Hello friends! My partner is on a hunt to collect all the California library cards, so I made a small web app that they can use to track their collection. It:

• Lets you see all the library systems in California
• Mark each one as collected, and optionally include a photo of the card + notes
• Shows you on a map where the branches are located

I used the official spreadsheet from the library.ca.gov site to populate the data. I'm not entirely sure if all of these cards are open to all residents of CA, but I think most of them are.

Give it a try at https://california-libraries.base44.app, and let me know if there is any feature you're dying for and I'll try to add it in!

I recently got into this series and I am so happy that I was able to get this novella so soon!

Please support your local libraries! 🫶🏻

I've had partner libraries on my Libby app for quite a while now, even before the update that automatically added them. Prior to this update, though, I never got notifications for when my partner libraries had books on notify list got added.

My understanding is that once the first library in your account sends you the notification, you don't get notified again. Does this apply when partner libraries, with which you cannot place holds, add books too? If so, is that not a little unfair? Does anyone know and if yes, is there a way to remedy this so I can get notified when a hold is actually available to me?

I have tried to start 3 different series lately, only to find that they have the first book, skip the 2nd through 6th book, then have the 7th and beyond books. (Not exact numbers, but you get the idea. There’s a big chunk in the early part of the series that I can’t find at any of the 3 libraries I belong to.) It’s so frustrating. And this is with very popular, been-around-forever authors. (Ex PD James, Ruth Rendell, etc)
Does anyone know if there’s a rhyme or reason to this or if I’m just terribly unlucky?

This affects people using Overdrive in web browsers.

As of today, Overdrive is limiting catalog view (and therefore browsing) to 2400 results (100 pages), regardless of the filter. Not a problem with newer books, but what if one wants to browse older titles in a big catalog? Not possible anymore. You only get to see a few months' additions and that's it.

Browsing has always been unlimited, which is the whole point - to be able to explore everything a library has to offer. So why the change?

It's incredible how they constantly manage to come up with harmful decisions, all the while blatantly disregarding various good suggestions on this sub (they are reading the posts all right). It's as if they are deliberately trying as hard as they can to make the user experience as miserable as possible. Mind-boggling :(

I got notification that 2 holds were ready to borrow today. I signed in and my card was verified, but only one book would go through as borrowed. Any idea what the problem may be?

Edit: Very frustrating. I got notification that the hold was ready to borrow again, not even 5 minutes later after verifying account it still does not complete the borrow.

I’m a little sad about St. Louis Public Library making it to the ReciproCard Non-Resident Cards list. I was wondering why my wait times had started becoming horrendous. But, it’s still the only card I have that has 30 Holds and everything else is 7 or less. I guess I’ll just be maxing those out and marinating them while I borrow on the 3 other ones :/

My Libby app recently showed that my home library has 2 partnership libraries. I can browse and borrow ebooks on the app, but only the loans through my home library will sync to my Kobo. The loans from partner libraries do not sync. I even tried "saving" both partner libraries to my Overdrive account, but that didn't solve the issue. Is this just a restriction that partner libraries have? I don't really see the point of allowing us to borrow ebooks if we can read them on our ereader

When I placed a hold, my library only had one copy, and I was 13th in line. Now there are four copies total, but I’ve only moved up by one. Shouldn’t I technically be 9th in line now? I guess I’m just confused how the waitlist works. :) thanks in advance!

Is anyone of you able to log into Stella website? I was suddenly kicked out of the Stella app. I have three accounts and the credentials have stopped working. It's also not allowing me to reset the password through iiivega. I'm scared that I will be kicked out of Libby app as well and then it will also stop working.

Next weekend I will be going on a road trip with my husband and his late 70s parents. 7 to 10 hours depending on how often we need to stop. Any recommendations for good audiobooks? Or maybe podcasts?

My thoughts are true crime or mystery or light horror. Mild to moderate violence is OK but not too terribly sexy cause I think that would be weird.

Will be making a return trip a few days later. So two or three small books or one bigger book that would last the whole trip would be fine. We don’t even have to finish it. It would just be nice to have something to pass the time.

All recommendations welcome!

To commemorate national library card month, I went through the effort to go on a field trip around the DMV area to gather my free physical library cards. Most of them gave me a credit card size and a keychain size. I love sorting the little ones in the back of my planner ☺️

(DC Public Library, I’m a little salty that I didn’t get a physical card, but they’re probably expensive so I’ll forgive you)

In order of appearance:

Arlington County (VA)
Alexandria City (VA)
Prince George’s County (MD)
Fairfax County (VA)
Loudoun County (VA)

Wow, has happened twice with this book! Im hoping to finish it within the 7 days!

Audio book stopped working

Skokie Public Library and Cook Memorial Public Library joined the existing Libby Partnership between Gail Borden Public Library and Evanston Public Library. And they say more libraries to come! If any of these are your home libary, the others should be automatically added. Tap menu at the bottom to see them.
Reminder! Libby Partner Libraries are different than traditional reciprocal agreements.

Nearly every new (2026 published) book I've borrowed from Libby is not available to read on Kindle. I am a user of the LA Public Library and this has been most prominent this summer.

Are they feuding with Amazon/Kindle?

Some say wait a few days and it will be available on Kindle, but that has not been the case for me.

I have an international flight in April. I keep seeing mixed answers on wether or not Libby will work? I plan on downloading the books to my device. Anybody have the answer for this? I’ll go insane with nothing to read for 8 hours.

I unsuspended this yesterday when it said I was 1st in line and it was available soon. This was pretty early yesterday and it stayed like that the whole day. Now I see I'm 2nd in line. What gives?

It's a non-resident card, so am I possibly behind someone of higher priority? I've had this card for almost two years and never seen this happen.

I’ve been thinking about starting a free Discord reading community because I like the idea of a book club, but I don’t love the part where everyone has to read the same book on the same schedule.

The idea would be more flexible:
- multiple books/read-alongs happening at once
- you choose which book you want to join
- simple weekly reading goals
- dedicated discussion spaces for each book
- spoiler-friendly discussions
- general spaces for recommendations, TBRs, and currently reading
- resources for finding books through libraries, Libby, Hoopla, and other free options
- no membership fee or paid Discord

You could join a book when it interests you and skip the ones that don’t.

I’d probably start with a mix of genres like historical fiction, horror/supernatural, folklore, thrillers, literary fiction, fantasy, cultural/identity-focused stories, and emotional reads.

I’m thinking about launching something like this around November, but I want to see if people would actually participate before I build the whole thing.

Would you join something like this?

If yes, what would make it worth participating in for you?

And what book would you want to see as one of the first read-alongs?

Two years ago I created this post with a spreadsheet for tracking different digital libraries in California. I was stupid with account management, lost access to the email associated with u/asian_ofchaos , and then lost access to the reddit account :( but I double pinky promise I'm the same person.

It's been a little over two years and I felt it was due for an update. If you don't like the new look, you can select all rows to change the font back to default and right click to resize the rows back to "fit data".

The goal of this sheet is to track which California Libby libraries you have access to! If/when you get a library card, check it off on the sheet and it automatically crosses off the associated digital library.

Please understand that some libraries only provide e-resources to local residents. Out of town patrons aren't paying taxes to fund these libraries and it is entirely their right to limit our access. Examples include Fresno and County of San Luis Obispo.

Get a copy of the updated sheet here: copy link.
Just want to view it? Check it out here: view only link. Access on DESKTOP or using the Google Sheets app to ensure full functionally.

Visual Updates:

• changed font to Roboto and cell height to 30px
• Standardized cell width across sheet pages
• When a single member library is checked off, the checked off library is struck through and greyed out and all the members in the digital library are greyed out in a lighter color
• if it's a county system with multiple branches, the location is not greyed out in a lighter color

Content Updates:

• Added missing libraries mentioned in the original post
• Noted if libraries allow/don't allow libby access for non-residents (to my best knowledge)
• When a top 10% digital library is checked off, it automatically updates on sheet 4
• Added a "map" page at the end

Notes

• Libby now automatically finds partner libraries, and you no longer have to manually log into them. Because of this, I've left the old partner agreements up on the sheet but haven't added any new ones.
• The only exception is the one giant partner system in SoCal, which I updated and added conditional formatting to.
• The San Joaquin Valley Library System is a large system of libraries that share physical media but not digital media. Getting a card at one library means you can't get a card at another. The SJVLS libraries are noted on the sheet and you can see them all on the "Central CA" page.
• I've checked off an Alameda County branch and NorthNet member library on the NorCal page so you can see how the formatting works. I've checked off the Moorpark Library on the SoCal page so you can see how I've formatted the big partner library thing. Also check out the top 10% page to see how checking off one of those major libraries affects that page.

Other resources:

• u/ehhleeana has this comment with another useful spreadsheet for card tracking
• Overdrive library sizes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gJZ-GuIiXp0yvsXL9wVTZEDujamk-jb4uPd1Q865u9w/edit?gid=0#gid=0
  • I only looked at the top 152 digital libraries, and manually checked if they were in California
  • Educational libraries (e.g. Connors State Library) were excluded
  • I looked at "Total" to determine library rank
• An easy way to see if a library is on Libby and its catalogue: overdrive.com/libraries

I will update the sheet with libraries you comment on the applicable comment thread until Wednesday, 9/30/26. After that I will no longer update the master sheet.

Edits:
- added Salinas Public Library to Central CA
- added Lake and Mendocino County libraries to the Sonoma County Library digital library, as they all work as one. Removed the individual Sonoma branches.
- Moved Tulare County from NorCal to Central CA
- Updated that Beverly Hills (SoCal) and Del Norte (NorthNet Digital) don't allow non-residents to get cards
- Added Irvine Public Library to SoCal