SFPL Reviews

I hate hate hate Biblioapp. It's completely ruined the online library experience. Have you tried checking out an overdrive ebook on the this app site (powered by Biblio)? It's a joke.
I also hate that this app forced us to give up our data to this company of we want to use even the most basic online functions.

This needs to be treated with more respect. Even if it worked on an iPhone 6/7/8/X/XS it would need a ton of fixing to get rid of the awful design and bad development. Rewrite this.

Every time I log into SFPL , there’s a notification listed. The notification is to alert me to download the latest version of SFPL (which I already have). The alert used to say that it was from years ago (before I ever had SFPL ) 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 SFPL 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.

Was very pleased to have the ability to search the catalog from anywhere, reserve titles, renew etc, especially nice to get this info while browsing the stacks at main branch.
Too bad v1.0.2 crashes on start. Please, as a public service, downgrade to v1.0.1 to restore service until bugs are really fixed.

I work for the this app and absolutely love SFPL.... I tell my co-workers and patrons that come in about it... There needs to be a iPad version of it....

But lately it's been crashing in when I try to open it.... I uninstalled and reinstalled it and it worked but then I tried to use it it started crashing again.... Please fix it soon...

At least it works. It’s not made for newer phones and so it renders in backwards compatibility mode. But you can find and hold a book.

Its really weird that you can’t be logged in on both the web and mobile. It force logout one of them and only let one work at a time

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.

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

Great app, but when I didn’t use it for three weeks I got logged out, and I put the right info and I couldn’t get logged back in. Please fix this!

I used to like SFPL 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 SFPL . 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 SFPL . (The log in, and log out process to change accounts is very inconvenient.)

I’m surprised that SFPL doesn’t have a notifications feature. You have to still rely on email to find out if a hold is now available or when a book is due.
Otherwise it’s a good app, has all the basic features so I no longer have to go to the website to search and request books.

If you take out books from the library, this is a great and easy way to get your books renewed, reserved and pay any late fees.

The only thing is that it keeps logging me out. If don't have your barcode memorized or on your person, it can be annoying.

Used it for awhile, and like it a lot as I can reserve a book while I am on the go. However, in the last two weeks, SFPL crashed right at the time when I start it. Hope you guys would take a look and fix that.

Handles both ebooks and hard copies, lets me manage holds better. I am also a LIBBY user and do my reading that way. But this app is best for managing my account and holds. Sorry LIBBY, you have too much wasted space and a weird method for holds and hard copies.

Low ratings appear to be quite old when back then perhaps SFPL was half-baked. It is easy to use, uncluttered unlike the this app 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)

It’s a good app with potential but after a while it starts to crash! Please fix this soon! Otherwise it’s a good app.

So happy to live in a place that has a free library system that has their own app! I appreciate you SFPLS!!!! Thank you for dedicating your lives to making information available to the public.

I am living in San Francisco. I love libraries, because I like to read books and comics. Especially, I love their Wi-Fi! I am really happy to see an this app app. Also, I am happy to see this city's public libraries is growing more technical, and more favorable. I am happy to see improvements.❤️☺️😁

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

Seems to work fine, here in November of 2018.
Too bad apps like this suffer from bozos who rate it 1-star when an update had bugs, then never correct their rating after it gets fixed.