6 Tips on How Libby Can Help You Read More in 2018
By: Rickie Mascia, OverDrive Social Media Specialist
Many bookish people are starting 2018 off with new reading goals and high hopes to read more than the year before. With titles piling up on “To Be Read” lists, it can be difficult to stay on track with projected reading goals. Local libraries have numerous tools and materials, including the Libby app, that can help readers stay on track and accomplish all their reading goals for the year.
Below are a few tips on how Libby can help you read more in 2018:
- Read Harder Challenge Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge, presented by Libby, encourages readers to explore new topics, formats, and genres. The challenge outlines 24 tasks providing suggested guidelines to select titles readers never would have read throughout the year. The Read Harder Challenge is a great way to help readers explore new content and see the world from a new perspective. To help you get started the Professional Book Nerds curated a list of recommended reads.
- Instant Digital Card. This one might be quite obvious, especially coming from us, but the best part about a library card is that it is the most inexpensive way to read ALL the books you want. One of Libby’s newest features provides readers with the opportunity to sign up for a library card instantly with their mobile phone number right from the device in their hand. Local libraries have materials and resources that help readers of all ages increase their reading habits. As Librarians continuously add titles to their digital collection, readers are re-introduced to titles they love and introduced to new titles they may have never picked up.
- Use tags. Keep your bookshelf organized and keep track of your reading habits throughout the year. Tags help you organize titles you have read, want to read, loved, or hated. They are designed personal use (and not shared with your library or OverDrive). You can add as many tags to each title as you like. Tap Tag on a title’s details page and select one from the list. Create tags (including emoji tags) by simply tapping the plus sign icon. All tags are found on the Tags screen of your Shelf. From there, tap a tag to view it, rename it, delete it, or untag titles.
- View Your Activity The activity shows a time-line of all the titles readers have borrowed, placed on hold, renewed, and returned from all their libraries. You can find your activity under Shelf > Activity. The Activity will also display a “For your attention” section listing expired loans, that can be dismissed. If readers are not interested in tracking their activity, they can prevent new activity from being added to their timeline by Disabling Activity Recording.
- Suspend holds This is an ideal tool for time management. Suspending a hold lets you continue moving up on a title’s wait list without the title becoming available for you (if you reach #1 on the wait list). If you reach #1, you will simply be in the first position to get the book once your suspended hold period ends. You may want to suspend a hold if you have too little time to read or too many books in progress.
- Listen to audiobooks. For readers that are frequently on the go, listening to audiobooks is a great way to stay on track for accomplishing your 2018 reading goals. With Libby, you can listen to audiobooks at a pace that is tailored to your personal listening preference by adjusting the playback speed . The app allows you to modify the audio speed between 0.6x-3x. To switch between the common speed options you can tap the dial above the page and drag your finger down the screen to your preferred setting. You can also set a custom sleep timer by clicking on the moon icon and dragging your finger down the screen to view options between 5-120 minutes.
Learn more about Libby by visiting our Help page!
Not reading with Libby yet? Download our new one-tap reading app, today!