LOGAN – When it comes to online material lending services, the new Logan Library is becoming a victim of its own success.
As of Jan. 1, the Library changed its limit on digital materials borrowing from ten items to five per month per patron and implemented a daily spending cap.
“We love that our patrons check out digital resources through the Library and read in ways that work for them,” the facility’s staff explained in a Library News posting.
“Unfortunately, the high prices and lending restrictions of digital materials, as compared to the prices and lending of physical materials, are making it increasingly challenging for libraries to sustainably meet the rising demand as they account for a greater portion of our budget each year.”
The issue was discussed briefly at the Municipal Council meeting on Jan. 21, where Mayor Holly Daines told council members that the Logan Library’s online lending service ran $64,000 over budget in 2024.
The alternatives, she said, was to impose a pay-per-use fee or to cap the service’s daily and monthly borrowing limits.
The Logan Library makes digital materials available to its patrons through a third-party vendor called Hoopla, that provides eBooks, eAudiobooks, digital comics, music, movies, TV shows and more through a cost-per-borrow pricing model.
The fees that Hoopla charges a library whenever a patron borrows an item from its app or website range from $.65 to $3.49 per item, averaging about $2.27.
The Logan Library’s new borrowing limit is a necessary cost-saving measure to manage these quickly rising costs while continuing to offer free Hoopla service to our patrons, the library staff reported.
In addition to the new monthly limit of five borrows per patron, the Library has also set a daily spending cap. That means that once users have spent the library’s daily budget on Hoopla checkouts, no more borrowing will be possible until the next day.
Ken and Kathy Berggren, Logan residents who have been listening to audio books online from the Library for years, believe that the new rules are short-sighted at best.
They argue that using online services from the Library are a “green alternative” to driving on crowded streets and contributing to Cache Valley’s air pollution problems.
The posting from the Logan Library’s staff concludes by thanking patrons for their flexibility “as we navigate these and other hard decisions to responsibly steward our budget …”
The Logan Library is located at 285 North Main Street in the downtown area.