OAKLAND — Oakland Public Library has begun offering a new online service for patrons that acts like “Netflix, but for libraries,” allowing numerous people to read the same book or watch the same movie simultaneously online.

The app, called Hoopla Digital, will allow anyone with an Oakland Public Library card to have access to and rent the company’s collection of more than 600,000 movies, eBooks, music, audiobooks and comics.

Oakland Public Library launched the program on Sept. 19 and according to Sharon McKellar, community relations librarian, the response has been positive so far.

“My hope is that it’s a service where people are able to easily search and find content that they’re excited about,” McKellar said.

The new service will be the library’s first pay-per-use model, in which the library will be charged for each individual item a patron uses, and not an overall service fee.

Michael Manon of Hoopla Digital said the service is a great supplement service for libraries because it allows many different users to access the same content at the same time. He gave the example of when the artist Prince passed away earlier in the year, many people turned to libraries to find his music.

“You could immediately borrow any of Prince’s music through your library card on Hoopla,” Manon said. “The library using Hoopla can satisfy demand immediately without worrying about buying hundreds of copies of ‘Purple Rain.’”

Oakland patrons will be initially allowed to check out six items a month on Hoopla. Checkouts are free for anyone with a library card. Hoopla is also being used at a number of other libraries around the Bay Area, including the San Francisco Public Library, Sausalito Public Library and Berkeley Public Library.