Today I come to you with good news and bad news. The good news is digital book circulations at the Delaware County District Library are way, way up! In 2023, our patrons checked out 358,000 digital books. Compared to 2022, that’s an increase of 19 percent. From 2021 to 2022, borrows increased 12 percent. When it comes to digital, the trends are only looking up.

Now for the bad news – digital checkouts are way, way up. In the world of public libraries, we “lend” digital copies of books in a very different way than traditional materials. Sometimes we purchase a license per title that allows a limited number of loans, or in some cases we use a pay-per-checkout model. All that to say, loaning digital books can become quite expensive for public libraries.

Because of this, on Aug. 1, DCDL implemented a budget cap on our Hoopla service – a digital, on-demand app that connects your library card with ebooks, audiobooks and more digital content. This means that once the library has spent its budgeted amount of money on Hoopla checkouts per day, no more checkouts will be allowed until the next day begins.

Hoopla is one of my favorite library apps, and it’s clear our patrons love it, too. So why the change? Over the last two years, our spending on Hoopla has increased to the point where we had to consider a budget cap. 2022 monthly average spending was $3,700. 2023 monthly average was $5,100. 2024 monthly average is already on track for $7,100. Left unchecked, this single monthly expense threatened to grow to the point where it alone would exhaust our entire digital materials budget (which includes Libby/Ohio Digital Library and Kanopy).

To make this a true good news, bad news, good news sandwich, I’ll leave you with a last bit of good news. The budget cap does not affect your total allotted borrows for the month. DCDL users still have six borrows per month, and Bonus Borrows — selected titles that are available for the last seven days of the month without affecting your monthly instant borrows — are not impacted by the budget cap. When the cap is “on” for the day, simply tap or click the heart next to your desired titles to add them to your favorites to return to later.

Our regular Hoopla users have been sent an email with this information, and we hope new users understand the reasoning behind the library’s choice. We know you’ll still enjoy lots of titles and now the library can spend funds on our digital titles responsibly. See if these new titles will go on your list in the thrillers and suspense genre.

• “The Vacancy in Room 10” by Seraphina Nova Glass. In this intricately plotted psychological suspense novel from the author of “The Vanishing Hour,” the crumbling lives of two struggling women become unwittingly entangled by a suspicious death (deemed a suicide by the police) and the enforced proximity of living in the same claustrophobic apartment building.

“I Want You More” by Swan Huntley. On her way to the Hamptons, professional ghostwriter Zara Pines doesn’t expect much out of her new gig, working with celebrity chef Jane Bailey on a memoir. But when she finds herself enthralled by Jane’s boundless charisma and the luxurious lifestyle trappings Jane shares so freely, Zara will have to tread carefully or risk putting both her personal and professional lives at stake.

“Phantom Orbit” by David Ignatius. Amidst the political turmoil of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the personal turmoil of his son’s tragic death, brilliant scientist Ivan Volkov decides it’s worth the risk to reach out to an old CIA contact when he grows wary of his home country’s plans for dominating the world in space — plans that could threaten the future of all life on earth.

“The Return of Ellie Black” by Emiko Jean. Washington State based detective Chelsey Calhoun is assigned to the case of the titular Ellie Black, a young woman found alive after being kidnapped 2 years earlier. Deeply traumatized Ellie refuses to say anything about her captor, which seriously complicates an investigation already made difficult by the hostile work environment where Chelsey works.

“The Band” by Christine Ma-Kellams. The unnamed narrator of this darkly humorous yet gripping story is a Chinese American psychologist who agrees to take in a troubled K-pop star Sang Dun after a chance meeting in an L.A. H-Mart. Sang Dun gains the chance to lay low after a publicity crisis and the narrator gets to break the monotony of her home life, but how long can this unlikely duo cohabitate before their strange dynamic gets even stranger?

If you have a question that you would like to see answered in this column, mail it to Nicole Fowles, Delaware County District Library, 84 E. Winter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740-362-3861. You can also email your questions by visiting the library’s web site at www.delawarelibrary.org or directly to Nicole at [email protected]. No matter how you contact us, we’re always glad you asked!