I can’t believe that I’ve never written a post about the Libby app before because it has been life changing for us living on an island with no libraries or bookstores. Libby is a free app by Overdrive where you can borrow ebooks, audiobooks, magazines and get access to third party sites like Craftsy. You can even send the books to your Kindle — when I borrow a book in the Libby app, it gets sent to all of our Kindles. The Libby app is connected to your public library card, and bigger library systems have larger collections. For instance my library card is from the Central Los Angeles branch, and it enables me to borrow 30 books at a time and put 15 books on hold. My friend’s card from Chicago lets her borrow 10 books at a time, and I think the New York card lets you borrow 50 at a time! We’re making 3 more library cards on this trip because sharing 30 books between the four of us just isn’t enough!
This is what the home screen of the app looks like. You can easily sort books by popular tags; I like to search by “available now” so I can borrow a book immediately in my selected genre.
Libby Librarians have curated many specific book guides that are constantly being updated by genre, current events, holidays, etc. For instance in the children’s guides right now, you can find collections called Winter Celebrations, Diverse Reads for Grades 4 and Up, Libros en Espanol, Social Justice for Kids, Celebrating Comics, and so many more.
This is a screenshot of our “holds” tab. Our library card enables us to put 15 books on hold at a time, and we’re always at the maximum number of holds! Popular and new releases typically have waiting lists, so we are constantly managing our waiting list. Libraries buy digital licenses so they only have a certain number of copies they can lend out at a time.
Our holds list isn’t long enough, so we maintain additional lists by using tags like “wish list” as you can see above. For popular children’s books the wait tends to be less than 4 weeks, but popular new release adult books can have 8 weeks+ waits. Charlie and Olive are working their way through the popular Warriors series that has 83 books in it, but there is typically a wait for each book, and the series must be read in order. So they are slowly borrowing each book through Libby, but they get so excited when the next book in the series is available. That said there are many popular books available to borrow immediately — a quick search turned up Dogman, The Babysitter’s Club, Captain Underpants all available to borrow now.
There is a “Skip the Line” feature for some of the most popular books, and it enables you to borrow books immediately for 1 week instead of the standard 3 weeks.
This is what the kids have currently borrowed:
- What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Questions by Randall Munroe
- The Science of Breakable Things by Tae Keller (I’m reading this right now)
- Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy (I borrowed this because it was recommended by Rick Riordan)
- Warriors: Starlight by Erin Hunter
- Warriors: Dawn by Erin Hunter
- Warriors: Midnight by Erin Hunter
- Mostly the Honest Truth by Jody J Little
- Masterminds by Gordon Korman
- Girls Who Code: The Friendship Code by Stacia Deutsch
- Girls Who Code: Team BFF Race to the Finish by Stacia Deustch
- The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (Olive loves this series)
- The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan (both kids have read all of Riordan’s books)
- Icefire and The Fire Within by Chris d’Lacey
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov
- Voyagers 4, 5, and 6 by Wendy Mass (one of Charlie’s favorite series)
I curate a ton of books for the kids that they wouldn’t necessarily choose for themselves. I love to find new books in genres they love (fantasy, science fiction, mythology), but I also love to expose them to a wide variety of genres (nonfiction, historical fiction, children’s literature). I love it when they tell me that they loved a book I selected; for instance I borrowed books 1 and 2 of The Last Dragon Chronicles series for Charlie, and he wanted to continue reading the series, but book 3 wasn’t available on Libby. Luckily we found books 3-7 at our local library! And Olive loved The Mysterious Benedict Society, so we have the next books in the series on our Holds list.
Children’s books can be very expensive, especially when your kids are whizzing through a series. We still prefer actual books, which is why we go to the library, used bookstores and Barnes and Noble whenever we’re in the US. But it’s just not an option for us on our island, so we are eternally grateful for the Libby app!
pomelo / 5621 posts
We love borrowing books from the library for the ereader. My DS who is 8 reads so much and it is a great way to try new series. We found this especially helpful when schools and libraries were closed.
cherry / 247 posts
I’m obsessed with the Libby App, but every book I want always has a wait- sometimes for months! I wonder if I could get a library card for a bigger library (like NYC) without being a NY resident.
apricot / 364 posts
We love the Libby app today. Columbus, Ohio has a shockingly large collection so even if I’m on a waitlist, I like to filter by what’s immediately available within a category to hold me over.
pomegranate / 3973 posts
I haven’t used the Libby app but I use overdrive.com and it’s how I get all the books I read. Ours is Northeast Iowa but I can only check out 3 at a time, and have 10 on hold.
A trick I’ve found is that if you’re not ready to return a book yet, to put the kindle on airplane mode so it can’t snatch the book back. Wouldn’t work on a phone but I use this often so I can get caught up!
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@steelergirl you can get a. Out of state card for $50 to the Brooklyn Public Library. Their digital library is extensive and you can get popular books so much quicker than at smaller local libraries.
cantaloupe / 6086 posts
@josina: this is my favorite trick!! Sometimes a new book comes available on Libby and I have to ask myself if I want it enough to give up the expired ones to download it
I love Libby – every time I hear about something new I put it on hold – usually then forget about them so it’s a nice surprise when they come up!