Trenton Smiley, Director of Customer Messaging

From my seat in the audience at the 2026 Urban Libraries Council Annual Leadership Forum, I could tell the Behind the Download: Transparency, Trust, and the Future of Digital Access panel was going to be a good one. Moderator Lisa Wells, Executive Director of the Pioneer Library System, opened by asking everyone on stage to practice what libraries ask of their own communities: civil discourse. The panelists delivered.

Leaders from Hoopla, OverDrive, EBSCO, BiblioCommons, and Ingram Library Services spent the session talking candidly about pricing, licensing, and where library budgets are headed. Here’s what stood out to me.

Everyone agrees on the problem

Ann Ford, Vice President of Global Library Partnerships at Hoopla, voiced what most of the library leaders in the room were already thinking: “Your budgets aren’t growing. We’re hearing every day about budgets shrinking, digital demand going up. How do you manage that?”

Publishers set pricing on most license types, Ann acknowledged, but platforms aren’t powerless. Hoopla influences what libraries pay by turning down deals that don’t work for them and by giving libraries the data and controls to buy smart. “The only short-term solution right now is through good buying tools,” she said.

Legislation is the long-term fix.

Ann praised libraries for working with their state legislators but cautioned that change will take time. As Ellen Paul, Executive Director of the Connecticut Library Consortium, explained on the Straight Download podcast, even if a bill passes, it will likely face lawsuits and get tied up in court. (Ellen introduced legislation in her state that passed in 2025.) “If everything stays the same,” Ann said, “I do think that costs will continue to rise.”

OverDrive CEO Marc DeBevoise agreed that demand isn’t slowing. Audio is growing by double digits every year, he noted, and it’s the hardest format to bring down in price.

But the two leaders saw the road ahead differently.

Marc said he doesn’t expect overall costs to drop, but he’s “very optimistic price will come down” for digital, as more publishers rethink their models. Ann was blunter: without real change, prices will keep climbing. That split over whether digital costs will rise or fall was the biggest difference in opinion I heard all afternoon, and it shaped the rest of the conversation. OverDrive is counting on publishers to change. Hoopla is focused on what libraries can control today.

For Hoopla, that means good buying tools. Hoopla’s reporting shows libraries exactly where their dollars are going, and its different license types let them match each title to the model that makes sense. Instant and Flex give libraries two ways to buy, while Instant Bundles offer another lever for managing the budget. There are no platform fees on top of any of it, and patrons find everything in one app.

Hoopla and OverDrive: two paths to sustainability

The clearest contrast of the day came from the two largest lending platforms on the panel.

OverDrive described a company in transition. Marc shared that roughly 10% of its catalog now carries pay-per-use options, and that an effective cost-per-circ figure will arrive on its dashboard by the end of the quarter, with a broader data product planned for next year. He’s also pushing publishers toward a one copy/one user reserve copy for every library of every needed title.

These are welcome steps, and he generously credited librarians’ advocacy for bringing publishers to the table.

Hoopla, on the other hand, built its platform around pay per use from day one, so much of what OverDrive is working toward is already part of how Hoopla operates. Ann pointed to two things libraries get today: no platform fees and a low cost per circ on the Instant on-demand model. The Hoopla Flex one copy/one user offering adds tools focused on utilization, so the metered licenses you pay for actually get used.

Ann also explained that Hoopla doesn’t take every deal a publisher puts on the table. “There’s a reason why we don’t have [Penguin Random House] on Instant on Hoopla,” she said. “It’s because they won’t come down in their cost-per-circ pricing.”

Holding that line means passing on some big names. But it also means protecting library budgets.

The contrast continued during the audience Q&A, when an audience member asked how platforms handle AI-generated content. Since early 2025, libraries have been able to opt out of AI content on Hoopla entirely. Hoopla also requires publishers to disclose AI use in their metadata and cuts ties with publishers that flood it with AI-generated works. Ann encouraged the audience to hear the full approach explained in an episode of The Straight Download podcast. OverDrive, meanwhile, announced its own AI content controls at ALA, and they launch this month.

Independent publishers are an opportunity

Carolyn Morris, Director of Ingram Library Services, reminded the room that high-quality content exists well beyond the Big Five, and that independent publishers see libraries as partners.

“Their greatest risk is visibility,” she said. “And libraries bring readers to authors.”

Ann agreed and showed how Hoopla can help libraries act on that point. Amazon may be the world’s biggest book retailer, she noted, but “the public goes to Amazon and buys independent and small press books.” Libraries hold real influence with those same publishers, and Hoopla can amplify it. “We can help push the next bestseller up to your patrons,” she said.

She pointed to UK author Lisa Jewell as an example. When Hoopla promoted Jewell’s books to US readers, libraries helped make her a bestselling author. In Ann’s view, library influence is a major reason titles become bestsellers, and publishers shouldn’t get all the credit.

Where We Go From Here

Audience members pushed the panel to move faster, and they’re right to do so. Library budgets aren’t waiting for publishers to catch up.

Some of that work starts with authors. Ann described how Hoopla has had to educate authors who didn’t know that signing exclusive deals would keep their books out of libraries.

It also reaches beyond books. When one audience member asked about periodicals, Ann pointed out that magazines are already on Hoopla, and BingePass counts a full week of access as a single borrow. SeasonPass brings that same thinking to TV, and Bonus Borrows give patrons even more to enjoy without using a borrow at all.

Ann’s closing hope was to get a publisher, a platform and a librarian at the same table, which she admitted sounds like the setup for a bad joke. It’s also exactly the conversation our industry needs, and Hoopla plans to keep showing up for it.

Reach out to your account exec today and let’s chat about how we can help you pick the right license type to keep every title within your budget.