My Love/Hate Relationship With The Libby App

 

Libby, hiding behind her book, always messing with my reading schedule!

Many of you might not know what Libby is.  It’s an app by the company Overdrive that lets you easily borrow digital books with your Library card if your system participates.  Apparently it costs libraries a ton of money to run and there have been issues about how many digital copies there are which I didn’t even know was a thing.  It’s a blessing and a hot mess.

My biggest issue with the app is this, one has to put a hold on the book if it’s not available.  I had absolutely no idea that digital copies weren’t infinite.  Patrons have two weeks to read their book whether on the app itself or downloaded through Amazon and onto their Kindle.

Now me, I have a Kindle, got it on sale in ‘19 during Black Friday and thank the Goddess I did because it allowed me to keep reading when shit was shut the fuck down.  With Libby, I was able to choose up to five books to place on hold at a time.

Some books, like for example Ronan Sina-🤫, I mean Farrow’s, was marked as taking almost 8 months of hold time.  A few weeks in and I get notified I’m able to read it.  That means I had to stop reading the book I was already reading, so I could read Ronan’s.  With Kindle, one can turn it on air plane mode after downloading and then “keep” the book for longer than the two weeks it allows.  It’s a neat little hack, until you haven’t finished your other book before you get the next one and then it doesn’t work because they will literally remove the book from your Kindle the next time you turn the WiFi on!

Apparently, one can continue to hold, or tag it as “read later” or something like that on the Libby app, but the whole system has caught me off guard more times than I can count.

Today, I get a notification for The Song of Achilles.  That title was supposed to take 6 weeks.  I only put the hold last week.  So, I have to stop reading the fifth book of Outlander (I know, I know, I’m supposed to be reading The fucking Kybalion) which I actually legally own (Amazon gave it to me free), so I can accept my hold, borrow the book from Libby, log on to Amazon, on the browser, not the app, so they can then send it to my Kindle, which I have to take out of sleep mode, out of air plane mode all so I can start reading The Song of Achilles while I take a long soak with a Lord of Misrule bath bomb. (I deserve nice things when I have to deal with crap like this!)

I have two weeks to read The Song of Achilles, or longer if I don’t take my Kindle off air plane mode.  I have one more hold: The Midnight Library, which says its wait time is 6 months. Ha!

Technology is supposed to be easier, more intuitive and prevent headaches not make a relaxing hobby cause migraines!

And now, back to reading.