cloudLibrary by bibliotheca
reviews and complaints

Update: I’m lowering my rating from 3 stars to 2 because I see that the issue I complained about previously has still not been fixed.
When I am scrolling from page to page through a chapter, the book will suddenly scroll forward several pages, like to the end of a chapter even though I have ten pages still left to read before the next chapter. I described the same problem below, and it still hasn’t been fixed. This is really annoying!

I have been using CloudLibrary for a few years now, and I was pretty satisfied with it until the latest update a few months ago. When you turned the page in the previous version, it actually looked like a page turning, like on a Kindle, and I really liked that feature. Now it just changes from one screen to another, pretty boring. Far, far worse than that, however, is the way the app randomly skips pages when I am turning a page. I will turn from, say, page 22 to page 23, and all of a sudden, I am on page 35 for no apparent reason. Then, I have to go back and search for the page I was actually on. This keeps happening no matter what book I read. I truly appreciate the convenience of being able to read books for free whenever I want to through my library’s subscription to CloudLibrary, but this weird bug is basically the only reason I am leaving this review. I wish it would be fixed.

Last month my local library switched from Overdrive to CloudLibrary. The upside seems to be shorter wait times for books and larger selection.
The downsides are 1) audiobooks frequently stop with error messages and can only be restated by going to the chapter listing and manually selecting the position and then hitting play. (Since I listen to audiobooks while driving on my daily commute this is a major issue), 2) mo Kindle support for ebooks which was available in Overdrive, ( Since Kindle is by far the best selling ereader why would the library make this switch? Someone sold them a bill of goods.) and 3) CloudLibrary does not seem to support ‘enhanced’ audiobooks.
Ebhanced audiobooks have downloadable PDF files with supplementary materials like maps and photos.

Update: i forgot to mention that the search feature has major issues. Telling it to look for all audiobooks not just available ones doesn’t seem to have any effect. Since you can’t see books that are checked out you can’t place a hold request. Also sometimes if you search by the author’s name you get no hits but if you search by a title of one one of that authors books you find it — and sometimes it works the other way round.

I have never written such a long review before, in fact I don’t write many app reviews, but I am FRUSTRATED with this app!

I would have given thus app a 5-star rating BEFORE the recent major update.
My biggest complaint is about a feature I use constantly - bookmarks. They no longer appear at the top of the page unless you tap the center of the page first. Why that extra step? Now if I go back a few pages to look something up, I can’t just easily navigate back to the bookmarked page. I have to tap in the center of every single page. So stupid.
Even worse, when you tap on e page it frequently advances forward or backwards and you can’t tell where you are since there are no bookmarks anymore.
And when I open the book I have no idea if I’m on the right page or not because I don’t see my bookmark.
You used to be able to simply tap the top right corner to place a bookmark, and now you have to go through the extra step of tapping in the center and then tapping on top, and then, instead of being rewarded for your effort by a bookmark showing up, you still have to keep tapping the center to see it. And it just makes the icon black so it isn’t even an obvious bookmark like before.
Please make it the way it used to be where you can just tap ONE TIME in the upper right corner, and then leave the darn bookmark there so we know it’s there!
People who actually read books regularly on this app are the only ones who should be allowed to mess around with it.
I also want the brightness adjustment within the app.

First of all it regularly tries to change the spot to where I ““ have been listening which means said it changes it backwards the spot I’m actually at. It also does not connect well with Bluetooth headphones, so each time I try to stop or start the story from my headphones it doesn’t register whatsoever. Not only that it causes the story randomly without any initiation from me. Also there is very little information about the books themselves, after check out if I’m curious about the year or a book was published or anything about the author I have to look elsewhere. the audiobooks are displayed in a way that shows the time frame at the base of the screen, however instead of showing the time for the current chapter, it shows the entire time for the entire book. for example it will show a full 10 hours at the base of the screen, so when the app jumps me to the wrong spot it is very difficult to scan through and get back to the correct spot in the book.

Recently I also experienced a glitch where a book I was listening to started from the beginning every time I tried to reach to begin at my last point of reading. So, I had to go into the chapter list and find the chapter,. However after doing this it would stop playing after each individual chapter so I would have to go in and play the next chapter manually. This was very frustrating as the book I was listening to had very short chapters that were only 2 to 10 minutes!

I listen to audio books and constantly have an issue, nearly if not every time I pause the story, that it skips way forward or way back, and I have to spend half my time trying to find where I left off. The options to go forward or back for a larger amount of time are too few and far between, so it is not helpful what so ever. My library went from Overdrive to this app, and I wish I had the other app back.
Another complaint that I have is that the selection here was said to have been larger, but I’m not finding that to be the case. The search option requires specific spelling and complete titles, often I’m not sure of. The overdrive app had suggestions that helped me find what I was looking for.
Also, this app doesn’t have a full collection of books in series. I could understand not having the lastest book in a series, but often I can ONLY find the latest of a series, which I can’t read bc I can’t find the previous books. It’s very frustrating and I’m disappointed in the app. I don’t have a CD player or tape player in my vehicle at work, so I can’t just checkout from the library.
I’m very fed up and frustrated with this app, but I don’t have any other option from my library, so unfortunately I’m stuck with it. If updates become available with fixes to these issues, or if there is another way I can have some of these issues addressed, I’d be glad to receive that info and take it up with anyone who could help. Thanks.

I love reading books in this format and have had very few problems with it crashing. It's easy to use and I particularly like the night setting. BUT... 1) I hate that every single time I open the app I have to decline access to Twitter - usually twice in a row. I don't want to link to Twitter. I won't want to do it tomorrow or next month. Perhaps next year. Who knows? Please please make it stop asking me over and over! 2) I don't find the search engine to be very accurate. I frequently have to try several permutations to find a way the engine recognizes the author or title I'm looking for. So, if I give up searching, I'm not entirely sure whether the title really isn't available or if I just never tried the right combination to bring it up. 3) I'm not sure whether this is the app or my library system, but I find it frustrating that you can wait for months for a title, then when you're at the top of the list you must check it out within 3 days or you have to start over with the months long wait again. What if you're out of town? What if you're in the middle of a different ebook? Seems to me there could be an option to keep your place in line even if you don't want the book right away. Sure. After 3 days check it out to someone else. Seems like 'someone else' would be pleased to have it sooner rather than have it sit in my app not being read. And I would be happy to be able to check it out at another time when I can actually finish the book. I've had a couple books 'repossessed' before I was done, then had to wait weeks to months to get it back again.

Among walks, runs, rides, and long drives, I listen to days of audio books per month so Cloud Library and the access it gives to my Library’s material is invaluable to me. The app has also gotten far more stable for which I am grateful. However, there are two features that would make it MUCH better. 1. Full CarPlay support. If an audio book is started through the app on the phone, it will play through CarPlay and can be somewhat controlled (pause, resume, forward and back x seconds, track advance); nevertheless, if you are listening to something else first (perhaps a podcast) and then want to listen to a book, you have to find someplace safe to pull over and use the phone to start it (or do something foolish while driving). You should be able to start the app through CarPlay as you can with Audible, Libby, and many other audio book apps. 2. An “Undo” feature. As mentioned, once started, functions like “track advance” (in case of a book, chapter advance) do work. Unfortunately, in a lot of vehicles, that is a button on the back of the steering wheel all too easy to accidentally push, especially during turns, again resulting in pulling over to navigate back to where you were in the book through phone and fiddling. It would be great to have an “Undo” feature that would not take you back 10 sec in the book (though that feature is nice when you get distracted by something like “traffic” and miss something important to the plot), but back to where you were 10 seconds ago in realtime, wherever in the book that was. These two features would make it a definite “5 star”.

This is one of my least favorite apps. It's the only game in town, though, as this is what our library system has chosen.

Fortunately, I mostly listen to audiobooks in my car, so I'm going to switch back to books on CDs. Even though that's less convenient, it'll be a lot less trouble in the long run.

This app doesn't have a good interface, and it seems like they keep making changes that make it worse. It's WAY too easy to touch the slider that jumps to anywhere in the book. Once you've done that, it can take quite a while to find your place again. It's also way too easy to hit the chapter skip buttons when you're trying for the 15-second-jump buttons. Now they've introduced a delay so you can't repeatedly tap the 15-second-jump buttons; you have to wait a couple of seconds between taps. So it takes even LONGER to get back to your place.

Plus, there are random playback errors. The audiobook just stops playing and puts up an error message. A really useful one, too! "Playback Error: There was a problem playing the audio book." What am I supposed to do now?

There are also issues with downloading books to play offline. Sometimes they download; sometimes they don't. When they do download, sometimes they take hours and hours.

The app also "returns" books a day ahead of when it says it's going to. If you're taking the entire two weeks to listen, you have to make sure you're done when it says you have one day left, or you won't be able to finish.

I'm on the verge of deleting the app. It's not worth the trouble. I'd rather pay Audible or go to the library to take out CDs.

I use this app primarily for audiobooks. I'm on an iPhone, and being a fast reader I just don't enjoy eBooks on such a tiny screen.

There seems to be a fair selection for books, and wonderful wait times. On the other app I was using, I waited for months for an audiobook I could check out on 3M right away. I appreciate that a lot!

Complaints:
1. The search capabilities on this app don't work well for me. I searched for some audiobooks (LoTR), it couldn't find them, I browsed the fantasy/classical section and found them without trying. I don't usually browse, so I am a little disappointed that the search on this app doesn't work as well as the one I am used to. I will keep this for a while, so I am sure I'll figure out how to make it do what I want. :)

2. The audiobooks don't run well on my device. I am constantly having to find my place again because it crashed, and often by skipping it crashes again. I spent over twenty minutes finding my place before a class. It took another ten minutes after I got home. I have learned to bookmark my place when I leave and hope it doesn't crash when I come back and try I use the bookmark. It's a little frustrating, but workable.

I have no idea what this app is like for eBooks, however, for most audiobooks I will stick with Overdrive Library2Go. One feature I enjoy there is if I loses place, it's easy to skip and there are chapter selections.

I hope to see it on 3M as well, then this app could easily become my favorite, especially with the very short wait times for books! For now, I will use both apps in tandem.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this review is helpful to other audiobook listeners!

The accessibility of a digital library should be a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, this app leaves far too much to be desired to be considered for any rating higher than zero.

1. The app is unusable - it often crashes when turning a page, or quits turning to new pages altogether and continues to show the same page. Closing and restarting never solves the issue. Less than 50% of the time I attempt to use it the app simply does not work.

2. Basics features do not work - changing the font size or margins within a book can cut off words or even entire lines making it unreadable. When closing the app and opening again later it often starts the book over at page 1 rather than saving your place. When searching for where you left off, problem one frequently kicks in. Even when leaving the settings as is, things like titles and headers are frequently cut off or left out entirely due to improper formatting.

3. Functionality is poor at best - the search function is extremely finicky. Most books show a 1 Star rating making the system worthless. The browse section is a headache to navigate and very poorly sorted. While it’s not a necessity, it would be incredible to have slightly better features like sorting by release year, popular books if you like this book, new releases, etc... Just a touch of forethought into functionality would work miracles in this app.

Disappointment hardly describes my experience. The libraries that use this app deserve better by leaps and bounds and the app developers should be ashamed to take so many contracts while abandoning the app, making it useless and frustrating. Your job is simple - at the very least make books able to be read from a mobile device. But even that is not possible.

I have written this review based on an iPad iOS 10, but it happens that I have use this app on iOS9 on an old iPad. I will note when I'm talking about iPhone, which I use once in a while.

There's plenty of book reader applications, but this is the one that my local library is using to read ebooks. Being Stanza the benchmark followed by Marvin3, this application falls way behind them.

I have not find a way to report bugs or submit enhancement requests so I'm writing this review to try to get attention. One star less for this.

There is no way to customize gestures, automatically change night view based on the environment, or other advanced settings.

There's no easy to navigate to the content. To select a word and "Look Up". Seems that is not using iOS 10 as some menus does not appear at latest iOS 10 features. i.e. It still have "Define..."

The worst part is the the selection feature is really bad. It never works to the select the entire word, sometimes it even selects the punctuation marks and it is impossible to unselect it to properly search for the word definition. That is on iOS 9 & 10 and iPhone. Other eReaders does that much better, they even offer a "catalog" of words that you have searched so you can come again and review them later. For kids and people learning a new language that's paramount.

There's no progress bar nor a way to increase the reading screen by eliminating the page footer and the setting to reduce margins does not seem to give much options.

There is no way to easily change screen brightness nor to customize gestures to do that.

And the list continues...

I just hope the libraries allow the users to get their preferred method or reading books rather than stick to a particular book reader app.

There are only 3 background options. I need a darker shade of the sepia tone and the app doesn't offer custom shades nor does it offer brightness adjustment. The daytime background is too bright, hurting my eyes. The nightime background is black and because I have astigmatism the white letters on black read blurry. The sepia is not dark enough to read in a dark room. Being elderly my eyes do not accomodate well when faced with dark room and light background. Using the app to read makes my eyes hurt because of how light the screen is in relation to the being in a dark room. I read in bed for a bit after my husband falls asleep so turning on bedside lamps is not an option. Neither is reading in a different room which just keeps me awake. Reading in my bed in our dark bedroom helps me to become drowsy so I can fall asleep. Other reading apps like Kindle and Libby have darker sepia tones or built in brightless level adjustments or custom color options. Being as this is a library book app and no other app can be used to read books the library books on loan, it should have features to promote eye comfort such as more background adjustment options. Another feature missing is not having a dictionary built in. It took a long time to figure out how to space things. It's under Advanced. I couldn't get the words to space evenly across the lines until I switched form Auto Margins to increase Margins. Who would have though increasing a margin would even out the spacing? I was tearing my hair out trying word and letter spacing.

This is one of the worst apps for reading. I wish my library didn't force it on me by switching from Overdrive. The Libby app is decent because it most books can be read in Kindle. Not so with this app which I can't understand. I use a different Library if at all possible so I can read in Kindle but sometimes the book I want is only at my Sarasota county library and they all switched to this app.

Update! It crashes on my iPhone every chapter or two. Very frustrating!

I love audiobooks! But sadly this app is writing on the coat tails of libraries that use it. The fixes are simple.

- i'm on a waiting list for books that say they won't be available for up to 360 days! That wouldn't be the case if they let you bump the next person in front of you if the book comes available to you but you're not ready to read it. I have two books sitting in my phone ready to be listened to that I won't be listening to them for at least a week. If I had rejected them when they came available I would've been bumped back to the end of the line. But instead it would've been nice to be able to let the next person go.

- let me see how many are behind me waiting. Three just became available off my hold list within 36 hours of each other! I’ll end up checking all out and hope I can get to them because I can’t see what the wait time would be if I turned down or pause my hold. Easy fix! Fix it!

- there are so many books that used to be available with our previous audiobooks supplier and now are not with this one. This selection is not great. And then with the above comment it takes forever to get some books.

- I miss the option of suggestions that if I liked one book then I might find these similar books to be good too. People who read one particular book also liked suggested books.

- it’s been crashing a lot lately! Turns itself off at least 1-2 times a day.

- there is no renewal option! More than once I only needed a couple more days to finish a book and couldn't get that. I wish they would let you renew for 72 hours. Then someone close to the end of a book could binge on it and get it finished.

- I miss being able to click on authors name and see all other available books and miss suggestions options from my reading history.

- many other great suggestions by other people but developers are not picking up on them.

Revised Review: Seems the glitching resolved rather quickly, not sure if that’s just due to time of day or if something was messed up and then fixed. Either way, glad to see Cloud Library working again and that all my saved books, holds, etc were not permanently lost. Thank you, Cloud Library. If others out there are struggling with glitches at this time, try to wait it out and it might resolve itself quickly.

I don’t use this app as my sole reading app, however I use it frequently in conjunction with Libby, Kindle, Hoopla etc and it does a good job in general although the highlighting function could be improved. But that’s very minor.

Cloud library has some books the other services don’t and often has shorter wait times or none at all when Libby has 6 months+ on many titles at my library. Nice to have options when looking for books.

***

Original Review

After the most recent update I went to read my book and it said there was a problem with my library card. I’ve now lost all holds, saved books, and checked out books.

There is no problem with my card. It hasn’t expired (I checked). Other digital library resources (such as Libby) work just fine. I restarted my phone, deleted and re-downloaded the app, refreshed “my books” page...nothing. Now it won’t even let me put in my library card again (upon re-downloading the app it wiped out everything including the library card this time). Each time I enter the library card number it says there’s a login failure.

When I went to troubleshooting/help area of cloud library it was very unhelpful, only having a few error message tips, none of which were my problem.

I don’t care about the new, advertised ability to make my background different colors and choose an avatar (not that it saves those anyway when I make changes - just reverts back to original each time app is closed) I just want to read books.

This is unacceptable.

Will re-evaluate my review if the app ever works again.

My library is currently switching from Overdrive/Libby to cloudLibrary. I am willing to give a new service a chance, so I have been using CL for about a week now.

CloudLibrary is so lacking in comparison to Overdrive/Libby!

CloudLibrary is apparently not compatible my with new Kindle Fire. Overdrive was. No more ebooks for me, I guess!

Listening to audiobooks on cloudLibrary is such a bad interface and lacks so many features, as compared to Overdrive/Libby. If you missed something and need to skip back, well it's not easy to do like it is in Libby. If you want to know how long the next chapter is to decide if you'll be able to finish it before you have to stop listening, you can't; rather than breaking the book into chapters, CL breaks it into arbitrary "tracks," but the tracks do not at all align with chapters. My favorite feature on Libby was the sleep timer so I could set it to end at the end of the chapter; CL definitely didn't have this option either. So now I have no idea how long the chapter is and no way to auto-stop at the end of a chapter.

My library claimed they made the switch because of (1) ease of use, which I have already disproved, and (2) increased catalog offering. So far I have also found #2 to be false. I had several series of books on my TBR list on Libby/Overdrive, but on CL those series are incomplete, having one or 2 books but not all from the series.

If you are someone who likes to use library holds, like me, that is also a pain on CL. I found books 2 and 3 of a series both on CL (shockingly!) and put both on hold. On Libby, I would have been able to pause the hold on book 3 so that it didn't come available for me before I got book 2. On CL you can't pause holds, so guess what happened? Yep, book 3 was available well before book 2, and there was nothing I could do about it.

CloudLibrary is so unusable as compared to Overdrive/Libby, that my audiobook listening is going to dramatically decrease, if not stop altogether. And, as I already mentioned, ebooks are apparently also not an option for me. I've spoken to the library, and they refuse to reverse their decision, so it looks like my book consumption is going to suffer.

I so wish I lived where I could get access to a library that wisely still uses Overdrive/Libby...

UPDATE 2/3: Version 4.1. I noticed this weekend that my cloudLibrary interface had been upgraded by my library, and apparently Bibliotheca did it without running a beta. I run the app on both my iPad mini & my Galaxy S7 phone because I never go anywhere without a book. I could deal with the small glitches that came with using the app to read my ebooks; in fact, I’d gotten used to it — even the frustrating frozen, repeating page turns. But this latest update — it completely doesn’t work! I have 3 books going right now. My iPad, which updated tonight, shows no books —nothing checked out, nothing on hold, nothing received, nothing saved. My phone, which updated two days ago, is little better; it shows my 3 books on the home page & I can access them from there, but they do not show in My Books, as well as nothing in Receipts, Holds, or Saved. AND I get a 401 error code when I try to Browse! Really?!?! And don’t get me started on the colors...which make me think they used Martha Stewart as a stylist. Ugh.

I know my library chose Bibliotheca years ago when they were owned by 3m because they were new, user friendly & didn’t have the long wait times of OverDrive. They also didn’t have he volume of ebooks, either, which was apparent from the start. I’ve sent a tweet to the library about these huge errors & I’m going to advise them to find another vendor for this purpose. I came to the conclusion a while ago, after the ownership change, that Bibliotheca simply doesn’t care about putting out & maintaining a quality product. The app is littered with unresolved errors & quirks. They may lose their client base if they don’t do something to correct the issues soon. But don’t hold your breath. I really hate to see potential expunged.

Original review:
This has been a mediocre app. My library had joined with them a few years ago when they had fewer books for checkout. Now, they just delete books from their servers & I can no longer find books I've previously read. Who does that?!? My latest problem involves being unable to sync my books between multiple devices/platforms. Bibliotheca is pretty stingy with any troubleshooting tips, referring the reader to their library rather than online remedies. So, right now, I'm not real happy with the app, but it's all I have to work with. Sad.

I loved this app for about three years and I still do but I recently started reading a book series called Warriors and I have loved reading it and listening into it on the audiobooks and reading it in e-books but. I have recently just finished one of the mini series sort of things it does and it doesn’t have the next one which is really disappointing and I feel like it shouldn’t put in the series like at all if you can’t put all of the things in I understand if they can’t put all of the comics and all that but just the plain up regular Siri‘s it’s just really annoying to have to either wait for them to get it which they might never and or have to get a hold up to go to the library see if they have it and it’s so annoying and I understand if they don’t have the books because they’re literally not out yet and they don’t get like special treatment for, like no reason. But it’s still just so annoying! But it is a amazing app yes there are a couple of glitches but I don’t really mind because I’m able to fix them or get somebody else to fix them for me. (Lol) but they are usually just minor and not very important but I have found there is one glitch that I had to on download the app and get it back which was so complicated and I tried everything I could think of and everything my family could think of but it still wouldn’t work so here’s the glitch. Do I went in to a e-book (can’t remember which one it was) and then so I was just then stuck on a Black screen at first I thought it was a problem with Internet so I waited it was load then I took my Internet is fine but I tried restarting it anyway still didn’t work pitch black tried going out of the e-book it wouldn’t let me though and I was just completely stuck nothing I could do I tried restarting the app page nothing with work I was just completely stuck that’s my only glitch experience at least I can remember I needed to do something like delete the app and reinstall it. Otherwise no other major glitches all of them were easy and simple to fix besides that one of course. Otherwise great out no major witches besides that one that I have encountered I gave you a couple of suggestions how to make the app a little bit better. (Here are some books series I suggest if you are a advanced reader: Warriors, wings of fire, wild Lore wild rescuers) (and also A book/audiobook that I like that I know also on here that I also suggest: 13th goldfish goldfish

Updated 02/03:
Cloud Library needs to figure out how to play nice with Kindles. I prefer reading on my Kindle device than the iPad, but you don't need to own a Kindle to get the Kindle app, which is far superior to this app in every way. However, if you want to read from this library on a phone or tablet, this is the only game in town.

As for the app itself:

Pros: I'm grateful for the selection of books available from the Cloud library. This app provides a pretty nice interface for accessing that library and checking books out. It syncs between devices, seriously important feature. I can adjust the brightness in the app without affecting my iPad's general brightness setting – a very nice feature.

Cons: It tells you how many days are left, not the actual due date. I find this confusing. Does "3 days left" include today? If it's Tuesday, when will my book be gone, Thursday or Friday? A due date is much clearer. Usually you've got to the end of the day on that date. While there is some online help, finding it is an adventure. Context sensitive help doesn't exist.

If you own a Kindle, or use the IOS Kindle app or iBooks you've had a much better electronic reading experience than this app gives.

There's no navigation menu, so you can't go to the last point read, or other locations other than bookmarks. If you use the search feature and go to one of the search results locations, you'd better bookmark where you were before the search or you'll lose your place. At least I found no way to get back to where I was. Another instance where a context sensitive user guide would help. I have also had books that never load certain pages. It just spins on those pages. You can go forward or backward, read for a while and go back, and you won't get that page. Pretty bad.

The app doesn't automatically email you when a book for which you've been waiting is available. I have that set up with my library, but it didn't carry over to the app. You've got to set it up in your app Profile if you want email notification. There is an icon badge, but I didn't know what that was for. I'm currently reading a book and thought the badge indicated I had a book checked out. Apparently it meant a book I was waiting for was available to be checked out; I missed it and lost my hold.

Finally, there's no feedback from the app, so they apparently don't really give a hoot what the users think, not even if you want to report a bug. I've lost the two column view when my iPad is in landscape and haven't found a way to report it. Basically no customer support.

New edit: 6/2/22
Just wanted to add again this has evolved in to a wonderful app. The bug I have currently is when looking up a book or audiobook and switch filters more than once, or perhaps also when I go to look at an author, then another book, nothing shows up. A minor issue, but wanted to add it in case anyone sees this. Thanks!

Latest update 9/5 Oh my god they did it, they added a scrolling mode. You still have to flip through chapters but for this alone I’m adding in three stars. Night mode no longer just inverts the color either! It’s an honest to goodness dark screen. Still many problems with searching, no automatic night mode, syncing between devices doesn’t always work. But scrolling mode and the many font customization options is just incredible. Wow. Thank you. ## 7 I keep coming back to this app hoping something, anything has changed. Besides the new coat of paint it received last year, absolutely nothing has been added or improved. No scrolling view, no automatic night mode (which, by the way, is still just inverting the color! Just look at a book cover with night mode, it’s ridiculous). It’s 2020, we have a pandemic, I’m sure you have unprecedented usage now. Please do something, anything. Scrolling instead of turning would be so great. I know this is limited by CloudLibrary’s use of the third-party Adobe book reader though so, unless Adobe updates it, or Cloud Reader switches from them, we will never see the changes needed to make this a competent, complete app. Update 11/19 After renewing my book and losing track of where I was, CloudLibrary how’s says I can’t open the book unless I renew it. Which I did, per below, which the app also acknowledges as having 18 days left. But apparently I don’t have it - but it’s a popular book. If I return it and check it out again to test this buggy mess it will undoubtedly give it to the next hold. Thanks again for nothing, CloudLibrary! You are *literallythe same as having no ebooks available at all! Update 11/19 Just renewed a book and CloudLibrary, undoubtedly to test how well I knew the story, wiped out all progress I had made in the book. I had to fumble to guess where I was before. Thanks CloudLibrary, just another reason to ‘renew’ my love for your app! Update: 7/19 If I thought it couldn’t get any worse I was wrong. New bugs constantly introduced, audiobooks not working, interface stalling out, pages losing their place, etc. I’m convinced the positive reviews are from people who are not really using the app. My county library system is now looking to replace this buggy app, finally. Update 6: Still the same broken app with a fresh coat of paint. Except worse - you can’t tell how long you have to wait for a hold now. No real incentive for the app developer to improve. I will try to petition my county library system to move on from this app, and I encourage you to do the same. Even after you put a cosmetic update out you haven’t fixed a simple bug like ‘being able to turn the page.’ This isn’t isolated to one book, or just to me. No page scrolling, just flipping (when it works) due to a lazy implementation of Adobe’s ebook reader. Please make this thing usable. This is what lowest contract bidders give you in government.

I’m a relatively new user of this app and my initial experience was pretty good. Simply touching the upper right corner allowed you to bookmark your page and the controls to set the background color and adjust the brightness was easy and intuitive. It even had Apple’s book like page flip which was a bonus and overall made this a pretty good app. I remember when the Amazon Kindle app had to take the page flip out and while it was a cool feature I understood Apple’s greed. I was pleasantly surprised to find this app was still using Apple’s page flip.

Now however with the latest update, all of that is gone. Now when you tap the upper right hand corner to bookmark your page, it advances a page. You have to tap the center of the screen to get to a menu that allows you to bookmark a page or adjust the font and background color. When you add a bookmark, that is the last time you will ever see it as when you exit that menu and go back to reading mode you cannot see your bookmark. Also, Apple page flip is also gone so when you tap the right side to turn the page it just scrolls over. I understand if they were forced to remove that due to Apple but that legal copyright issue was resolved long ago.

If that is not enough, the menu to adjust the background has removed the brightness control. Now all you get is Day, Night or Sepia option and there is no brightness or dimmer control, the app writer has apparently decided the appropriate amount of brightness for all situations and all users. I used the old version of this app to read a fair amount at night before going to sleep so it was nice to dim as far as possible when in a dark bedroom. Now the night setting even with a back background lights up the whole room and in a dark room it is actually hard on the eyes.

Another great new “feature” they added with the update is when you turn your iPad to horizontal mode, instead of getting a single, large horizontal page like you used to, you get two small horizontal pages. When you tap to advance a page, it scrolls two pages further, in a very unappealing manner. Also, it frequently only advances one page instead of two. It essentially shifts the right page (the last page you are on) to the left pane and advances only a single new page. The page advance is so quick that it is hard to pick this up and you naturally are expecting two pages and look up to the upper left hand corner of the screen to read the first of your two new pages, only to discover that it is actually the beginning of the last page you just finished reading. You have to look to the new second page, which actually the only new page of the “two” page advance. This is very annoying.

Another nice “feature” is if you leave the app open to a book and walk to somewhere else to continue reading, you often find yourself on an entirely new page, either further along in your book or just as easily further back. Meaning this app does not handle the IPad motion sensor and randomly changes the page on you and you are left to figure out if the “new” page you are on is further along in the book or further back. This is extremely annoying.

In summary, the developer took a pretty decent app and updated it by taking away almost literally every nice feature. You can’t do the Apple page flip, you can’t set the brightness to you own desired level (remember this was in the old version) so they actually had to do code work to take this out instead of just leaving it as it was. Bookmarks seem to have disappeared but I guess you can take their word that they’re actually there. The app is now horrible and I would give it 0 stars except you can’t do that and still give it a rating. I’ve never seen an update to any Apple app that actually takes away features and replaces them with clunky alternatives and takes away ease of use features in the process.

Here’s an idea, for your next update just put the old version back and call it an update. Anyone who has used the previous version would loudly applaud this action. If not, I hope all the public libraries switch to a new app because this one is terrible. I would use a stronger word here but I would like this review to be approved.

I’m SO TIRED OF THIS PROBLEM! Help!
This has to be fixed-I’ve downloaded a book, I don’t read it
Right away, when I DO START TO READ IT-I can’t swipe to the next page! It remains on same page! The ONLY WAY I can correct the problem, is delete this app., REINSTALL App.
Which was fine for about the first 5 or 6 times! but, I always
Have to reenter my library card, which I don’t carry with me!
I’m trying to walk on treadmill, LOVE TO READ ON IT, but
I don’t have the card with me-I’m at gym. So I can’t enjoy this book
While I walk! One time I was at a place where I knew I’d have
To wait, along time, Social Security office, and opened my iPad
To read, guess what COULDNT TURN, SWIPE Pages! That
Was the worst. SS offices are the perfect place to read a
Great book! I’m not crazy because this has happened to other
People using this app. I thought maybe it was my iPad.
Please fix this! I’ve used this app. For a few years and never
Had a problem. I called the library/cloud help people, they
Said, “just reload the app.”
Thank You, Cheryl (a frustrated Senior Citizen in Apple Valley
Mn.

This App has some frustrating bits. When I go to check out an ebook to listen to, it’s not quite intuitive about how the downloading gets started. It’s almost like, “oh it’s actually downloading!” But I’m never sure about how that started.
A big, frustrating aspect is that every time I go back to listen there is a message asking me if I’d like to begin where I left off. The two options are yes and no. When I choose yes, it sometimes goes back to an earlier chapter. If I choose now and it always goes back to an earlier chapter.This is difficult as I’m hitting the road for my commute. (It also compounds stress into an already stressful environment. I love to dive into a story to take me away from the every day.)
Finally, the final frustrating bit is that I constantly have a red number one indicating I have a message. However, I have read the message many times, yet the number one does not leave. So I’m imagining there’s some kind of action involved that I need to take. However I may not want to take that action! So how do I read myself of that constant reminder that there is a message?
Thank you.

I want to love this app, but it is so glitchy that I can only use it successfully about half the time. In fact, I’ve been dealing with so many glitches, that it prevented me from finishing a book in the allotted timeframe and now I have to wait another 4 months for it to become available again so I can finish it.

The bugs I keep experiencing are:
- When I try to delete the app and re-install (as the FAQs suggest when you run into glitches), it doesn’t recognize my library card number and just tells me to “try again later”
- Says my WiFi is not working all the time even though it’s fine, I have no issues with other apps including Netflix
- Just keeps loading and loading my holds and saved books sometimes saying “you don’t have any” even though I do
- A complaint and not a bug, but why is there no username/password associated with my library card number? You shouldn’t have to go through the whole process of selecting your language, location, library every time you have to install the app again (especially since this is their recommendation for resetting the app if you are experiencing glitches!)

I’ve only tried to read two books on Cloud Library and gave up on both. I can see why it has a shorter wait list for downloading a title.

The first book had problems with turning the pages. It would look like the page was turned, but it would still be the page I had just read. If I used the table of contents, I could jump to a new chapter, but on short order, if not immediately, that would lock up. I tried opening and closing the book, removing and downloading it again, but nothing worked.

On the second book, I had much less trouble with freezing. It had a problem that is becoming increasingly common in various apps. A lot of different things are activated by tapping the screen, and it’s hard to predict what will happen. On the second book, when I swiped the page to turn it, as often as not, what happened is that the gray top and bottom menus appeared and cut off most of the page. I got so sick and tired of constantly having to get them out of the way, that I returned the book when I was about 20% finished. I removed the app. I’m going to get hard copy when my only other option is Cloud Library.

I’ve tried. Really. And tried and tried and tried. The one and 2-star rated reviews are all correct. I listen mostly to audiobooks. I would not say it is impossible to use this app, but unless you’re stubborn and obsessive it is not worth the frustration. When the app doesn’t crash completely it still turns itself off and skips content. No exaggeration, a crash or stop happens at least a few times an hour and often after only 2 or 3 minutes of use. This app is one of the digital sources used by my public library. I must assume that it is being paid for with tax dollars, but I can’t believe it. Everyone rating this app should also let their library know about the problems. Surely they don’t know how truly horrible this app is and accept it. 3M should be embarrassed to put a product like this out. Hopefully there are people working feverishly to fix it. Unfortunately, if your library buys 3M and their content, you’re stuck with it. You either have to use it broken or give up and don’t use it at all. Good luck! 3M, shame on you! Fix it or ditch it so my library will spend their money on something that works.

This app is great for kids books from the local library, but many other of them are formatted such that they would require adjustments. Sadly, the controls are mostly unresponsive - moving pixels at a time... needs major help...

Updated - still a mess for many kids books and adjustments majorly lacking. Trying to get to the “hidden menus” are painful at best. Put a button on there, geez... Also, please put a restart button or auto rewind after finishing the book - anyone remember VHS? Yeah, try explaining it to a toddler and that “we can’t read that book anymore because you can’t get to menu to go back to the beginning” - even after returning and reborrowing it keeps its place... App also regularly crashes on books over 20 or so pages and it can’t ever keep track of preview thumbnails. I mean seriously, 6 books all labeled differently and have the same book cover and content as the one that is opened first when app is launched. Only way to fix it is to return and redownload the book. Wouldn’t use this app if it were a paid app, only use it because I haven’t found another app to access local library content. Downgraded to 1 star.

I just started to read a borrowed library book in the app, but have paused my reading to come here and give it a one-star rating. I find the interface confusing, buggy, and (compared to the far superior Kindle app), also less attractive (though the difference is subtle). It took me a few tries to figure out how to simply highlight a passage, and another few tries to figure out how to delete the one I highlighted incorrectly. Once I did that and returned to the page, the “deleted” highlight was still there, until I closed and reopened the book. I have memberships with a few local libraries, and I ALWAYS look for the ones that work with the Kindle app, and only use CloudLibrary when I have no other option. It’s a frustrating program.

8/7 update: The app is *slightlyless frustrating than it was when I wrote my original review in 2018. Some of the glitches I reported to their tech support over a year ago are still there (e.g., highlighting text is confusing, often difficult, and the interface for doing it is ugly and breaks conventions). It’s still far inferior to the Kindle app and I still will try to avoid library books which require using this app.

I was forced by my library to switch from Overdrive to Cloud Library. It's just not the same or as good. I can't find as many books as I used to. The search results are awkward and take up too much space to scroll through efficiently. And if I look at a book and go back, it puts me back to the beginning of the list and then I have to scroll back through to see where I left off - very time consuming. The sleep timer does not work anymore - it used to but something happened (a bad upgrade perhaps?) and now it never works. With the old app (Overdrive), I could easily -- EASILY -- scroll back 30 minutes by touch because you scrolled through chapters. This app, that scroll is for the whole book so you scroll back a little by swipe and you've going way too far. Forget going to the chapters and finding where you were. So finding your spot again is a difficult, near-impossible, colossal waste of time, so much so that I often find myself buying audio books rather than listening to them on here, even if they're available -- for free, mind you. This app is so non-user friendly that I prefer to pay for books rather than get them for free. Read that sentence again.

The search engine stinks. Most of the books are audio. It takes forever to download a book. Usually, I have to wait 15minutes, then I get an error. After the error, it will download. This happens on both of my iPads, my iPhone and my kindle, and it occurs on all the networks I’ve tried, not just my home network (which is fast and I have no trouble downloading other things like video, etc.). I am comparing this to Overdrive, which had a good search engine, ebooks instead of audio, and fast downloading.

The library says that most of the books that were available in overdrive are still here but that hasn’t been my experience.

I am now paying another library as a non resident so that I can use Overdrive again. I didn’t just use it with my local library system...I also used it with the Midwest collaborative, which I lost when my library went to CloudLibrary.

I miss being able to use the Kindle app. Highlighting is ridiculous, searching is slow, the bells and whistles just aren’t there.

I do like that it’s easier to return books so now maybe people will return them faster when they are done. But I was always considerate with Overdrive and returned my ebooks promptly.

Pro’s:
It’s free
Audio books work fairly well.

Con’s:
Very buggy. Sometime I can’t even load a book
When I turn the page sometimes it takes me someplace else, either forward or backward in the book.
After waiting months for a book I finally got the message, “available today,” but there was no option to download it. I kept checking back, then suddenly it changed to “available in 265 days.”
Can’t access flagged books of interest. It freezes every time I try on my iPhone 7 Plus.
Highlighting is extremely difficult on the 7 plus.
After the latest update all my highlights disappeared.
Accessing footnotes is also very difficult.
Search engine very poor. Filters don’t work. When I try to search for books that are available now it shows me books that are on hold.
Can’t download in kindle format.

Concluding comments:
I used to hope that it could catch up with the kindle app or iBook or Libby. Now I realize that will never happen.
Great News though! I found out that for $50.00 per year I can sign up with a non local library that uses Overdrive, Libby and Kindle. I consider that a very small price to pay for an e-reader that actually works. Goodbye and good riddance cloud library!

It’s awful, not because it is different and something to get used to but because it is buggy and basic functionality doesn’t exist. There is no way anyone actually tested this before it went live.

-Do you want to be able to move ahead one page at a time? Too bad, you might be advanced multiple pages.
-Do you want to be brought back to your last page read when you reopen the app? Sorry, you can only be brought back to the beginning of a chapter.
-Want to download the book now and read later when not connected to the internet? No way. You’ll get the download icon and can only open the book if you connect to the internet.
-Did you miss a tiny detail and want to flip back pages using the scroll bar at the bottom? Sorry no can do! You need to use the table of content and select the chapter you want to skip to.
-Want to simply adjust the brightness within the app? Ha! You need to go into your device settings outside of the app.
-Want to see a status bar or percentage of completion? Get out your calculator.

I could go on but I really don’t want to keep using this app. Of the 5 reading apps I use on my iPad, this one is by far the worst (even if I compared it to those other apps 10 years ago).

Update 9.21.2020: yet another bad update. This time there is a very annoying pop up right in the middle of the page telling me my progress has been bookmarked and do I want to go to that page. Um, no. I’m trying to read the book and prefer to not constantly hit “no” on this repeating pop up so I can continue reading.

Update: was updated recently and now it won’t do anything. It either gives me an error or just sits and spins. I’ve tried checking out the books online through the library website as a workaround and get the same error. And for the person who thinks my library will help if only I ask...nope. They tell me it isn’t a fault with them and they can’t help. The fault is with the app.

Previous review: Earlier this week the app was down for "improvements." It is back up again but I can't download any book that I check out from my library. I can borrow the book, but that's worthless without being able to open it up to read. My library tells me it is an issue with 3M and I will just need to wait until they update the app. Seriously, if you are going to shut things down for improvements you should make sure you don't make things worse. I had absolutely no problems before they shut it down.

I have been using cloudLibrary regularly for a long time. It’s never been perfect, but instead of getting better, it’s getting worse.

There’s a long-standing bug that if you leave off reading and come back later, you will not be returned to the page where you left off. It usually returns you to the beginning of the chapter. You have to remember to bookmark every time you leave the app to do something else; not a big deal, but an annoyance.

Lately, something new has been added to the problem, though. Occasionally, I return to my book to find all the bookmarks gone! (Or, occasionally, previously deleted bookmarks restored.) If I can’t rely on bookmarks, then the app goes from annoying to an actual hindrance.

I also am unhappy that the dictionary functionality has been removed, to be replaced by “Search Web” as the only option. This exits the app, launches your default browser, and searches for the word in your default search engine. Sometimes that brings up a definition, sometimes not. It’s an unwieldy workaround for the eliminated dictionary.

I’m not sure why the ability to remember the page where you leave off is so problematic in this app, but I and others reported it starting years ago, and it never gets fixed.

While I enjoy checking out books without needing to travel to the library, the frustrations with this app come very close to negating the convenience. After checking out a book and then trying to download it to begin reading, I often most try many times to get the download to begin. Usually it requires quitting and relaunching the app multiple times and still it takes repeated attempts to download. This is on WiFi or full strength 5G. The search function is horrid. I literally just now searched for a book that I currently have checked out and it says no results found. Advanced search does no better. I can search for an author whose book I have checked out and it can’t find the author, either. If you want to just browse instead of searching and you’re okay with five minutes of frustrating clicking and relaunching to download one book, you might be okay with this app. Trying to quickly select a new book and begin reading or searching for books by a favorite author and this app will have you reaching for your car keys to drive across town to the library instead.

More than a year later, searching is still horrible. Searching a database is nothing new. Programmers have been doing it since the 1950’s. It’s a shame that this app is still so bad at it.

The main problem is how often it closes and losing the bookmark. I'm running an iphone 4 and iOS 7.12.

Currently every time my phone Naps the 3m program ends (clarification, when I need to type in the code again) and I have to reopen it and it doesn't remember my new place. I start at the point before I last read (clarification it lurches forward, but not where I last left off). I'm now three or four chapters past that. It does remember bookmarks I place, so I now leave them constantly. Frustrating. It used to remember.

Also the little ball at the bottom used to have the page number so I could remember which page I was on and use it to navigate . No longer it's just a guess with no numbers. (Clarification, I use the white text and black background. No numbers. Black text on a white background the numbers work fine.)

Other changes, switching pages for instance, doesn't have the same look, whatever.

Fix the bookmark problem.
Return the numbers to the little ball, include the bookmarks with little ball, have it change to red for instance when a bookmark gets passed over.

Frustrated.

(The way I use the program did not change from before and after the update. The update changed the way the program works almost to the point of not using it.)

Thanks for reading this.

In spite of several re-installs, upgrades, and updates, CloudLibrary continues a slide into poor performance. Filters don’t filter accurately, and adjustments to the filters cause such confusion I have to close and restart the app. Materials that have already been downloaded somehow need lengthy cloud updates before I can listen to them. Trying to return items is an exercise in futility. I understand that usage is high right now, but this current app makes accessing materials an exercise in frustration.

Original review: Like many others, my library has recently started using CloudLibrary. And like others, I understand that this is because publishers do NOT have special library pricing and this is the best way libraries can offer a range of selection to meet the needs of the most readers, within a tight budget.

The phone app is fantastic for listening to a range of audiobooks on my commute. I do find that there is a lag with the tablet app, where it shows books I have returned via my phone as still available, or where books I have on hold do not show as available on the tablet when I see them as downloadable on my phone.

Very useful app in general, and I look forward to having developers continue to improve it to match the demand of so many libraries and patrons now using it.

On the up side, I am grateful that my local library supports access to ebooks.

I’m updating my review of this app. But the review is not any *better*. I’ve deleted my comment about server crashes, but everything else is about the same. And I will add a new and very annoying issue: the tendency of the app to display the same page when I “swipe” to the next page. It usually realigns the text in some way, giving the appearance of turning to a new page, then I realize, no, I already read this paragraph!

Of all the ereader apps out there, this one is about as lame as they come. Then, the selection of books that are available seems severely limited. More often than not I search for a title that is available elsewhere on the web, and it is not found. Is this the fault of the app? Or my library? I don't know. The interface is pretty awkward, but most annoying of all is the need to login and re-download books all the time. Part of the idea of having an ebook on my iPad is to NOT have to be constantly connected to the Internet. But with this one, it seems I have to make that connection frequently. I see no rhyme nor reason for this. It also has a tendency to crash, although that may have improved some with recent updates—I'm not sure since I try to avoid using this app.

Christopher Plummer

If I could give this app 0 stars, I would. I’ve updated, reinstalled it, and it makes no difference. CloudLibrary is, by far, the worst reading experience I have ever encountered, and I’ve read on hoopla digital.
The glare cannot be contained, the text options are limited, and there’s no margin spacing.
The real reason this app deserves zero stars, however, are the skips. I touch to turn the page (which is a nightmare, even when it just turns one page, if it turns), and it skips forward or backwards, randomly.
This does not remember where you are, and when you close the app/webpage and bookmark it, even, none of that exists when you reopen.
I spend at least twice as long trying to find my page (which takes forever) than I do reading, and that’s not an exaggeration. I spent 20 minutes this evening trying to find my page. My bookmark was not where I placed it (believe me, I double checked). It is nearly impossible to track where you are in the book.

Each time I’m forced to use cloud library (when there is no other option but to buy, and usually I buy) and I say to myself, “Surely it will be fixed this time…” but no, it’s never fixed.

What a terrible app for reading this is.

It may be fantastic for everything else, but I’m a reader, and I can’t believe my library replaced overdrive with this monstrosity.