What Is a Family Library?
However, that comes with a couple of minor problems. You can only share each book for a two-week period, and each book can only be lent out once. Lending a book out needs to be confirmed by the recipient via email, and you can’t read the book they have borrowed while it’s still in their possession.
Family Library does away with all that. Not only does it give another adult, as well as up to four children, full, unrestricted access to your ebook purchases, but there are absolutely no limits on how many times someone else can read what’s in your collection.
Your partner can read that bestseller you’ve been talking about for days. Kids can read your favourite childhood stories. You can even read the same book at the same time as someone else, so it’s perfect for family book clubs!
A Family Library works both ways, too. If the other adult you’re sharing with picks up a new title, you’ll also be able to download and read it on your own device—even if they haven’t opened it yet. It’s probably the best way to share and quickly build a mountainous collection of books that you can take on vacation or read while relaxing at home.
If you still feel like your library isn’t big enough even when sharing with a second adult, you might want to take a look at some useful sites to get more from your Kindle.
What to Do Before Sharing Ebooks
If you’re planning on sharing your library with another adult, you’ll then need to enable content sharing. To do this, follow these steps:
Whether giving access to your entire library or just letting them read one or two books, this step will allow you to share your choice of ebooks with a second adult.
How to Share Individual Ebooks in a Browser
You may not want to share everything in your collection. To share individual ebooks, whether that’s with another adult or a child, just follow the steps below.
If you want to share several books at once but not your whole collection, you can also select multiple titles using the tick-boxes to the left. Then click Add to Library and choose who to share them with.
How to Share All Your Ebooks at Once in a Browser
How to Share Your Ebooks With an Adult on a Kindle
If you want to share your whole collection at once, you don’t even need to log in through a browser; it can all be done directly through Kindle devices. To allow another adult access to all your books with your Kindle, you’ll need to follow this process.
From your Home Screen, press the three-dot ellipsis to the top right of the page. Click Settings. Head to Household & Family Library. Select the Device Owner. Click Family Library. Confirm you want to enable content sharing. Confirm you want to share all books.
The other adult will need to enter their password on your Kindle. This will give them access to your books. They’ll then need to take the same steps on their device, and you’ll need to enter your email address and password into their Kindle so that they can share their collection with you.
How to Share Your Ebooks With a Child on a Kindle
Tap on the child’s profile image to the right of the screen. Select Library. If you haven’t done so already, you’ll be asked to set up a Parental Controls PIN, and then you can choose exactly what to share.
Sharing your collection with a child is split into two categories—Child-Friendly and All—so you can assign only the ebooks suitable for kids, or give full access to everything you own. You can also choose books one-by-one or select all before confirming by clicking Done.
