Get Digital

01 7, 2022

Get more eBooks & Audiobooks with Hoopla Flex

By Jason Lea|2025-01-06T08:52:15-05:00January 7, 2022|

Our digital collection from Hoopla is getting even bigger!

Now our library has added hundreds of the latest and bestselling ebooks and audiobooks with Hoopla Flex. Can’t find a certain ebook or audiobook in our collection or on Libby? Check Hoopla!

Borrowing an ebook or audiobook from Hoopla Flex works similarly to borrowing one on Libby/OverDrive. It it’s marked as available, you can check it out immediately. You’ll have the audiobook or ebook for 21 days with renewal available as long as there are no holds on the item. If someone has borrowed the item you want, you can place it on hold.

To be clear, Hoopla Flex is a new option for those of you specifically looking for new and bestselling ebooks and audiobooks. If you use Hoopla to read comics, listen to music, or watch movies, you can still do that! Hoopla still has nearly a million different titles of ebooks, audiobooks, comics, music, and TV episodes that you can borrow immediately as part of its Hoopla Instant collection.

Hoopla is free to use with your Mentor Public Library card. You can borrow up to 15 items per month from the Hoopla Instant collection and 10 items from Hoopla Flex. Click here to start browsing Hoopla’s enormous catalogue.

06 29, 2020

Study anything for free with the Great Courses & your library card

By admin|2025-03-29T09:44:39-04:00June 29, 2020|

Whatever you want to learn, there’s a Great Courses series about it. And there’s a great chance that you can enjoy that Great Courses series for free with your library card.

Have you heard of The Great Courses?

They’re a collection of phenomenal lectures series created by esteemed college professors for the general public on fascinating topics like Decisive Battles in World History, Customs of the World, and Physics & our Universe.

They’re engaging, enlightening, and understandable. The only downside? They can be a touch expensive to buy.

Fortunately, your Mentor Public Library offers three ways that you can enjoy more The Great Courses for free.

1. Borrow them from us

We have several DVD sets of Great Courses series that you can borrow from our collection!

2. Stream them using Kanopy

If you’re not familiar with Kanopy, it’s a streaming service that lets you watch some of the world’s greatest films and documentaries. And it’s free with your library card!

It also has dozens of Great Courses series that you can stream onto your computer, phone, tablet, or Smart TV.

Learn as much as you want to about history, skills, hobbies, humanities and science.

3. Stream audio versions of the Great Courses for free with Hoopla

By the way, if you prefer streaming audio, you can stream more than 100 Great Courses in their entirety as audiobooks using Hoopla. Once again, Hoopla is free to use with your Mentor Public Library card. You can borrow up to 20 items per month from its collection, which also includes audiobooks, movies, music, and comics.

You can also use Hoopla’s BingePass if you want access to hundreds of Great Courses series with a single borrow!

So what do you want to learn first?

12 13, 2018

Library cards for Lake Shore Compact students

By admin|2018-12-13T06:00:16-05:00December 13, 2018|

One of the Career Technical Education students shows off his new Mentor Public Library card.

We spent a wonderful morning giving Mentor Public Library cards to about 175 Career Technical Education students this Tuesday at Mentor Schools’ Paradigm building.

The students were from the MBA, Allied Health and Graphic Design & Video Production tracks. They all use lynda.com, an online software training database, to help them with their studies. And the school districts pay so the students can access it.

Recently, Lynda.com became one of the dozens of databases you can use for free with your library card. That means the students and schools can access it for free. All the students need is a library card.

We also had the opportunity to show the students the ebooks, digital magazines, streaming music and video, and other online resources they can use with their Mentor Public Library Card.

This is just the beginning of the process. However, by putting library cards in every Mentor High School students’ hands, we can save the school district $37,500 over the next five years.

This is just one of the ways that Mentor Schools and Mentor Public Library have partnered to (one) save the community money, (two) share resources and (three) make those resources available to you.

Just this year, we opened Mentor High School’s renovated school library — now known as The HUB — to the public. It’s open to everyone for study, quiet tutoring and more from 3 to 8 p.m. every Monday through Wednesday. We also host a wide variety of programs there each week.

Moreover, you now use The HUB’s state-of-the-art makerspace!

It contains a:

Laser Engraver
Vinyl Cutter
T-Shirt Press
Large Format Printer
Green Screen Studio
Spiral Binder
Button Maker
3D Pens
Sticker Printer
and Mini Laminator

You can use any or all of these machines to make the project of your dreams. You don’t need to be a student at Mentor High School or even a resident of Mentor. All you need is a Mentor Public Library card in good standing. For more information, visit our makerspace page.

We’re grateful for our friends at Mentor Schools. Our partnership with them has made our library card more valuable than ever.

04 1, 2018

Master online resources with Niche Academy

By admin|2023-11-04T09:14:47-04:00April 1, 2018|

We offer a dizzying amount of tools online: databases for research; online classes; digital resources where you can read eBooks and magazines, listen to music and audiobooks, and watch videos.

It can be confusing to find the resources you want and learn how to use them—intimidating even. So we’re offering a new service, Niche Academy, that teaches you how to use all of them. Niche Academy offers short video tutorials that you can watch for free and at your convenience. Learn how to:

Borrow and read eBooks and digital magazines with OverDrive, Libby, Cloud Library and Flipster
stream music, television shows, documentaries and movies with Freegal, Hoopla and Kanopy
use library databases like Ancestry.com, Consumer Reports, Select Reads and Legal Forms
take free online classes with Gale Courses.

Niche Academy also offers videos that explain how to use online tools like Gmail, Goodreads and social media, including Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. All of these video tutorials are available for free. You can watch as many as you like at mentorpl.org/niche.

01 20, 2018

Watch some of the world’s best films with Kanopy & your library card

By admin|2023-11-04T09:11:46-04:00January 20, 2018|

You can stream some of the greatest films ever made for free.

All you need is your library card and our newest digital service, Kanopy.

Kanopy has a collection of more than 30,000 films, including award-winning movies and documentaries from all over the globe.

Watch them on your favorite device—computer, tablet, phone, Apple TV, Chromecast or Roku—for free. Indulge your inner cinephile with masterpieces by Akira Kurosawa, Greta Gerwig, Charlie Chaplin, Federico Fellini, Orson Welles and more.

You have 30 tickets you can use each month on Kanopy. Each title on Kanopy will tell you how many tickets are required to view it and how long you have to watch it. Click here if you have any questions about how Kanopy tickets work.