Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for information on Playaways. Here are the responses received. PLAYAWAYS SURVEY May 22, 2018 Questions: Are any libraries still circulating Playaways? We had a patron request that we start a Playaway collection, but I'm wondering if that is an old technology that would not get used much. Thanks for your feedback! Newaygo Area District Library -- We have about eight for elementary/tween age patrons. They are checked out all the time. Royal Oak PL -- We circulate Playaways and from my limited experience filling in for Circ duties, I rarely see them go out or be returned. However, we do have Playaway Views in our Juvenile collection and those are more popular, so I guess it depends on what format you're looking for. If you want, have the patron look at our collection online and we can loan them some through the shared system. :-) Royal Oak PL (another staff person) -- We still circ Playaways but our youth media person said the company is going to quit making them and go with their Playaway launchpad product. I think that is the name. We decided against adding launch pads for a couple of reasons. Playaways and Playawayviews were quite popular at ROPL for awhile. Farmington Library -- Patrons at our library love Playaways and check them out all the time, in Children's anyway. For audio books, we will often choose a Playaway over a CD. Brighton Library -- They're still popular at my library (at least in the youth department). I've been purchasing more Playaways since CDs seem to be the aging technology these days. Brighton Library (another staff person) -- We have them still but nobody is checking them out! I was considering pulling the collection off the shelf as they are becoming too dated Colon Library -- I think most libraries are using mainly audiobooks and digital downloads. If it were my patron, I'd order off of MEL rather than start a new collection. They aren't cheap. Novi PL -- I know that Royal Oak Public Library still has them and I believe that Baldwin Public Library (Birmingham) still carries them as well. Our has been discontinued, but I’m afraid that as I was not in charge of the collection I can’t remember the exact details. Something about cost and replacements (I think). We got rid of ours a few years ago. Freeport Library -- We still have some Playaways that we circulate, but because of problems with the Playaways, we stopped purchasing them. The ones we have do not get a lot of circulation. Leighton Township Library -- We have had them for about 10 years. They are fading... Lyon Twp Library -- As far as I know, Baldwin PL still circulates youth playaways, but I think they withdrew all their adult and teen ones. Hamburg Library -- We stopped circulating Playaways two years ago as they were not going out much anymore. Clarkston Independence Library -- When I left last year, Genesee District Library was still circulating these through the Talking Books Center in Flint. Lapeer District Library -- We still have a playaway collection but I am not currently buying any more new ones. Patrons love them but they are more expensive than the traditional audiobook on cd. My biggest problem with them are that they aren't fixable when patrons report a problem. I can't see damage the way I can with an audio cd and I have to replace the whole thing not just a single disc that was the problem. The only thing I can do is discard them if there is a problem with them. I end up listening to the whole audiobook to see where the problem spot was and to see how bad it is but I don't have time to do this and therefore, I have a lot waiting to be looked at. I really see them as a transition object between audiobooks on cd and the downloadable audiobooks, both of which we have. More and more patrons are listening to downloadable audio, so I phased them out. I am curious to hear what other libraries responses are too. Milan PL -- We still are -- both in adult and juvenile. Not a big circ turnover, but we do get some use out of them. Cadillac PL -- In our Children's Room, we've started to move exclusively to playaways. I find that an increasing number of patrons do not own CD players at home or in the car but they still want a physical audio book rather than a digital copy. I'm sure that will change as time goes on and we will move to exclusively digital content audio but this is the stop gap that is working for us right now. We often have to explain the technology but once people understand the concept they are delighted and intrigued and they love the fact that they can get a book for each individually child to enjoy instead of everyone listening to the same book. Although, we also circulate auxiliary cords so the playaways can be played through car stereos with the auxiliary port. I hope this helps! Zeeland Library -- We are still circulating Playaways. This is my take on these. They are well liked by our community, but the Playaways are NOT built to last longer than 1 year. They are time consuming and I have come to the point that it isn't worth the $70.00 replacement cost after 1 year. Our patrons would like us to have more variety, but that is difficult based on the purchase and replacement cost for this program. I am at a point of seriously considering dropping this program. Commerce Township Community Library -- At one of my former libraries, we discontinued Playaways because they were so expensive, broke easily, and playaway didn't have any kind of replacement/wear & tear policy. Not only that, but it was bothersome for patrons to supply their own batteries for the device. Books on CD and digital audiobooks through Libby/Hoopla/RB Digital are so much higher in demand that Playaways aren't really necessary. Hackley Library -- We are. We were going to let it go, but since we renewed the contract in January we decided to let it expire naturally in December. We have a number of them checked out now, and they're always more popular in the summer. We'll revisit it next fall. Our community is relatively low tech, since over 50% of our households do not have internet access. Wixon Library -- We actually got rid of the small playaway collection we had. It was not used much and we also had to troubleshoot the devices a lot. Houghton Lake Library -- At HLPL, we have kept up our Playaway collection. We are finding it to be more of a draw as new cars no longer come with CD players. We even took the brochures to our local car dealer and they pass them out with new purchases. They were happy to have an answer to the no CD player questions they get as well. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Genesee District Library -- Genesee District Library still has a Playaway collection, and the items still circulate. But we have purchased very few of them since 2011. Two reasons—they were quite expensive compared to print items, and we felt then that they were a transitional format. Now that (nearly) everybody has a smart phone, we put our money into ebooks. Clinton-Macomb Library -- We still circulate and buy Playaways, though they don’t circ as much as our Audio book on CD collection. (I work with the adult collections.) We have seen some patrons becoming interested if they get a new car without a CD player, but we also point them to our downloadable content. Patty Patty Braden, Director Romulus Public Library 11121 Wayne Road Romulus, MI 48174 734-942-7589 www.romuluslibrary.org
