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Welcome back to Never Enough Novels. Today, I am so excited to share my top 10 tips and tricks for getting the most out of the Libby app.
Libby is my all-time favorite bookish app. I use it every single day to either listen to audiobooks or download ebooks onto my Kindle. If you haven't heard of it before, Libby is an app that works with your local library to give you access to a huge catalog of ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines. Through the app, you can either download ebooks onto your Kindle, or you can read ebooks directly on the app, or you can listen to audiobooks as well, or browse through tons and tons of magazine issues.
If you're not sure if your library works with Libby, you can just go on their website, or call them, or ask them in person. I found that most libraries, not all, work with Libby. But if they're not Libby, then they're usually some other type of ebook or audiobook app like Hoopla or Cloud Library. But since Libby is probably one of the most popular apps, and I found it is available at most libraries, I wanted to share my 10 tricks for getting the most out of the Libby app.
Up first is the ability to add more than one library card to your Libby app. So if you've signed up, you know that part of the process is adding your library card number and either a PIN or a passcode so that it connects your library to the Libby app and gives you access to your library's selection of ebooks and audiobooks. So the catalog changes depending on each person's library and what the library chooses to include on the app. So if you can add more than one library card, then you have access to a bigger number of books.
And one of the problems that I run into is I run out of hold slots. So like my current library only gives me six books that I can put on hold at any given time, but my TBR list and books that I want to read is often a lot longer than that. So I now have three library cards on my Libby app, which gives me access to a ton more hold slots.
If you're wondering, you know, how do I get another library card, there are a couple of different options. I've heard some people that have like their husbands or partners or kids sign up for a library card so that they can use their library card number. Or I found that bigger cities in some of the states often allow any residents within that state to get a library card for free. So for example, Philadelphia allows anyone in Pennsylvania to apply for a library card online and get access to like a library card number and a PIN number. So if you live in the state of Pennsylvania, you can go to the Free Library of Philadelphia's website, sign up for a library card, and then add that library card to Libby as well. I know this is pretty similar for a lot of different states. So check out some cities like around you, or maybe like the biggest city or the capital city in your state, just to see on their library's website if they work with Libby and if they allow anyone to get access to a library card.
And once you do have another card number or two that you want to add, it's a very simple process. In your Libby app, you would just simply click on like the menu in the middle, which is the three lines, click on "Add Library." Then you would search for the new library that you have a card for, or if it's the same one, then you can add a second card number to that library. Sign in with your card and just complete the steps. Now you can use both cards or multiple cards simultaneously.
My second tip is to extend the checkout date. So often the default checkout time period is 14 days, but sometimes you might need longer than that to finish reading a book or finish an audiobook. So before you check out the book, you might have the option to switch it to 21 days. I've heard this isn't available for every single library, but it seems that most from people that I've worked with have the option to switch to 21 days. So whenever you get a notice or whenever you go to borrow a new book, you will see that the default checkout period, let's say, is 14 days, and you can click on the number 14, or whatever it is, seven, and you'll see a dropdown list. Then which gives you an option for how long you want the checkout period to be. So within that dropdown list, if you see 21 days, you can switch it to that, and then you'll have the book available to you for 21 days.
My next tip is sort of similar. So if you're running into problems with not being able to finish the book before it's returned, particularly for ebooks, if you're reading the ebook on your Kindle, you can put your Kindle on airplane mode, and this will prevent the book from being returned to the library. So that you are able to read it on your Kindle as long as your Kindle stays within airplane mode. So the way this works is that the book will be electronically returned to the library. So the next person in line, or whoever might want that book, will still be able to get a copy. But the physical copy is still downloaded on your Kindle. So as long as it doesn't connect to Wi-Fi or to the internet, then your copy will remain on your Kindle as long as you stay offline. So this can be very helpful if you have a couple of books that come in at the same time, or if you're just not able to finish a book in time as you're reading it. Then you can just turn on airplane mode, and for however long you need to finish the book, you'll be able to access the text.
My next tip is purely for fun, and it involves the exploding flower bouquet. If you haven't heard of this, this is a little symbol that you'll get whenever you return a book early. So whenever you have the book checked out to you and you see it on your shelf, if you're done with the book, you'll see there's an option to return early. If you hit that button and go through the steps, a little flower bouquet emoji will show up on your screen. And most people just see that and kind of exit out. But if you tap the flower bouquet emoji, it will explode into a shower of flowers all over your screen. So again, this is purely for fun. It's kind of something that Libby insiders know and talk about, and not many people are necessarily aware of. I mean, it has no other purpose than strictly to see a bunch of flowers like floating across your screen. But I think it's just a fun little extra thing they do for people who return the books early. As a reminder, if you do return the book early when you're done with it, that ensures that it will get to the next person in line even faster, or will make it available to someone else who might want to read the book. So it's always just kind of a nice thing to do so that more people can read these books.
If you do often put books on hold, you may know that it always seems like all of your books become available at the same time. It's like there's just a cluster of books that are suddenly available, and now you feel like you have to read them all at once. Fear not. There is an option to delay your hold without going back to the very back of the line. So whenever you get the notice that your book is now available, instead of hitting "Borrow," you should see a button called "Deliver Later." "Deliver Later" allows you to delay the checkout of your book while holding your place in line. So when you click that "Deliver Later" button, you'll see a sliding bar on the bottom that typically is set to seven days, but you can make it like two days or up to 10 days, something like that, that will allow you to choose how long until the book becomes available again. So let's say you select the common seven days. After seven days, you will get the next available copy of the book. So this just gives you a little bit extra time to decide when you want to check out the book, so you don't feel like you have to check them out all at once as soon as they become available.
As a frequent Libby user, and I know there's many other people in the book community that do this too, "Deliver Later" is both our savior and our nemesis. Because I end up delivering later on so many different books, and sometimes the same book will get delivered later like 10 or 15 times before I'm ready to read it. I know this is a common problem with mood readers because we put a book on hold when we're very excited to read it, and then by the time it becomes available, we aren't necessarily in the mood to read that particular book. So if you are a mood reader like me, this will be a fantastic option for you because you can keep your place in line without necessarily having to read the book right at that moment.
If you're often looking to find new books on Libby, this next tip will be very helpful. You can use an option called "Deep Search" to find books that aren't necessarily in your library's catalog. So whenever you're going through your normal search process, you click on the search bar and type in the title of a book. You may notice that a certain title, whether it's a new title or one that your library just doesn't have available, doesn't pop up in the search results, or you may get books that are similar but not exactly what you're looking for. If you scroll all the way down through the search results, you'll see a button on the bottom called "Deep Search." Once you click that button, it will take you to the Deep Search catalog, which basically has every book in existence. And you will be able to click, I think it's "Notify," so that whenever a copy of that book becomes available in your library's catalog specifically, then you will get a notice so that you can put it on hold. I know a lot of people use this deep search trick for new books that haven't been published yet. So like Onyx Storm is going to be released in January. Your library doesn't have a copy yet because it's not officially published, but it still exists out there. And let's say you want to be notified that you can be put in line for a hold as soon as your library gets that copy, then you can use this deep search button to get a notification.
Another tip that most people don't know about is using tags to help organize your books on Libby. This isn't a trick that I use very often, but I know others who have created like very detailed tags on Libby so they can keep track of books that they want to read. So you will find the tag symbol on the bottom right, and that will take you to the tags tab within Libby. So you can create new tags. I think there's a few that are defaulted that are already available, but I've heard of people creating like "New Releases" tags or "TBR" tags. So whenever you search for a book or are browsing for a new book, you can assign tags to it, and then whenever you go into that tag section on Libby, you'll be able to see all the books that fall under that category.
My next tip is only available for some libraries. So out of the three library cards, only one of them has this ability, but it's called "Skip the Line." It's a really fun feature for those of you that have access to it, and I really enjoy just checking in on it every once in a while to see what's available. When you go into search for a book, you'll see that there's a lot of like common filters or categories that you can choose. If your library has this option available, you will also see a "Skip the Line" filter. Once you click on that filter, you'll see all the books that are available through the skip the line process. And basically, these are just books that your library has made available immediately. So there's no wait, no holds, you can simply borrow the book immediately. So they try and just pick, you know, some popular books that you normally would have to wait for and make them available immediately through skip the line. So like I said, this is not a necessary feature, just another fun one that's available for some people. And you can easily see if your library has that availability on the search tab.
Another feature that's available to everyone, but I don't know many people like know about or use very often, is the newsstand. So this is the access to magazines that you're available through Libby. It is not just limited to ebooks and audiobooks. There is also an immense collection of magazines. So you can scroll through the newsstand section to see what magazines are available. Um, if you find a copy that you're interested in, you simply click on it, and it will take you directly to like, you're opening up a magazine. And from there, you can click around or flip through pages as you would a normal magazine. There's also a really cool like extra feature that lets you be notified whenever there is a new issue available. So you'll always be able to see the latest issues as soon as they're published.
My last tip is another just kind of fun way to browse through Libby and get new book recommendations, and this is to check out your own library's curated recommendations. If you click on the little library building on the bottom of the app, you'll be directed to your library's kind of homepage within Libby. Each library can then add different collections of books that they want to recommend. So most of them will have kind of a "Just Added" section where they'll put all of the books that were recently added to the Libby collection. That one in particular is one that I like to check pretty often because there's always new books coming out that I've missed or didn't hear about, and I want to make sure I snag those or put my hold in so that I'm closer to the front of the line. Often, you'll also find a section of "Librarians Recommend," "Foundations," or "Seasonal Collections." So this is just a fun thing to browse every once in a while as a way to find new books that you might not have known about otherwise.
As you can tell, I just adore Libby. I use it all the time, and I think they're a wonderful company for working with libraries and bringing books to absolutely everyone. Hopefully, some of these tips and tricks were helpful and will help you get the most out of this app. Share in the comments your favorite thing about Libby, or let us know any other tips or tricks that you've found. And make sure you hit like on this video and subscribe to my channel to see even more recommendations like this in the future. If you want to check out more of my tips, you can head here to see my top 10 Kindle tips and tricks.