Books


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My library offers OD for audio books, and my kids have listened to quite a few, but we seem to not find as many (listened to a lot of them, I suppose). 

 

The neighboring county offers Hoopla, but I'd have to pay for an out of county card, which is $40.  

 

Anyone have any experience with both?  Is Hoopla worth it?  

The neighboring library is close...4 miles?  About 20 minutes.  And they do carry more books than my county's libraries, so it wouldn't JUST be for Hoopla, but that's what would push me over the edge.  

 

My main consumers of audio books are 7 and 9 year old boys.  Sometimes the 5 year old girl.  Sometimes the 45 year old dh.  He usually sticks with Audible, though, because he has less time.  It comes with the daily Wall Street, and that takes up a lot of his reading/audible time.  Me?  I struggle through the audio books we do as a family.  I can not add more.  LOL.  This is just for the 4 of them.

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My library has both. I don't have to put things on hold on hoopla so that is nice. Overdrive I often have to wait weeks for a book. Hoopla also saves my spot when the book expires and I don't think overdrive does. It also is easier to check out books via hoopla, just one click, versus having to click though a bunch of differ pages and then download. But I'm not sure I would pay 40 dollars for it. It does have video and music too, so that is something to consider as well.

 

 

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We are huge audiobook people and I like Overdrive for the library (I've been happy with my available selections). I do often have to wait awhile for books, but it's free and I typically have several on hold at once, so we pretty much always have an Overdrive book going. I find it easy to use and love that you can bookmark it easily, etc. And Overdrive does indeed save your spot on expired books.

 

We also use Audible, though, and I LOVE that; I tend to buy beloved books and classics with my credits there (things my kids will enjoy listening to over and over and over again). If your family already subscribes to Audible, maybe bump up to two or three credits per month? (We currently upgraded to two Audible credits per month, so now I get one and the kids get one each month--it's been great.) Audible is just the best, IMO, since you can get anything under the sun, you get to keep the books forever, and the quality is always excellent.

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Definitely look at what Hoopla has.   We are making heavy use of it at the moment because they have ALL the Boxcar Children Audiobooks, or at least it seems like it.  I didn't have to pay for extra library card, but I did have to get a library card for my daughter, since we are limited to 5 checkouts a month.   That is just the libraries agreement, yours is probably different.    

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My library has both. I don't have to put things on hold on hoopla so that is nice. Overdrive I often have to wait weeks for a book. Hoopla also saves my spot when the book expires and I don't think overdrive does. It also is easier to check out books via hoopla, just one click, versus having to click though a bunch of differ pages and then download. But I'm not sure I would pay 40 dollars for it. It does have video and music too, so that is something to consider as well.

 

 

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Our library's Overdrive definitely does save the spot even if the book expires and you delete it off the device. When you redownload the book, it restarts right where you were.

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Our library's Overdrive definitely does save the spot even if the book expires and you delete it off the device. When you redownload the book, it restarts right where you were.

That's so strange. I don't know what I am doing wrong because I have not had it save the spot. Maybe my app needs to be updated.

 

 

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There are two overdrive apps.  Not Mac and Windows, but two on Windows.   One is older and more self-contained, and the other is more web-connected.   

I prefer the older one, because when I use the new one and transfer to my phone or mp3 player, it wouldn't let me return early.  I had to wait until it expired.   With the older, which I think is called "Overdrive for Windows", I can do a search on my computer for the files, and then manually move them to my device, and then delete from the device when I'm done.  Less muss and fuss.  

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