Bookshelf
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Description
Use Bookshelf to download and access books on your Android phone or tablet. Read your books online or offline, search across your full library, and create notes and highlights to help you study.
Bookshelf Features:
• Download books to your device for easy online or offline reading.
• Simple, user-friendly navigation and a clean reading experience.
• Have your book read aloud while you multitask or rest your eyes.
• Search inside your current book or across your full library.
• Select text to create notes or highlights from your mobile device.
• Tap to open figures, view captions and pinch to zoom.
• Sync your last page read and all of your notes and highlights between your Android Phone or Tablet and our desktop or web-based Bookshelf apps.
Requirements:
• Android 4.0+
Bookshelf Features:
• Download books to your device for easy online or offline reading.
• Simple, user-friendly navigation and a clean reading experience.
• Have your book read aloud while you multitask or rest your eyes.
• Search inside your current book or across your full library.
• Select text to create notes or highlights from your mobile device.
• Tap to open figures, view captions and pinch to zoom.
• Sync your last page read and all of your notes and highlights between your Android Phone or Tablet and our desktop or web-based Bookshelf apps.
Requirements:
• Android 4.0+
My review
Review from
Reviews
3.4
7,367 total
5 2,814
4 1,281
3 955
2 664
1 1,653
Jake Lennard Feliciano
You cannot highlight text if your in Android which is very important for students to better memorize what they are studying. Please fix it, the only reason I am using this app was because the remaining chapters of the book we are using is currently in your library and apparently there is no hard copy of it. Please fix it, allot of students are relying on it. Thank you for understanding and hope you fix it and reply back.
Paul Delano
No pinch to zoom? Is this a joke? I shouldn't have to magnify text just to get a better view of the diagrams. Pirates shouldn't have greater convenience than paying customers. Get with the times folks.
Sifiso Maqina
It worked fine in my laptop , except for its sluggishness and the regular freezing, but when I downloaded it onto my tablet, it acted even much worse. I get black patches covering most of my text making it difficult to read. Some of the text is stretched out as if I'm trying to zoom it out. It makes me wonder if it really is configured for a tablet. The books I downloaded are papers F6 and F7 of the ACCA. Please FIX THIS. IT DRIVES ME NUTS.
Luke McCowan
The app works fine for some books, but it does not work well for my history book. Constantly force closes and doesn't load more than 2 pages at a time. Very slow to go to the next page. Has to reload the last page before I can go back.
Jessica Barone
I've used this on other devices without much issue. However, with it downloaded on my new phone, it opens the book, downloads to 100% and stays on that downloaded screen rendering the book incapable of use. I'm reading Critical Literacy Instruction for All Students for Western Governors University.
The worst app ever Every move you want to make it goes through you browser! Why do you need app that only works via browser??? Books are expensive as roketships and most of them with temp access. I hope this app will die. Freedom for information! Make books afordable!
User reviews
You cannot highlight text if your in Android which is very important for students to better memorize what they are studying. Please fix it, the only reason I am using this app was because the remaining chapters of the book we are using is currently in your library and apparently there is no hard copy of it. Please fix it, allot of students are relying on it. Thank you for understanding and hope you fix it and reply back.
Vital Source Technologies May 7, 2017
Greetings Jake,
This is Meghan from VitalSource Support. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. The highlighting feature is available on all versions of the Bookshelf application. Please check this KB on how to highlight on an Android. https://support.vitalsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/203657146-Notes-and-Highlights
If you still cannot h... No pinch to zoom? Is this a joke? I shouldn't have to magnify text just to get a better view of the diagrams. Pirates shouldn't have greater convenience than paying customers. Get with the times folks.
Vital Source Technologies May 2, 2017
Hey Paul, we are adding gestures support in a release coming soon. I'm sorry that has been so frustrating for you. If you have other suggestions or feedback, feel free to email me at blake@vitalbook.com. Thanks! It worked fine in my laptop , except for its sluggishness and the regular freezing, but when I downloaded it onto my tablet, it acted even much worse. I get black patches covering most of my text making it difficult to read. Some of the text is stretched out as if I'm trying to zoom it out. It makes me wonder if it really is configured for a tablet. The books I downloaded are papers F6 and F7 of the ACCA. Please FIX THIS. IT DRIVES ME NUTS.
Vital Source Technologies May 2, 2017
Sifiso, I've heard of one other user having this black pataches issue but I've never been able to see it myself for us to fix it. Can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know which book you are reading so we can try to figure out what's going on and work to fix it? Thanks! The app works fine for some books, but it does not work well for my history book. Constantly force closes and doesn't load more than 2 pages at a time. Very slow to go to the next page. Has to reload the last page before I can go back.
I've used this on other devices without much issue. However, with it downloaded on my new phone, it opens the book, downloads to 100% and stays on that downloaded screen rendering the book incapable of use. I'm reading Critical Literacy Instruction for All Students for Western Governors University.
Vital Source Technologies January 23, 2017
Hey Jessica, please email me at blake@vitalbook.com so I can help you resolve this issue. Thanks! The worst app ever Every move you want to make it goes through you browser! Why do you need app that only works via browser??? Books are expensive as roketships and most of them with temp access. I hope this app will die. Freedom for information! Make books afordable!
This app is seriously let down by not allowing you to download books, which are very large files, to the SD card. So it eats internal memory. It often relies on opening a browser page, such as for user account, rather than integrating this within the app itself.
Stops every ten minutes The app stops working if left open for more than ten minutes. I don't see how it will encourage my students to read on the go. It's only going to make them look as fast as they can for the relevant information before the app closes on them. Sure looks pretty though.
Vital Source Technologies January 10, 2017
Hey Anne, I apologize for the experience you're having with Bookshelf. Can you please email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know what book you are reading? I'd like to investigate to see if our app is failing or if perhaps there might be improvements needed to your specific book. Thank you!
-Blake Had to DL because I run linux and you need their stupid software to read offline. Screw you Vitalsource. Even if they supported linux, there's no way I'm running their PoS Software on my PC.
Vital Source Technologies January 30, 2017
Hey Michael, I'm sorry you're not enjoying the app. Can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and I can tell you how to run it on Linux or try to help solve any Android issues you may be seeing. Thanks. I got the app thinking I would be able to read my text books on my phone. Instead even though I know the password is correct and I used it on the webpage to login. It won't let me log into the app! This make no sense what so freaking ever!
Vital Source Technologies May 3, 2017
Hey Kristen, I'm really sorry you're not able to login. Would you please email me at blake@vitalbook.com and I'll make sure you can sign in and get access to your books. Thank you! U like to have the book read to me while I am doing a million other things in my life. But if I pause it or try to find where the book is reading to follow along reading it tends to not pick back up where It was reading. I need it to remember where it was reading even if the book is closed out. I have it installed on my phone. Ready my is my tv time and my music time so that feature would be amazing.
I think the read aloud feature is great however, it somehow does not want to stop running when I've been using it for awhile. It's like it crashes in the background and then none of the menu options work. Cannot even force it to stop. I have to turn my phone completely to get it to stop running.
Vital Source Technologies May 2, 2017
Hmm, sounds like a bug in our read aloud feature. Would you mind emailing me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know which book you're reading? I'd like to investigate this and figure out what's going on. Thanks! I love tts. But this tts feature is bad. No way to pick where it starts. Everytime u start up the tts engine it starts from the beginning of the chapter. Compounding the problem there are many things that forces the chapter to start over. Such as rotating the phone, receiving a phone call, restarting the phone, closing the app. Or seemingly for no reason at all. DRM features prevent me from exporting to an app with a better tts engine. Please fix
Worst app. It keeps on lagging. It changes chapter we you want to scroll. And is un effective when trying to find a portion or a reference in a text. It's a total deception for my CFA studies. I would have expected a better app. I bought the books since that app is so awful.
Issues It's acting up with the highlights. The app highlighted everything in the chapter I was reading and it won't let me fix it. I even tried on my computer and it was acting up also. It's frustrating especially when you want to do something it's not allowing me to do.
I need help from support. The read aloud feature is not in English. I could not get this book to work on the Brytewave app so I am using this one. Please fix. My book is Emergency Care 13th Edition. Update: Support was very helpful. Thanks!
Getting stuck The app is getting stuck and/or starting over my chapter Everytime I rotate my phone screen. It's not showing the pictures and is very delayed in other functions.
Vital Source Technologies January 17, 2017
Hey Rainey, can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and I'll look into what's going on with your book. That definitely should not be happening so I'd love to dig in and see what's going on. Thanks. I enjoy being able to read my books on my tablet, but I don't like the fact that when I use the read aloud function it starts at the beginning of the chapter every time. I have no control of where it starts. I can't skip ahead or go back. Its very frustrating. I have a very full schedule and multitasking is my lifestyle.
Vital Source Technologies January 23, 2017
Hey Felicia, if you press and hold down on the first word of a paragraph, then a menu will pop up that will allow you to start reading from that point. We're working on improving how this works, so stay tuned! I wish the read outloud function worked properly. I want it to start at a certain Section but it always starts at the beginning of the chapter. This is annoying.. Cant even select what section I want the read outloud to read from.. 😤
Vital Source Technologies June 22, 2017
Hey Tina, we're actively working on improving read aloud. I'm sorry you've found it difficult to use. I think there might be a bug in reading your book. Can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know which book you are reading? Thanks! Choppy, keeps crashin The page turn rate is choppy, but doable. Not that big of an issue. The problem is with the crashing. No matter what I'm doing, whether turning the page or just reading, it crashes within seconds of opening the app. It's literally unusable.
Let me just say: worst app ever. On my Samsung tablet, it works wonders. Can access my textbooks just fine. But on my Huawei Y6Pro phone? Can't get to my current account, can't access my textbooks, and can't even change my password. I mean-- what the hell?! Srsly fix this. I'm so pissed off right now!
Vital Source Technologies April 3, 2017
Hey Salma, first let me apologize for the bad experience you've had. Can you please email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know what book you are reading? I would really like to get a Huawei Y6P device so I can test our app on it and make sure it works well. Thank you! I hate this thing. Great in theory but I have just spent more time trying to work the highlighter than actually reading the text. I am so beyond frustrated. I am now moving to a third device to see if it's any better.
The app is ok. The most disappointing is not having essential features such as font size, spacing, night mode, common features even in a basic e-reader. I've got 4 books and I'm obliged to read in landscape position otherwise I cannot identify the words. There's so much room for improvement here.
Vital Source Technologies February 6, 2017
Hey Sergio, we deliver books from thousands of publishers, each of which chooses different ways to build and present their book content. We do allow you to increase the font size for EPUB books and you can change the zoom level for PDF books. Email me at blake@vitalbook.com and I'll see if I can help with the books you have. Thanks. The app was working perfectly fine in my last semester of school. However I downloaded a new book for my new class this summer and the app keeps closing out every 5 minutes or less. Hoping I can get a refund on my book to purchase an actual book from school. Very Disappointing!!!!!
Vital Source Technologies June 8, 2017
Hey Gil, I'm really sorry for the problems you're having. I can absolutely work to get you a refund. I'd also like to look into this issue as we haven't seen this issue before. Can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know what book you are reading? Thanks! 1)Dark mode needed to make reading in lower light settings easier on the eyes. 2)The ability to move app and books to external SD card, otherwise phone memory is taken taken up, whereas vital apps (*that truly need device storage*) might need to be installed later on device, but are out of luck... These two requests have been mentioned before. Please add these two features ASAP. Thank you! 👍
Not impressed. Looks good, but it's inoperable when trying to view the book. Wartime I open the book, the app crashes. Tried restarting my phone (galaxy s7 edge). Uninstalled then reinstalled, nothing works. An update would largely appreciated. Tough to do school work if I can read the books.
Vital Source Technologies February 6, 2017
Hey Russell, can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know which book you are reading that is crashing? I'd like to see if there's an issue with that specific book or a bug in the app. Thanks! Needs to be updated... BAD. I want to give this app a 3 stars, but it deserves 2. To start, it kicks you out of the app a lot. Also on and off saving the pages you leave off, when you don't even exit the app.. I've had books randomly disappear from my library that I bought from the school, even emailed them and STILL have not gotten a response. The highlights delay and don't even highlight the right information... on two different devices. This app can do so much better.
Vital Source Technologies April 18, 2017
Hey Justin, I am really sorry for the issues you have experienced. Can you please email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know what book you are reading and which books disappeared? I want to investigate this and make sure books are not disappearing. I have never heard that before so I want to help get this sorted out. Thank you! As a student I want to enjoy the function of have my books read aloud at times , app does this yet fails to give user ability to pick a starting point , instead starts chapter over when accessing the feature. Also app is very slow to respond on my S7, takes up to ten seconds to respond to simple commands like turn a page.
Vital Source Technologies January 19, 2017
Hey Doug, I'm sorry you're having issues with the books. I tested one of your books and it was working perfectly. Can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know which book you're having issues with? Thank you. Nice app. Can be better The app is nice. It has most of what I need embedded. However, it will be nice if I can skip forward or backwards during read aloud. A little bit more control of the speed of reading can help. I find that the normal speed is too slow for me. It is however too fast at 1.5x.
Vital Source Technologies January 17, 2017
Great ideas, we're working on improvements to read aloud. Thanks for your feedback!! I can load it on my iphone but can not get it to open up on my android tablet. Very annoying because I got the tablet for the larger size screen. Even uninstalled it and reinstalled. No help at all. Works great on the iPhone and Blake contacted me to try and fix the issue. Excellent customer service.
Vital Source Technologies February 6, 2017
Hey Joey, I emailed you to see what model tablet you're using so we can investigate. Thanks. Highlighting Issue How can the highligh from the text be removed? how can we use different color of highlight? please don't say that it can be done through Manage Highlighter
Vital Source Technologies January 17, 2017
Hey Priyank, can you please email me at blake@vitalbook.com and I'll email you some instructions on how to use highlighters. Thanks. Decent app but read aloud function is broken Can't use the read aloud function as it won't change the page as you read and stops the reading if you try to change the page for it. So much for help with an auditory learning style
If I could give negative stars I would. It's extremely slow, sometimes doesn't even open my books. If it ever does, it takes about 15 minutes to load the book open. Navigation to another page takes another 10 minutes. The android version sucks. It crashes too frequently. Also, there are too many crash errors and having to uninstall/reinstall the desktop version. It's freaking ridiculous. The customer service reps hate their job. The Windows 8 version is terrible. Never freaking works. I've struggled with this crap for 2 semesters now. I hate it.
Vital Source Technologies May 2, 2017
I'm sorry you've had a bad experience. I'd love to better understand your frustrations how we could improve the app to make it better for you. Would you mind emailing me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know what book you're reading? Thanks! Does not save data well from one device to the next. Highlighting messes up about 70% of the time and books frequently jump around, load and loose your spot and start over in read aloud. Downloading of highlights and notes is difficult and not easy to read on all devices.
Vital Source Technologies February 6, 2017
Hey Erin, I'm sorry you're having issues with the app. Can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com so I can look into these sync issues. Your highlights, bookmarks and last page read should all sync seamlessly between your devices, so please let me know so I can investigate. Thanks. The app sucks.... whenever I open my criminal justice book , the app shuts down. I would give it 0 stars if that was an option
Vital Source Technologies May 25, 2017
I'm really sorry about the crashes you're seeing. Can you email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know what the title of the book you're reading? I'd like to see if I can reproduce what you're seeing. Thanks! This app is ultimately amazing, despite one little thing. Every now and then when I go to open the app, it keeps me on the loading page and will never allow me to use it. I've restarted my android and that usually does the trick but right now it won't let me pass the loading page. It's a little frustrating since I need to some reading for RVT homework.
Had some issues in the beginning, but support was quick to respond and resolved. Love the fact that I can get my school reading done anywhere, and I even use the read out loud feature during my long commute, talk about knocking out two birds!
Vital Source Technologies February 6, 2017
Shannon, can you please email me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know which book will not download? I tested and all our download servers are operational so I'd love to look into this to see what's going on. Thanks. When this first came out. 5stars! But over the last few years the app has been very slow, times not even opening, crashing. The highlights don't Match from online or other platforms. Similar difficulties on Apple products
Vital Source Technologies May 22, 2017
Hey Kyle, let me apologize for the poor experience you've had. We're working on a new Bookshelf release that fixes highlighter colors. I would like to investigate the crashes. Can you email me the title of the book you're reading where you're seeing slowness or crashes? My email is blake@vitalbook.com. Thanks! Works on my phone better than the web version in chrome. Excellent app! I have not had any problems with crashing and I have been using it since March 1st, 2017.
The app is fine for convenience when it works properly. Similar to the computer version, making highlighted notes can be cumbersome at times when it won't let you highlight or see your highlighted items.
Vital Source Technologies May 17, 2017
Hey, that doesn't sound normal. It sounds like there might be a bug or something else going wrong with highlighting. Would you mind emailing me at blake@vitalbook.com and let me know what book you are reading? Thanks! Review deleted
What's New
In this release we reduced the size of the app and improved compatibility with older devices.
We are constantly improving Bookshelf. If you find a bug, discover an issue or have general feedback, please email us:
support@vitalsource.com
Additional information
Updated
January 5, 2017
Installs
1,000,000 - 5,000,000
Current Version
3.9.1
Requires Android
4.0 and up
Interactive Elements
Users Interact
Permissions
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Vital Source Technologies
