Libby book borrowing

[Campingholidays]

I use a combination of BorrowBox and Audible at the moment to listen to ebooks but I’m finding that BorrowBox in my area is a bit rubbish! I can very rarely find a book that I’m looking for and I’m almost at the point of giving up with it which I hate because I’ve always wanted to support our library.
Does anyone have any experience of Libby? I’ve tried to make an account and it seems to be more of an American thing?
If anyone has any suggestions for audio book borrowing I’d be very grateful!

I have had the same experience. It's really frustrating. I have resorted to subscribing to Audible again. If anyone else has tips it would be great to hear them. I also can't get the Libby aspect of ebooks to work on my Kobo but that is a whole different thread!

@Dreamingofwalden so annoying isn’t it! I’m on audible too but DH and I share an account so split the credits between us. I also hate getting books on audible that are under 10 hours long because I go through them too quickly! And annoyingly, the books currently on my wish list are all around 9 hours long 🤦‍♀️

I use the Libby App for ebooks and audiobooks - I’m lucky that it’s available through my council’s libraries. It works fine on an iPad. The choice of books is a bit limited but with a bit of sleuthing I find things I like.

I have borrow box and Libby. The problem is which library u signed up with. Some counties libraries are rubbish and no books and some like mine ( which is a suffolk one ) has a ton on there. With Libby u can sign up for other places in the county as they don’t ask for ur address.

personally I find Libby has more than BorrowBox. But yes. It’s not an overal service. What one person sees is not the same as another person from another library. If u want more choice u have to add more libraries

I use Libby on my phone, but I don't listen to audio books. I have had no problems with it for books and magazines and find they have a good choice.

In terms of having other places to listen to ( massive audiobook fan here )
I have an Audible account. I do the 24 credits one as when they run out more credits are about £3 per book which is cheaper than anywhere else I can find. U can sign up to kindle unlimited. Which I believe is £9.99 a month now. They have audiobook on there. But I couldn’t find any recent or good books on it. And £9.99 is a lot.

I use Libby for audio books but I am in the USA.
I have a virtual library card and access my local library network using the app.
My books get automatically returned so I don't need to remember to do this.

Libby is not just a USA based app. It is in other countries as well.if u go to ur local library they will advertise it there.

you have to think of it like ur library in ur town. When ur there u cannot get a book off the shelf from a library in another town. Works the same way.

@Cocolapew I would love ur library card then!

Thanks for your help everyone! I wonder if Libby isn’t supported by my council then…when I put my postcode in there aren’t any searches. I use kindle unlimited already (it gets hammered each month so definitely worth it for me!) but love having an audio book going during the day while I work/clean/drive etc.

I use libby with my library card something like 32k books to borrow audible n magazines I found when joining u had to put in county as opposed to specific area

Look at virtual library cards - I have a Chicago one and it's been brilliant. You need an address and phone number in the city (I used a big business) and it has all sorts of books.

I use Libby via my library card so it’s free. Mine has quite a lot of good stuff! Sometimes have to wait for things but you can put loads on hold at a time. Also found the audiobooks decent if you’re not looking for something too specific. I have it on my phone and my iPad.

You can get Alexa to read you a kindle book. It's not as good as a proper audio book but better than nothing.

No wonder my waiting lists can be so long 🤣

I find Libby slightly better than Borrowbox (both are free through our library).

My council used to have Libby, and I loved it for magazines but rarely used it for books. Now we are on BorrowBox, and I can't access the magazines I wanted, but I notice more ebooks I would read. The wait to get hold of them feels worse, though I could be imagining that.

Ah hopefully not me! I only have one book at a time, and usually older stuff 🤣😊

Libby was great but our library went over to borrow box, and it's a load of wank, much more limited choice, and audiobooks always seem to be unavailable with several weeks waiting.

Our library uses Libby. dd and I both use it regularly.

BorrowBox and Libby are platforms that UK libraries can sign up to. The library authority then buys the books, audio and magazines for the collection. So some are better because they spend more. Audible often have exclusivity on some new audio meaning it takes longer to get to libraries.

The books and audio are mainly just like a library books as in one copy can be on loan at a time. After a while the copy expires and the service can choose to buy another if they want. Just like paper books the publishers need to make money from libraries. It wouldn’t make financial sense for a publisher to allow one purchase of an ebook or audio to be loaned by multiple people concurrently so that’s why it’s normally one copy per person. Like a physical book gets grubby after multiple loans and so a fresh copy is purchased, that’s why they expire after a length of time or number of loans. So you see why some services may have more than others, it’s down to how well it is funded.

Contracts usually stipulate that the people who use the service are residents in the area, though it’s not always enforced by the library. You could try other libraries and see if you can use their platforms. You could see if your service allows stock suggestions, mine does.

I use Libby all the time and I'm in the UK. Ive borrowed hundreds of books. It's linked to my county library. Go to your local library and, get an online log in from them and then link your Libby account to your county. Easy. And free!!!

@Wilma55 oh I didn’t know I could do that with Alexa!!

@Georgesmeliot that’s a great insight thank you. I don’t mind waiting but our service seems to have such limited ebooks/audiobooks! It’s such a shame, the feeling amongst the staff at my library is that it’s going to be closed down at some point, it’s so sad because they are brilliant people and the library was such a part of my childhood, I’m not able to get to it as much as I’d like anymore and BorrowBox was a good extension of it for me.
I’ll have a go at putting in my county @nannapat58 thank you for that.

Have you looked at Everand?

My local (UK) library supports both Libby and Borrowbox, and it's weird how different they are. Pretty much everything seems to be out on loan on Borrowbox and if you want something to read now (rather than add yourself to the list to read it in a month's time) you can be out of luck, meanwhile Libby has a big selection of 'always available' ebooks and audiobooks, though these are all older books. What Borrowbox does have however, is a curated monthly book club with around 10 books/audiobooks with infinite copies available which can often include some new and in-the-charts titles and regularly turns up something good.