Amazing
Great app! I use it everyday and it’s never let me down. Has saved me a ton of money and space in my house by letting me borrow books instead of buying them. The audio books are amazing and I listen to them whilst I’m driving or doing housework to stay inspired with the current goals in my life. I would highly recommend to everyone weather you want a book in your pocket to read anytime or you need a bit of inspiration to keep you on track with your goals it does it all! You also never have to worry about remembering when things are due back as it does that too. You get notified when items are close to their due date and if you forget it will return them for you. It does so much more but I think this review is long enough already. Happy reading guys!
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Is good, but not Don’s.
Writing a review for software enabling reading a library book on your phone/tablet etc. not a big ask really, really? Well yes it’s better than my Kobo experience with it (Kobo) running into a seemingly planned glitch that leaves it useless. Not sure who is to blame for free Adobe software they won’t fix or Kobo’s use of it rendering the hardware useless way too early. Back the subject. This seems to work well, with some small resets occasionally. It would be great if past reads were managed a little better but some would make a deal about big brother. Personally I don’t care who knows what I read or who I call/SMS. If that’s how they wish to spend their days worrying about my quiet life have at it.
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Benjamin Franklin would be so proud!
Those that might not know, Benjamin Franklin and friends found the Library Company of Philadelphia, which was the first lending library in America. Therefore, I can say, and genuinely believe, that he would have been very proud of this development if he could possibly have foreseen it. To be able, when dis-abled, to have a full library at my disposal, has been soul-saving. Libraries have been part of my life, all of my life. So, to be without (new) books, without the choice of books, without access easily to books is painful. Now on my pension, buying books and magazines are a luxury. Being visually impaired, having access to audiobooks is another life-changing aspect. I have tried various approaches to being part of a library system, but it was just this year that I was introduced to Libby through my local library.
I can not fully express my respect and appreciation for the development of a software program that makes books and magazines in various formats available to the entire community without the need to physically attend the library itself.* To make choices, to sample (read or listen), to either borrow or be on a wait list, to open the book within the downloaded software, is deeply satisfying. I’m wallowing in the luxury. *I do miss all the other wonderful aspects and services of a physical library. Ask your librarian all about it. Download the app, its all free. You won’t be sorry. Thank you to the developers.
I can not fully express my respect and appreciation for the development of a software program that makes books and magazines in various formats available to the entire community without the need to physically attend the library itself.* To make choices, to sample (read or listen), to either borrow or be on a wait list, to open the book within the downloaded software, is deeply satisfying. I’m wallowing in the luxury. *I do miss all the other wonderful aspects and services of a physical library. Ask your librarian all about it. Download the app, its all free. You won’t be sorry. Thank you to the developers.
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Libby is great, but there are some reasons that I would consider another service.
Libby is definitely one of the only places to get ebooks and audiobooks that I trust. There were a couple of things that bothered me. One was that I couldn’t get a lot of books that I wanted to read because Libby didn’t have them. Another was that the holds that I places often had extremely longs wait time. Some of them were even several months wait. Lots of them only had one copy, and with that and the number of people who use this website created some major problems with the books’ availability. That certainly bothered me a lot more than the other services that I have used in the past. Those are the only problems that I noticed with the service. Some things that I did enjoy about Libby are the voices in the audiobooks and the categorization opportunity. I know that, sometimes, the person who reads the audiobook can have a slightly annoying voice, or there are noticeable problems with the audiobook. I find it annoying, for example, when it is obvious when the reader paused the recording to take a break, and it makes it sound strange, but both Libby’s audiobooks and its readers are lovely. Another thing that I loved about Libby was the tags that can be used for categorization. I used these for things like keeping track of what I want to read. I highly encourage, if you do start using Libby, to keep a wishlist. Overall, Libby is great, and I hope that you enjoy using it!
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It’s great at some things
This library audio app is good, but the only problem is it only has so many audiobooks, but there’s more books that you can read that actual audiobooks for those that have dyslexia who would not be able to read books properly and may need some extra help. The audiobooks are perfect but they need to have more options. And the app should be able to connect to all libraries in the world should be able to join up and connect all of the audiobooks together that they have in the world and put it on one app like this and should be able to use my young Scott card to be able to library card to join up other libraries across the world to access all of their libraries so that they can use library books or audiobooks if they choose to that would be awesome
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Unstable
While I appreciate the access to great books, the application itself is poorly designed and unstable. Issues primarily occur when trying to fast forward / rewind or when the application tries to determine your reading location in audiobooks. Shutting the app down doesn’t fix the never ending spinning wheel nor does force restarting my phone. This has been ongoing across multiple devices ever since I started using Libby four years ago. Other issues include books (that you may have had waiting on hold for months) disappearing from your library and not showing up in history. Great service, terrible app.
Update: I had a book on hold for three years (yes 3 years!!!) and was in the short list (maybe a month or two away) before it disappeared from the library. TBO at this point I don’t really even use this app anymore. Even with the updates, it’s finicky and the offerings are severely limited. Any decent recent releases or older top sellers are either non existent (most common) or have so few copies you need to plan months or years in advanced. At first I thought that libraries were keeping up with modern tech but over the past 4-5 years I’ve become more and more disappointed.
Update: I had a book on hold for three years (yes 3 years!!!) and was in the short list (maybe a month or two away) before it disappeared from the library. TBO at this point I don’t really even use this app anymore. Even with the updates, it’s finicky and the offerings are severely limited. Any decent recent releases or older top sellers are either non existent (most common) or have so few copies you need to plan months or years in advanced. At first I thought that libraries were keeping up with modern tech but over the past 4-5 years I’ve become more and more disappointed.
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What I think of Libby!
Libby is excellent. Why? 👇 1. You can borrow so many books. 2. It gives you the option to renew books a few days before your time for that particular book. 3. It sends you a notification (if you have notifications for Libby toggled on in the Settings of your device) when a book is returned. 4. If your library doesn’t have a particular book that you want, or all the copies of it are in use, you can place a hold on it, and it notifies you when it arrives! 5. You can see books you have borrowed in the past and when you borrowed them. 6. So much variety! 7. You can register multiple cards! 8. And finally, you can register multiple libraries! 8. There’s also magazines, which you can subscribe to (for free) and get notified when they publish a new edition of said magazine if you subscribe! I hope whoever reads this has a lovely day/night and long life chock full of happiness! Thank you, Overdrive, Inc, for making this amazing app!🤩 Edit: if there’s a word you want to look up the definition of, you can highlight it! And you can search for it in the book and search that word in Google/ Safari/ DuckDuckGo etc.
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My favorite app
I love reading on my phone but didn’t read as much as I wanted because the cost of purchasing digital books. This app is amazing and I’m so thankful to the friend that told me about it. I’ve increased my reading tenfold, the convenience is unmatched and I get to listen to audiobooks during my commute also, all for free. With really popular books I’ve had to wait in line sometimes a few months, and this is difficult at times for instance when I’m trying to read a series. I’ve had book 3 come available for me before book 2 for instance. But there are ways to manage that (let the next person in line read it while you wait). It’s not perfect but it’s close enough especially for free! My only critique is that when you sign up for a free digital library card through them, it expires after a year. I didn’t know this and when my year was up I lost all of my many holds. I had to go into my local library branch, get a physical card, upload that card info to the app, and they couldn’t or wouldn’t transfer all of my holds so I had to get back in the end of line for multiple books I was waiting for months already for. Now that that’s fixed, I have no other problems with the app, just a cautionary heads up for others. You can also check out magazines in this app and you can read straight from the app or from your kindle device. Well worth the 5 stars and more!
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Started Reading Again
A huge thank you to my local Idaho library for coming to the Pride event I was working at. My issue with loans is that my ADHD makes it difficult for me to return books on time. Also, I’m usually too exhausted during my time off to read anymore, so even if I do have a book in front of me I inevitably fall asleep. The library staff I met with told me I could get ebooks and audiobooks instead, since they are timed to automatically return themselves without me having to drive anywhere. I signed up for Libby that night and it’s made a huge difference! I had never tried audiobooks before, because I’m picky about the narration and couldn’t afford to pay for one only to dislike the voice. Now if I dislike the narration, it’s so easy to find the ebook version instead and pick a different audiobook from my reading list. Audiobooks have especially changed the game for me because I often live in remote areas with lots of driving—it’s nice that I can get my reading in when I would otherwise be bored on a 1- to 10-hour drive through the desert. I also love that I can read an ebook on my phone during my lunch break instead of carrying extra books or a kindle to and from work. Plus, I can put multiple library cards from different cities on my account so I can usually find what I’m looking for. I just can’t praise Libby enough and I recommend it to anyone who will listen. I’m so glad to be reading regularly again and that this app makes libraries so accessible.
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Concept good
Fairly easy to use once you can get it set up… but… has definite bugs… eg if you have a book on hold and reach the top of the queue but have meanwhile started another… you have the option to let the next person have it rather than borrow immediately. this option though does not keep you at the top of the queue as it indicates… nooooo you go back down the queue… so you can end up back at number 3 or 10 for being polite and not sitting on a book you cannot read… this means the best for YOU is to borrow and NOT read it as that means you have it rather than waiting weeks for it to appear again… Also a much more limited booklist than the library actually holds… and they keep pushing the audiobook option… and I really do not want to listen to a book as I like to read…. Screen reader is poorer to read than Kindle by quite a bit… maps are impossible to get to full screen as they like to make them one side of a “book” page… and will not allow screen expansion with fingers… quality of images is terrible so not readable in small sizes.
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