Aspen LiDA

I love the idea of this app. Being able to easily access my library account, put books on hold, and search for new reads would be wonderful. Unfortunately, I am about to abandon this app because it isn’t reliable. Most recently, I have been unable to use it for the past two weeks. It just hangs at the loading screen or gets to the choose library screen and does nothing after I enter my library. I’ve spent more time messing with the app trying to get it working than I would have just logging on to my library’s website. It’s a shame, because when the app works it’s a powerful tool for library users that would make borrowing easier for patrons. I wish it was better maintained.

At first, the app was fine. It logged me out of my account a couple of times, which was frustrating, but it wasn’t a deal breaker for me. But recently, I noticed I had some books that were a day overdue. My library doesn’t charge late fees until two days have passed, so I pressed the Renew All button to renew all my books. But then a couple of days later, I got an email from my library saying three of five books were overdue and I now had a late fee. For some reason, the app didn’t renew all the books I had even though I hit the Renew All button. I know for a fact that these books were not on hold because when I decided to hit the Renew All button again to see what happened, it renewed the other three books that were overdue. This bug should be fixed ASAP. I should not be charged late fees because the app was not working.

My library just recently started using this app so I downloaded it. I hate it. It’s nice to be able to see if a book is available at my local Library and be able to place a hold, but searching for a book or browsing different genres/topics is impossible. You have to know exactly the title of the book you are looking for. The genres available to search are extremely general Like “Fiction”, “non fiction”, and you have to scroll through all the books like looking for a Netflix movie. That’s how it’s set up. Do they not realize how many books a library has?? There is no way to search for say…Science or Ornithology. I wish Libby handled all the books. The Libby app is pretty much perfect. Dear Developers, look at the Libby app…learn it….take inspiration from it.