VIDEOS

At one time there were videotapes and then DVDs became popular around the late 1990s.

Basically, library patrons have two main options for accessing videos through the Iosco-Arenac District Library system of libraries. The two options are hoopla and interlibrary loan.

HOOPLA

HOOPLA is a GREAT database / service for accessing videos online. We are talking about a good selection of movies and TV shows. There is MUCH more that I want to present on hoopla, but the following information will be enough, for now, to get you into hoopla and watching a variety of videos on your computer, or smartphone. Most of what I write here is what I have presented on the online books web page. hoopla does A LOT more than provide A LOT of videos, as it will present audiobooks, ebooks, and music by popular artists. IADL's online public access catalog will present audiobooks and ebooks. Some of the audiobooks and ebooks are supplied by hoopla.

HOOPLA can be accessed by going to the Iosco-Arenac District Library Headquarters website. The hoopla button is on the Headquarters website screen. You can click on that button, or click on this hoopla link. However, I suggest that you access hoopla through the IADL's website. IF you are a first-time user, then you will have to fill in some entry boxes at the hoopla web page such as library card number, email address, and password. However, once you are signed up, hoopla will ask for your email address and password when you access hoopla, again. After you are registered, hoopla will not ask for you to sign in with your library card number for future visits.

Hoopla's website has this description on their website stating that "hoopla is the digital service of Midwest Tape, a leading provider of entertainment media products and services: DVDs, CDs, audiobooks and shelf-ready solutions, to public libraries across North America for over a quarter of a century. Hoopla Digital builds on that passion by providing public libraries of all sizes the ability to offer patrons an enormous selection of digital video (movies and TV shows), music, audiobooks, Ebooks and comics to their patrons."

There is A LOT to say about hoopla. IT OFFERS A LOT. On once you sign up and can access hoopla, it can be kind of straightforward to find what you want. You can keep clicking until you find what you want. I have very basic instructions on signing up and searching for videos at: https://www.booksinformationandmore.com/hooplainstructions.html

I admit that the amount of videos may not be as many as you would find if you paid for one of the popular video subscription services. HOWEVER, I have to admit that the hoopla collection of movies and TV shows IS IMPRESSIVE. I did not expect the quantity or quality of movies/shows provided. After all, it is free, right? HOWEVER, the video collection IS IMPRESSIVE.

Again, I will say that this service is FREE for you, through the Iosco-Arenac District Library system.

I have a little more information AND basic instructions on how to use hoopla at: https://www.booksinformationandmore.com/hooplainstructions.html

NOTICE: If family members want to sign up for hoopla, we found an issue IF only one member of a family signs up and the other members of the family want to use the one family member's email address to log in to hoopla. My advice is for each family member to have their own email address in order to access hoopla. The reason I say that, is that we had a parent visit the library and asked why the parent could use hoopla, but the two children could not access hoopla on their devices, while the parent was on hoopla. The solution was to register the two children with a different email address. The parent and two children, each, had to have a different email address, and probably password for each member of the family being able to access/use hoopla at the same time. I thank that family for bringing this to our attention. For that reason, more people may be able to enjoy hoopla knowing what they can do in order to allow all of their family the ability to access hoopla on their own individual devices, at the same time.

Interlibrary Loan

Interlibrary Loan is the second main option for accessing DVDs thanks to the fact that MANY libraries within Michigan and the United States decided to add DVDs to their collections. I go into detail covering the interlibrary loan process on the interlibrary loan web page. I will cover some basics of interlibrary loaning videos, which these days, are mostly DVDs.

There are not many videos within the Iosco-Arenac District Library system. There are some exceptions and I will get to that farther down this web page. There are three main options for interlibrary loaning videos, as well as music CDs, that the IADL does not purchase.

The Iosco-Arenac District Library Online Public Access Catalog (online card catalog), will show you if the IADL libraries have DVDs, but there probably are almost no DVDs listed within the IADL. HOWEVER, the online public access catalog allows you to search the libraries that are within the Valley Library Consortium. Some of those libraries have DVDs and CDs for interlibrary loaning to people outside their library systems. In order to search those libraries, you need to make sure that the entry in the search box on the far left of the long search box, says "Everything." You can use the down arrow to make a change, but the default seems to be "Everything."

The Michigan eLibrary

If you do not find what you want within the VLC libraries, then you can search the online public access card catalogs of the libraries within the State of Michigan. You can do this by using Mel's catalog. You can use the new catalog OR use the "Classic" MelCat catalog. The MeLCat catalog will allow you to choose from which library an item will come from IF you want to be that specific on where the item comes from.

WorldCat

If you do not find what you want within the libraries in Michigan, then you may want to try to find what is available in libraries throughout the United States. You are welcome to search the public edition of WorldCat. Something kind of new is that Worldcat wants you to enter your zip code into a box, often after your search, in order to see the list of libraries that have the item that you want. Once the page accepts your zip code, then you will see a list of libraries throughout the United States that have the item that you want interlibrary loaned. You are not able to request an item on the WorldCat catalog like you can with Mel. If you find an item on WorldcCat, then you have to notify the staff at your local library. The staff fills out a form to send to IADL Headquarters where a member of the Headquarter's staff sends your request to the proper organization to try to interlibrary loan the item.

As I said at the top of this interlibrary loan section, MUCH MORE information is provided on my Interlibrary Loan web page. There are some things that I will mention here, though, that relates to videos, and probably music CDs. Always, libraries have looked at videos, whether they were videotapes or DVDs, DIFFERENTLY than books. There was kind of a different attitude taken with DVDs/videos. An example of that is the check out / due date times accompanying a DVD. From early on when I worked at Headquarters, working with interlibrary loans, DVDs had a severely short due date when they came in from the interlibrary loaning library. Most DVDs had to be returned within days of when they arrived. I know that each library has the ability to establish their own due dates when they interlibrary loan an item, whether it is a book, CD, DVD or something else. The due dates for interlibrary loan depends on the loaning institution and those due dates can vary per the library that loans the item. I noticed that if a patron of a library that actually visited the library and checked out a DVD from their library, that the due date was within a couple days. The due date per library could vary between a couple days to seven days. That was about it. As you can imagine, when a DVD was interlibrary loaned, the patron had to watch the DVD quickly. The due date was seven days or less by the time the DVD came in through interlibrary loan. The same is true today. The due date varies per library with interlibrary loans and the due date for a DVD is very short, still.

MORE Options

There are not many more options for accessing videos throughout the Iosco-Arenac District Library system.

However, I will mention DONATIONS. I know that some libraries within the IADL, and throughout the United States, have different views/attitudes when it comes to "Item Donations." There are advantages and disadvantages for libraries accepting donated items. I will not get into the reasons, at this time. I will say that thanks to donations, there may be libraries within the IADL that have a collection of donated DVDs. The DVDs are not listed on the online public access catalog. East Tawas City Library is one such library that has a collection of DVDs. The number of donations has accumulated to about three hundred DVDs for use for the public. If you are looking for something in particular, then it may be in your best interest to call your local libraries to see what they have available.