One of the unique features with Kobo ereaders is the fact that they have OverDrive support built-in for borrowing ebooks from public libraries. But a recent change has taken away the ability to use multiple libraries on Kobo devices directly.
Kobo has always been pretty vague about supporting more than one library on Kobo ereaders, but you used to be able to sign-in using an OverDrive account in order to access multiple libraries at one time on Kobo’s devices.
Now the option to sign-in using an OverDrive account has been removed.
Kobo seems to be blaming OverDrive and OverDrive appears to be blaming Kobo, with no real solution being offered by either party.
I think it goes back to the fact that OverDrive, for some misguided reason, decided to phase out their OverDrive branding in favor of Libby. They spent years building up the OverDrive brand and the OverDrive app, and then they decided it would be better to push a new Libby app with Libby branding instead that does pretty much the exact same thing.
So for the past several years most things OverDrive related have been transitioned to Libby, and the OverDrive login option on Kobo ereaders is just another one of the dominos to fall.
I think it still might be possible to borrow from multiple libraries on Kobos if you were already signed-in with your OverDrive account (could someone confirm this in the comments?), but that option no longer exists so you might want to avoid resetting or logging out of OverDrive on your Kobo ereader.
There are a few workarounds to still be able to use multiple libraries on Kobo’s devices, but they aren’t as convenient as the old method.
Workaround #1
The sign-in, sign-out option. It’s a bit tedious, but you can sign-in using one library card, then sign-out when your done reading your borrowed library ebook. Then sign back in with a different card and repeat.
Workaround #2
The old school method. You can use Adobe Digital Editions to download ebooks from multiple libraries and use it to sideload the ebooks onto your Kobo device using a computer. This is how it generally works with other devices that don’t have OverDrive support built-in.
See here for directions on how to use ADE with Kobo ereaders to sideload library ebooks.
Workaround #3
Multiple Kobos for multiple libraries. Granted, this isn’t the best option for everybody, but some people have more than one Kobo ereader. You could use different libraries for different Kobos. I’m curious how this would work because I just use one library, and ebooks that I borrow on one Kobo device show up (and work) on other Kobos, even ones that aren’t logged into my library at all.
For whatever reason, I’ve only ever seen one of my libraries when signed in with Overdrive. I just sideload the ones from my other one.
I can confirm that, yes, it is still possible to borrow from multiple libraries on Kobos if you were already signed-in with your OverDrive account
Thanks for letting us know!
I usually use the Libby app to borrow the books and then hope that they “magically” appear on my Kobo. Sometime they do sometimes they don’t. I’ve never nailed down a pattern.
I know what you mean. Some library books just aren’t available from Kobo. There’s this one book that I’ve tried to borrow a couple of times. My library has it and Kobo has it, but for some reason Kobo won’t allow it to be borrowed through OverDrive. I’ve also encountered a problem many times where I try to borrow a book directly from a Kobo ereader and for some reason it gives an error and won’t work.
I just wanted to add that I have two Kobos and have tried to sign into a different library on each and it didn’t work to have the different libraries syncing to both devices. It only shows books from the one library that I’m signed into on this particular device, and the others become previews. Which is strange because when I’m not signed into a library on one Kobo, it automatically imports overdrive content from the other one…
That is weird. I was wondering how that would work, but I guess they really don’t want people using two or more libraries anymore.
Ugh! I got my Kobo in June and did the multiple card linking process with my overdrive account. I was so happy! This was so convenient. I didn’t know this changed occurred in July and my overdrive account was working marvelously; I managed my library books via my phones Libby app. But I recently had to get a replacement and now I’m not able to sign in to overdrive with my new device. This is so annoyingly upsetting! I really hope Kobo/Overdrive get something worked out. I was going to buy my niece Kobo for her bday but now I just don’t know if I want to invest in one for her if she’ll have to deal with signing in and out of different libraries. It shouldn’t be this tedious to do.