Gospel Library Reviews

by Randibug

In the last few months my app has been struggling to open. I have to close it and try opening it many times and pause for 10 seconds to see if the blank white screen eventually fills in and it opens OR it crashes and I have to try again. This is frustrating as I need to open it at the start of class as a Sunday school and seminary teacher.

Also, the search feature should not just be for exact wording but KEY words, so that different talks and scriptures related to those words (not only including directs quotes of your search) show in the search results.

Also, there should be a way to search a specific category (or categories) BEFORE hitting search so it doesn’t have to load all 100,000,000,000 results before you narrow it down. Sometime I just want to search “commandments” in the Book of Mormon and conference talks not in all the gospel library content known to man.

by Saskcree

We have had more problems with the stability of this site than we have had with ALL of our other apps combined.
Now, All past magazines that had been downloaded were lost. When attempting to download them again the entire site crashed...not once, but three times. It becomes necessary to delete GospelLibrary and start over again. Repeatedly.
Other issues are equally frustrating. In the past you could do a subject search and it would search through all selected resources. Now it only searches material that has been downloaded. (Such as the magazines that cause the site to crash).
Furthermore, in the past you only had to click on a year or month to get the download. Now it opens the index and you have to click again to download content. Who thought this was an improvement?
Well, doesn’t matter since the site crashes anyway trying to download them. I just don’t understand why our a church site works more poorly than any others.

by Cheapskate01

Current review (11-Aug-19):

(Downgrading from three to two stars)

I’m about to use my outside voice.

PLEASE STOP SHUTTING DOWN THESE APPS ON IOS 9!

Of note are Gospel Library and Member Tools (formerly LDS Tools). Something has happened at headquarters and these apps are no longer able to function on iOS 9. That means some of us are CRIPPLED unless we’re ready to shell out for new iPads and iPhones.

My iPad 2 is one of my favorite devices and I am more than displeased that (a) I can not download CONFERENCE TALKS in iOS 9, and (b) Member Tools just plain don’t work anymore on iOS 9.

PLEASE FIX!

Previous review (21-Jul-19):

Three stars is harsh, I know. But I still have and use iPad 2, iOS 9, for which version 4.4 was the last updated version of Gospel Library.

In particular, I see that current conference talks (April 2019) are not present in this version of Gospel Library. I was notified that Saints Volume 2 is now available, but again, not available on version 4.4 of Gospel Library.

As such, I am not expecting next year's study manuals for Sunday School, &c, to be available on version 4.4 of Gospel Library.

My iPad 2, iOS 9, being my preferred electronic device, therefore, I have to consider Gospel Library v. 4.4 as not very useful - and expected to become even less useful by the end of the year.

Not willing to run out and purchase yet another iPad, I'm thinking that three stars may be a bit generous...

by Moroniman

The thing I liked best about using GospelLibrary to study over my hard copy of the scriptures was the experience I had when scrolling through the text. The last font, spacing and layout was very well done from an aesthetic point of view. It was pleasing to the eyes and made for not only a great tool but also a pleasing experience. Now the text is small and harsh and goes to the far extreme of both sides of the screen (where are the margins?). Yes it provides more content on one page but that content is too small and difficult to use. Yes you can manually change the size of the text in tools but that only works for that one chapter. You have to repeat the process every time you advance a chapter. The irony is when you pull up the footnotes they are in the old font and size while the main text is in the new aesthetically challenged font. It makes me want to read only the footnotes. Why can’t we have the best of all worlds, more info, pleasing aesthetics, pleasing font and for heavens sake some margins. All I know is that my study was more rewarding and spiritually focused in the last version. Isn’t that what we are striving for?

I look forward to an improvement in the next version. That or let those who want revert back to the old way or at least have that option.

by 1AusomeMom

I have had nothing but audio issues with GospelLibrary. It seems the audio is working on every account until every other update or so. Then, I lose all audio and have to reinstall GospelLibrary several times before I get it back. We shouldn’t have to reinstall an app after updates in order to get the full features of GospelLibrary . Funny thing is that my husband and I have the exact same phone - same brand, model, everything except color. He never has issues with his gospel library giving him audio - yet, I do. We have compared our settings and they are exactly the same, too. Over the last year, I have had to reinstall 5 times! Seriously, thankful you don’t charge me for each install. I just want to be able to listen to my scriptures, magazines, and other lesson materials. I am able to read my scriptures for my daily studying as I believe reading them helps me more. But, I don’t have hours to read every Ensign article, books, lessons, etc each day. Please make audio available on every device, every monthly issue, every possible way with every update!! Also reinstalled on my son’s iPad and it will not allow him to log in at all! Doesn’t even give him the option to!!! Aggravating 😡

by RWHuck

March1: March Ensign audio is available but still no sign of February. Oh well. Time to move on.
Latest: It's Feb 25 and the Feb Ensign audio is still not available on GospelLibrary . It's been available online for weeks, but not here. Why? I've deleted GospelLibrary and reinstalled 7-8 times hoping that might do it, but no luck. It seems like every month it takes at least a couple of weeks. Why? I even sent feedback through GospelLibrary , but no response. There was an app update a week or so ago, so I was hoping it might be in the update, but I was again disappointed.

Update: I finally deleted GospelLibrary and reinstalled it. Now it seems to be working fine. I’m not sure how much data I’m going to have to download again. I shouldn’t have to go to so much trouble, but glad it’s working better.

Update: Now I can’t get past the what’s new screen. 😡 Very unprofessional to have an update for an app used by so many people with so many errors.

Initial review: I really want to give a high rating, but the latest update is a bust. Not only did I lose all my screens, but after restoring them and closing GospelLibrary , they disappear when I reopen GospelLibrary . I’ve tried restoring them a few times and the same thing happens every time I reopen GospelLibrary . I don’t understand how so many bugs were not caught before the update and how it could take so long to fix. Please, please, please fix it.

by Sparky McMuffin

I’ll leave my original review as it stands. I fixed the search results. When you type a search keyword, the results that pop up are as I stated: hymns, topical guide, and dictionary. However, if you tap on return, the true search completes. This pop up info is what has been introduced with this version. Changing app behavior like this is incredibly confusing. The release notes don’t even address this change in behavior. I find this change in search behavior more complicated and less intuitive than before because the new contextual shortcuts appear to be search results. I can’t be the only person confused by this change.

⁂

I don’t care about the GUI update. Search has either been severely hampered, or it’s broken. I have come to rely on the power of GospelLibrary to find all references to a keyword in every downloaded document on my device. Now search only shows results for hymns, topical guide, and bible dictionary, or it shows results for articles not downloaded yet, but it shows NO RESULTS for scriptures. This is stepping us back over ten years, which is how long it’s been since I used the Topical Guide to find a scripture. Surely, search isn’t meant to be this useless now?

by QWERTYinsights

I love how accessible it is and the design is very sleek and usable. There are a lot of bugs in GospelLibrary, however. It crashes a lot. The link feature annoyingly doesn’t work very well (links don’t show up, they take you to the same page you just came from, etc). Switching between languages only works sometimes. To access the library in Spanish, I have to delete the language and then re-download it (otherwise it will show the only options available in that language (it happens with all
Languages ) as only “manuals and callings.”).
I will continue to use it because there is no better scripture/resource/conference app out there, but these issues should really be fixed!!

Additionally, the “search” feature is better, but still inefficient. It would be nice if it used the same kind of search algorithm as Google

by E.huber19

I love the gospel app and I’ve used it since the get-go. But I’m not really stoked about some of these new things They’ve added. The home screen is a pain now.
It just adds one more step that’s not needed. And I don’t want “verse of the day.” Meh.
The worst thing is they at first took out where you could have on the right side when you were reading scriptures your own notes showing and the related stuff. But luckily they fixed that because it’s working suddenly. Phew! Please, please, keep that feature! It’s my favorite feature of the whole app. I love being able to write notes and access them quickly and see them on the side as I read my scriptures.

by Aberrantartist

GospelLibrary has come amazingly far and gets better with every release. There are still some areas that I have come across which would make for a more incredible study experience.

1.The Study Plans are such a good idea! What they need is a bit more customization. For example, this morning when I was going to start one I was going to choose the book of Isaiah as the topic. It only let me go as far as he Old Testament and then went straight to choosing a time frame. This works great if someone wants to read the whole Old Testament, but otherwise the other option is more preferable. I can still choose the whole Old Testament, but I have the option to continue to specify.

2. It would be so useful and such a better experience to have support for the Apple Pencil and Google Pixelbook Pen so that instead of typing out notes there could be a section on tablet devices with larger screens where you could write your notes and have them directly attached to your scriptures. Right now I take notes in a separate app, which works quite well. However, the experience would be much more seamless and enjoyable if it was all contained within the Gospel library app.

Thanks for doing great!

by GidgiddoniAZ

I absolutely love the LDS Gospel Library App. It does now state that it is for iPhones, and iPads, but I loved it (albeit briefly) on my MacBook. Having the interface of the phone/pad, coupled with a mouse and keyboard, made it the ultimate study combination. Typing notes was easier than ever. I just got a new MacBook and was thrilled that Gospel Library was working on it. Then I updated and lost it. I hope someday it might comeback, but I understand that trying to keep up with so many different techs and platforms can just be overwhelming and you have to just choose where the greatest good can be done. So grateful to have so much at my fingertips. Never has so much scripture been available to easily to so many....The Lord wants us using it. Thank you developers!!

by Early A.m. Singers

The new formatting of the Gospel Doctrine manual makes it much more difficult to use when teaching from an iPad. The special fonts and abundance of white space are beautiful but greatly decrease the percentage of the lesson that is visible at one time. Because teaching only permits an occasional glance at the device, it is essential that a person be able to see as much as possible at a time. Decreasing font size to allow seeing as much of the page as with the previous format makes the words themselves difficult to read.
Since the biggest challenge in teaching from a tablet is having only a tiny part of the lesson visible at a time, having that portion made even smaller is not a good trade-off for eye appeal.

by Dijion801965

First off, I love the content and quick access. I only have one issue, and it’s with the computer generated narrators, they need to be changed. I listen to the Book of Mormon while commuting, and when I cannot sit down and read. I am not sure why the narrators were changed to synthesized speech but the synthesis is not fluid and lacks proper inflections.

Synthesized speech has been shown to reduce a persons ability to recall what was said (Ive noticed this with the new narration), this is due to people being used to normal human speech patterns and inflections, which a computer does not do. Synthesized speech is great for very short messages, not books.

Luckily I still have a copy of the original narration from several years ago.

by Emyh40

Haha didn’t have the energy to try and remember another password. And thought it was my old one but it didn’t work. Tried figuring it out and that didn’t work 😅 my phone number recognized me as my Great Uncle Dean and ANYWAYS my point was I was curious about some of the updates on GospelLibrary . But because I couldn’t remember a password I wasn’t even able to just “explore”

It made me think about visitors who are just curious maybe they heard about the “LDS community doing this” or so and so said that and they found their way towards GospelLibrary and I don’t know maybe just like how we order food their’s a “guest user”

But instead of “guest” it could be “visitor” just like what we have on our buildings 😁

Anyhoo had a moment of inspiration and was blocked by not remembering a dumb password. And I can’t help but think about my sister who tried exploring the website forever ago and she couldn’t find her answers (probably not the right time) but she’s very impatient and has since not tried to “explore” Not even sure if she has an account but if there was just a “visitor” option on GospelLibrary maybe later she’ll try and explore once more 😁

I know my password is saved on my laptop but don’t have the energy at the moment to do all that. I just hope that moment won’t be lost forever.

by Lhcgayle

I love the gospel library app, we can listen to the articles in the Ensign while driving or doing other chores. Also we can look up scriptures quickly and reference any of the content we wish to find. However, in the latest update for Apple, (January 17, 2018) all the audio for the January Ensign has been removed except for the conference notebook article. The icon at the top says the audio is downloaded, but the icon for each article does not appear. I have an iPad2 with iOS 9. I have also noticed that some articles in past issues do not have audio for the entire article, there will be some at the beginning and some at the end with the middle of the article not narrated, or some articles that have no audio.

by Ivystoutieri

I absolutely love GospelLibrary for many reasons of course. The list could go on and on. Something I would love to see in GospelLibrary is an option to load a “new copy of each scripture or talk.”
With a hard copy Book of Mormon, for example; I am able to mark one of them with a certain theme or goal in mind which leads me to mark it with a very specific lens on. When I have read it with that lens, I pick up a new copy and read it with a new lens and mark it in a different way.
Each time I read the scriptures different things pop out at me due to the mindset and circumstances I am in. I would love to see the option to have multiple Books with different annotations for each.
Thank you!

by Charlie Fli.

The scripture library app has always been an incredible recourse and has had many awesome updates. The most recent update including a Home button that opens a side page with “quick links”, “quotes of the day” and “scriptures of the day” feels awkward. A home button should simply link to the library dashboard, where those secondary inclusions of quick links, quotes, and scriptures can still be housed. The home button and side page feel like an undesired middle man, causing unnecessary steps to be taken simply to get back to the library.

Despite this relative step backwards in ui, the scripture library works well. Would still appreciate the ability to freely mark up scripture pages with the Apple Pencil or other tools.

by Galaxy Fire888

OK yeah GospelLibrary is so awesome I love the ability to search for what exact book you were looking for and what place in the book that is so cool especially for visually impaired people like me GospelLibrary is compatible with voiceover and has audio to read it to you instead of you having to read it and you can also make the text really big so you can read it yourself that is a very nice feature and because I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ I love GospelLibrary because it allows you to read without having to carry a book of Mormon with you and without worrying about ruining it because if you ruined your scriptures on your phone you ruin your whole phone and it feels a bit better than you’re not ruining an entire book of Mormon

by Dtaywords

GospelLibrary is very well done and gets better all the time, especially with the recent addition of study plans. I use almost every feature of GospelLibrary every day... being able to sit in the quiet of the morning and study with so many resources that I can cross-reference is incredibly enlightening! I sometimes wonder if my notes will overload the data capacity of the system... but it seems to do fine.

I would like to see the ability for multiple copies of a book, such as the Book of Mormon. I’d like to read an unmarked version for different experiences and purposes. For example, I’d like to read a book and only highlight references to Christ, or for any other special purpose, but keep my original version with all its markups.

A little more basic formatting and editing ability added to the note taking would be nice, but I still love what you have. Thank You for a truly life-changing App for me!!

by Marsha2357

I absolutely love GospelLibrary. I have had it ever since I have had a phone. I love all the resources you can get with just a touch of a button. I have one suggestion: so my first language is Spanish and my second English. I usually read my scriptures in English to improve my speaking abilities. I have always had a hard time with the names of Cities and other words that we don’t use on a daily basis. So I think it would be a cool feature if, when you highlight a word or phrase that you don’t know, there would be an option to hear that word or phrase out loud instead of having to skip over the whole chapter to find how to say that one word. I think that would be a great tool to have if you are learning a language and you are using the scriptures to practice. ❤️

by Jim-James-Jimothy

One of, if not the most, buggiest apps I have ever seen. The constant updates do nothing to improve GospelLibrary , but rather add more bugs and glitches, and make it less user-friendly. It is nearly impossible now to find a word or phrase by searching for it, as the developers have decided to change the search results from easy, organized categories to appearances of this word or phrase from greatest to least in various scriptures and manuals, forcing you to scour hundreds or even thousands of results before either finding what you’re looking for or giving up entirely. If the word or phrase you’re looking for is in D&C section 8, but there are more appearances in sections 10, 12, & 23 and in Teachings of the Presidents, GospelLibrary will display the D&C sections with the highest quantity of the word or phrase (not in chronological order, of course), force you to scroll through all the other manuals, before coming back to D&C. The way it’s set up does not have all the instances of the word or phrase according to what manual or scripture it’s in.
GospelLibrary crashes constantly, scrolling has become a chore, there is only a back button and no forward button, and oftentimes clicking on search results yields nothing but a blank screen.

by THNKFL2B

Everytime GospelLibrary is getting better. The more it can be like accordance Bible software where we could search for complex searches and graph results would be great.

Also for the notes I look forward to it being a Apple pencil friendly experience.

Like having multiple copies of the book of Mormon except you could have one base text and have different layers like they do with overlays in mapping or like Photoshop does. That way I could have one for teaching one for my historical insights one for themes and one for PDF that I could draw on and have a more natural experience then how apps that are not PDF have to have highlights be free foemed. Not sure if that's more sense. Thank you!

by Natewcarr21

Many people like to have several copies of the Book of Mormon so they can have different themes in each book. For example, David A. Bednar has tons of different copies of the Book of Mormon with each one having a different Christlike attribute as a theme. This is his way of working on and attaining Christlike attributes. However, we cannot do this in gospel library. On your account, you only have one copy and if you make a mark in it, it will be like that forever until you change it. I would love to be able to organize many copies of the Book of Mormon into different themes and give each one my own personal title. So I could have a section in gospel library with 8, 14, or 100 copies all with a separate title that I gave it, separate markings, separate notes, separate everything. Then I could always create a new copy of the Book of Mormon that was completely blank. I could name that one charity. Then I could only mark in pink everything about charity without having to delete past markings and stuff. That would be awesome! Also, you could have a notebook that showed all your notes and markings in every book as well as separate notebooks for each one. This is a very important feature! I would love to chat to go over this with you! Please please please! Thank you!

by Tdscvjhvbklbcdf

I love having GospelLibrary to keep all my insights and notes organized with linking options and tagging options. I love to use it and the library is massive, everything I could ever want to look through in regards to LDS topics is there, especially the newest content released by the church, like general conference talks and worldwide devotionals.
My one desire is to know if there is a way to sync my notes to different devices? I have an iPhone and an iPad and it would be awesome if we could link GospelLibrary across the two so I can add things to my notes and tags on both of them. There may be a way to do it all ready, I just don’t know how, but if there is not, that is my one suggestion for the next update ;)

by KillerNachos978

GospelLibrary is great, but with the new study plans I noticed that notifications haven’t been working like they’re supposed too. It’s not just me either, I know several other people who have the same problem. That’s the only thing I wish you could fix. Other than that, I think the new study plans are a great addition to GospelLibrary. I do wish they would work a little bit harder to try and add new features and improve the little things in GospelLibrary to make it as user friendly as possible. Because GospelLibrary is so important to so many people, I think it’s important to keep it updated and convenient. Still, I love everything about GospelLibrary. Keep up the great work.