What’s Changing at Midwest Tape and Hoopla 

We’re building the next chapter of your Midwest Tape and Hoopla Digital eCommerce experience.  

However you use it today, whether ordering physical media, balancing digital purchases across Flex and Instant Bundles, or simply browsing content and pulling reports, it’s built around how your library works. 

This page shows what’s ahead and explains why we’re building it before it arrives. We’ll keep it updated as dates are confirmed and the new eCommerce experience launches, so be sure to bookmark this page and share it with your team. 

Jump to your situation:

What’s (Not) Changing If You Order Physical  

If you order physical media, buying and browsing on Midwest Tape works just like it does today, just lighter, since moving digital shopping links to a separate area. You’ll also be able to browse the new Hoopla site, even if you’re not buying digital. 

If You Order Both Physical and Digital 

While your physical media experience stays largely the same, you’ll notice a brand new digital media site. 

• Midwest Tape is your physical site; Hoopla is your digital site. You’ll use the toggle icon in the header to move between them. 
• After signing in, you’ll land on the physical title site by default, with an easy way to switch over to Hoopla whenever you need it. 
• Right now, a cart can hold both physical and digital titles. When the new Hoopla eCommerce site launches, any mixed cart will automatically split into two, one for each. From then on, you’ll manage physical carts on Midwest Tape and digital carts on Hoopla separately. For more on what that means if you buy Flex or Instant Bundles, please see the If You Purchase Flex and Instant Bundles section below. 

A New Home for Digital Shopping 

Hoopla is getting a new, purpose-built shopping experience, designed from the ground up around how library teams buy, discover, and manage digital content. If you are a digital only customer, signing in takes you straight to Hoopla eCommerce.  

While most of this will affect libraries that purchase Flex or Instant Bundles titles, libraries that only offer Hoopla Instant will still notice the change. It’s a brand-new site built for digital. You’ll get a clearer window into how your content is performing, and the rest is worth seeing for yourself. 

All Digital Customers Will See… 

• Lists, a new way to plan. Carts are for titles you’re ready to buy right now. Lists are for everything else: titles you want to track, group together, or revisit later without committing to anything. Add titles to a collection or block them right from a list and, if you buy Flex or Instant Bundles, convert a list to a cart whenever you’re ready. 

• Smarter search. Title, author, series, genre, or publisher, take your pick. Start typing and you’ll see title suggestions based on what you’re entering, plus recent and suggested searches. 
• More at a glance. Each search result shows the key details that previously only appeared on the product page, such as license, price, and circulation stats, plus language, release date, and publisher. Add to a cart, a list, or a collection, or block and unblock titles, right from the results menu. Icons next to the title give you a visual signal when there’s more to see. Export your results anytime. 

• Product pages offer all the title details in one place. Format, availability, language, publisher, subjects, synopsis, and every purchase model for a title now live together on one page, no digging through tabs. If you buy Flex or Instant Bundles, compare license options side by side, availability and price included. If your library only offers Instant, you’ll find active and recent circ data right there too. Read the full rundown on what’s new. 

• Private collections and custom carousels. Build and manage themed collections and carousels to spotlight notable content for patrons, right from Hoopla. 

• Patron finder and your settings. Look up patron records and manage your personal and library settings from the Hoopla menu, organized into Tools and Reports so everything’s easy to find. 

If You Purchase Flex and Instant Bundles  

Libraries that buy Flex or Instant Bundles titles will notice the most change: a homepage built around what to buy next, sharper reporting, and better cart tools. 

• A homepage built around digital. See what’s new and trending to help guide your next purchase, plus marketing content and programs like Bonus Borrows, refreshed regularly. 

• Digital myCARTS management, right where you left it. Keep configuring your digital myCARTS the same way you do today, now with the Hoopla look and feel. The carts themselves move into your new digital cart experience. 

Clearer Reporting  

• License inventory, simplified. Titles that used to show as a separate row for every license now roll up into one line, with a quick way to drill into the detail behind it. Use columns to show, hide, and reorder exactly the data you want to see, and filters to focus on what matters, including titles nearing expiration or holds outpacing supply. 

• A holds ratio filter. Finally. Sort and filter titles by the ratio of active holds to owned copies, so you can quickly spot which titles need more copies to meet demand. 

• Requests, with the context you need to act. See purchase options, pricing, and key stats right from the report, with the same at-a-glance view you get in search, and the ability to add titles straight to a cart without leaving the page. 

Better Cart Tools. Pro tip: if your cart has grown into a running wishlist, trimming it down now makes this transition easier. Try to keep your cart focused on titles you plan to buy in the next 90 days, everything else has a new home in Lists, covered above.

• A cart built for how you buy digital. Your digital cart moves entirely into the new Hoopla eCommerce shopping experience, built around Flex and Instant Bundles purchasing instead of sharing space with physical titles. 

• Your cart, at a glance. See holds and request insights right on the cart screen, no need to check another report first. Filter and customize columns with the same tools you’ll find in search, License Inventory, and Requests. 

• Real collaboration. Share a cart with anyone on your team who manages carts for your account, no time limit, no locked cart. Everyone can edit, and built-in notifications and a refresh prompt keep everyone working from the latest version before checkout. Only the cart owner can place the order. (Physical cart sharing works the same as it does today, this is new for digital.) 

• Built-in approval. If you don’t have checkout permission, request approval right from your cart instead of a separate email or handoff. You’ll keep full visibility into the cart while it’s pending. 

• One digital account, no account numbers to remember. Add titles to your default cart, pull from an existing cart, or start a new one, whichever fits how you’re ordering. 

• Order history for your whole team. Anyone on your library’s account can view past order history, not just whoever originally placed the order. 

Timing 

The new Midwest Tape and Hoopla eCommerce experience is coming later this year! Keep an eye on this page: as soon as it becomes available we’ll update the sections above. 

Questions before then? Reach out to your sales rep, we’re happy to help!