Yes, Libby is completely free. The app is free to install and the digital content from your library is free with a valid library card.

Print books are purchased once by the library and the same book (with proper care) can be lent out to different people again and again for decades. However, the ebook industry doesn't work like that. Libraries don’t own e-books and audiobooks—they can only license them from publishers at inflated costs with use limits (like how much time or how many check outs before the library has to re-purchase access to the title). 

High prices + strict licenses = strained library budgets, fewer copies, and longer waitlists.

E-books cost libraries up to six times more than they cost consumers, and library e-book licenses often expire after a set period of time or number of checkouts. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, this severely limits the amount of e-copies we can make available to our patrons.

If you belong to a U.S. library, you can send a book to your Kindle by tapping Read With… next to the loan on your Shelf, then selecting Kindle. You’ll then be taken to Amazon’s website to sign into your Amazon account and finish the delivery. 

You have 72 hours. If you aren’t ready to read the book yet, you can suspend the hold.

Suspending a hold keeps your place on a title's wait list if you're not ready to read it. When you suspend a hold, the title will continue circulating among other readers, which helps your library.

Here's how it works:

• When you suspend a hold, you'll continue moving up the wait list. Your hold won't be delivered until you manually unsuspend it.
• You can suspend your hold even if it's ready to borrow.
• Holds will lapse if they're suspended for 365 consecutive days.

To suspend a hold:

1. Tap Shelf 
2. Tap Holds at the top of the screen.
3. If your hold is ready to borrow, tap Suspend.
   If your hold isn't ready to borrow, go to Manage Hold > Suspend Hold.
4. Tap Suspend Hold again to confirm.

Many icons in Libby show your library's colors. If you belong to multiple libraries, the colors can help you quickly identify which library you can borrow a title from or which library has the shortest wait list. When you borrow or place a hold on a title, you'll see an icon with that library's colors next to the title on your Shelf .

The icon next to a title shows additional information about it. Here are some icons you'll encounter in Libby and what they mean:

 The title is available to borrow.

 The title needs to be placed on hold.

 Your library purchased more copies of the title since you placed the hold.

The title is borrowed and downloaded.

The title is borrowed but not downloaded.

In Libby, you can find titles your library doesn't offer and use a Notify Me smart tag to express interest in titles to your library. Here's a brief summary of how it works:

• You'll find titles that aren't offered by your library when:
  • You run a search and no titles in your library's collection match your search query.
  • You run a search with fewer than 100 results, and you manually turn on the "deep search" filter in the search results screen.
• You can set up a Notify Me smart tag for titles not offered by your library. When you tag a title with your Notify Me smart tag, your interest in the title is anonymously shared with all of your saved libraries.
• If a title you've tagged with your Notify Me smart tag is purchased, you'll get a notification and have the option to borrow it or place it on hold right away.

The renew option becomes available three days before a title expires, and it appears next to the title on your "loans" page. If the title already has holds, you can't renew it but you can request it again.

To renew an item:

1. Tap Shelf .
2. Tap Loans at the top of the screen.
3. Tap Manage Loan.
4. Tap Renew Loan.
5. (Optional) Tap the loan period next to "Borrowing for..." to change it.
6. Tap Renew Loan.