Oakdale, MN – 08 August 2017: Effective immediately, bibliotheca is pleased to welcome HarperCollins to its growing list of audiobook publishers participating in cloudLibrary’s pay-per-use model.

cloudLibrary launched the pay-per-use model in May of 2016. Since then, the program has been adopted by libraries world-wide, offering audiobooks from publishers such as Simon and Schuster, Hachette, Blackstone, Disney, and Scholastic. The addition of HarperCollins titles allows libraries to provide a growing array of popular content with no upfront costs.

“bibliotheca was proud to be the first to market with a pay-per-use eContent model that seamlessly works alongside purchased content” says Thomas Mercer, Director of Digital Products for bibliotheca. “Our latest agreement with HarperCollins continues our commitment to provide the best content and experiences to our customers.”

Unlike the standard ownership-driven model, pay-per-use requires no upfront purchase of materials. Instead, libraries pay when a patron downloads a title. This model allows libraries to maximize their digital collections budget and offer a much more diverse selection of titles, at no risk.

cloudLibrary displays pay-per-use titles alongside purchased titles, creating a seamless experience for the user. Libraries can set a monthly budget for pay-per-use titles as well as establish the maximum fee for individual loans. Both of these limits can be easily extended at any time during the month. In the event that a library exceeds its monthly budget for pay-per-use, the titles are offered on-hold to the patron until the next billing cycle.

“Our pay-per-use model is completely different than anything offered by our competitors. Other platforms simply cease to function when the funds run out, resulting in a diminished and disappointing experience for the user. Our model simply shows the pay-per-use items as checked out, and allows patrons to place materials they want on hold until they become available. This is just one more way that cloudLibrary provides users with a polished, intuitive experience,” says Mercer.

cloudLibrary’s pay-per-use collection currently offers more than 20,000 eAudiobooks, and plans are underway to include ebooks in the near future. With so much content to listen to, selecting the most interesting and diverse audiobooks can be a challenge for libraries. cloudLibrary features recommendations that are hand-curated bi-weekly by Heather McCormack, a former Editor-in-Chief of the Library Journal.

“The featured shelves provide a digital version of recommended reading displays, popular inside physical library branches. They allow libraries to highlight great audiobooks that may be of interest to users, categorized by genre. With the recommendations curated inside the app, librarians can be confident that they are promoting the best of the best with no additional time or effort required,” says Mercer.

The HarperCollins pay-per-use audiobook catalogue, as well as the extensive catalogues offered by previous partners, is currently available to all cloudLibrary customers worldwide.

About bibliotheca

bibliotheca is dedicated to the development of solutions that help libraries connect with users in unique ways and provide engaging experiences, allowing them to continually evolve their library services for the changing needs of their communities. Their products are designed to provide a welcoming, intuitive and seamless environment for those that use the library – wherever they choose to use it - be that at home, on the move or within the library itself.

With over 30,000 libraries as part of their family, they have installed and continue to support more than 10,000 self-service units, 6,000 security systems and over 650 Automated Materials Handling (sorter) systems. In addition, the cloudLibrary™ digital platform powers eBook and eAudiobook lending at a further 3,000 libraries.

About HarperCollins

HarperCollins Publishers is the second largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in 18 countries. With 200 years of history and more than 120 branded imprints around the world, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year in 17 languages, and has a print and digital catalog of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and the Man Booker Prize. HarperCollins, headquartered in New York, is a subsidiary of News Corp and can be visited online at corporate.HC.com.