Let’s be honest: the library card has always been an overachiever.
It’s a passport not just to free books, but also to job-search help, free Wi-Fi, new skills, and now, an entire world of digital content like audiobooks, eBooks, movies, music, and more. And all of this is without a monthly fee or a surprise price hike.
In this economy? Unheard of.
And while it overachieves, the library card is also underrated. That’s because many members of your community don’t realize what doors it unlocks for them.
Subscription Fatigue
Most people don’t even realize how much they’re spending on streaming subscriptions until they add it up.
The average American household is juggling roughly a dozen active subscriptions right now, and spending well over $200 a month across streaming and other recurring services.* And that spending? It doesn’t buy much loyalty: 60% of streaming subscribers say they’d cancel after just a $5 price increase, even if they’re happy with the service.
That’s the world your patrons are living in. They’ve been trained by every app on their phone to expect fast, frictionless, on-demand everything, and to dip out the moment something feels like too much effort or too much money.
So when a service is free, instant, and actually useful, it should be an easy sell. The problem is that a lot of patrons still think of their library card as a stack of books, not a digital pass to everything they’re used to expecting from their favorite apps.
The shift patrons need help making
Library cards already compete on convenience: no monthly fee, no price hikes, no cancellation flow designed to guilt you into staying. But convenience only counts if patrons know it’s there. Meeting digital consumers where they are means putting that message in the places they already look: your app, your website, social, email, anywhere a patron might be scrolling instead of walking through your doors. The library has to bring the pitch to them.
And the pitch is a good one, because, as we know, the card unlocks more than digital content.
Job-search tools help patrons build resumes and prep for interviews. Free Wi-Fi keeps people connected when they need it most. Educational resources and online classes let patrons pick up new skills on their own schedule. For a lot of communities, that’s more than a nice-to-have, it’s essential infrastructure.
Library Card Sign-up Month matters
Only 57% of U.S. households earning under $30k a year have home broadband, compared to roughly 92-95% of households earning over $75k-100k**. Meanwhile, roughly 24 million Americans still have no fixed broadband access at all, concentrated heavily in rural and Tribal communities.***
For these patrons, the library isn’t competing with a streaming subscription. It’s often the only reliable connection to the internet they have.
That combination, unmatched convenience for digital consumers and genuine access for those still on the wrong side of the connectivity gap, is exactly why Library Card Sign-Up Month matters. It’s coming up in September, and it’s the perfect moment to remind your whole community of the card’s underrated and overachieving impact.
Patrons already love the digital content Hoopla offers, now’s the time to show them the rest of what they’re missing—is your campaign ready? Head to the Hoopla Resource Center to download your free Library Card Sign-Up Month promotional materials and help your patrons see the full value of the card they already have in their wallet!
*Zuora and Deloitte data cited in 2026 industry coverage
**Pew Research Center data from 2025-2026
***Center for American Progress and FCC data cited in 2025-2026 reporting
