SFPL

I used to like this app a lot. It did all the things I wanted it to do for managing our family library accounts. That used to include being able to switch easily between my kid’s library account and my personal account conveniently within the app. At some point an update removed the ability to have multiple accounts. Now, I can have multiple cards, but there is no way to label whose is whose, and all the holds show under my name, and no matter which card I select, the borrowing history is on my account. This makes for very messy library borrowing management between what my kid borrows and what is for me. Please bring back multiple accounts within the app. (The log in, and log out process to change accounts is very inconvenient.)

Every time I log into the app, there’s a notification listed. The notification is to alert me to download the latest version of the app (which I already have). The alert used to say that it was from years ago (before I ever had the app) but now it says it’s from an hour ago. There is still no updated app and this same alert comes up every time I log in. The notification indicator goes away after I check it, but it’s back again each time I open the app again. Also, the digital books I’ve read or listened to don’t show up in the history (and no physical books do either) even though I have the setting set so that it should be showing up. Lastly, I can’t request books through link+ without going to the website.

It get the job done to find books and place them on hold, but when I try and add some books to my completed area it sometimes doesn’t work on some books. But over all it’s a good app, but I would love a tab that gives you a genres.

It will be great if you could make the library card compatible with Apple Wallet. Thank you!

The last update was the worst thing ever.The only thing good about the last update was that they made the app look more modern. However what they gained in substance they lost in useability. The app now legs when changing from menu to menu. When I login, it does not save the login and has asked me for my card number again and again. The worst thing is that it can’t even do the most basic of searches now. I tried to search for the title “To Kill a Mocking Bird,”And no matter what I did, the title just would not show up.Stop focusing on updating the looks and please bring back the functionality of the app.

TL;DR: all style, no substance. CSS styling for text and line spacing is all over the place: the “view all” text is too close to the subtitle beneath; the larger text line spacing is too wide, ie “Available from your For Later shelf”, etc. If book does not have thumbnail, title text should be smaller and not bold so that more of the title can be seen — closer to the author text style and size. Also, there is no consistency of placement of title text in the generic grey thumbnail — padding is 1em, 0.5em? Minimize padding to increase character count for titles and assign style class consistently. Really sloppy styling. As for lists, such as “New Books (View all)” would be nice to have alpha sorting in filters, and a wider range of page numbering at bottom of list (a sequence of pages, not just one, so that page jumps can be made). Agree that dark mode would be improvement. I’m guessing there was no user testing on this version.

After this new update the app looks so much better. Before I would just go to the website instead of the app because of the design and slowness. All it’s missing now is a dark mode but still 5/5

Hasn’t been updated in ages

The app's maximum screen size is not optimized for the iPhone Xs Max.

Low ratings appear to be quite old when back then perhaps the app was half-baked. It is easy to use, uncluttered unlike the SFPL website, does what I need, and I hope they keep small and simple. Minus one star as the most recent update was a year ago. Who knows when Bibliocommons last did a tuneup. (Review Mar2020)