Lifehack: San Francisco Public Library

Did you know that California residents can borrow ebooks and audiobooks from the San Francisco Library?

Did you also know that your library card gives you access to resources like Lynda and Treehouse so you can learn new skills (like how to code) from experts at no cost? Here’s a quick guide to get started:

Sign up for a card online:
Fill out the online form, then head to the most convenient branch to pickup your free new library card. This is by far the most labor intensive part of the process, but the librarians are nice and the entire process won’t take more than a minute or two. Register online here https://sflib1.sfpl.org/selfreg or just walk into a branch and ask for a library card.

Overdrive

Log on to https://sfpl.overdrive.com/ with your library card number and PIN. Overdrive is a platform for public libraries to make digital content more accessible, and also proved a few mobile apps for reading (more on that below). Pro tip, store your card number and PIN in a password manager like LastPass.

Mobile App

Install the new Libby App on your mobile device. You can browse, borrow, read, listen and send to kindle from the app.
https://meet.libbyapp.com/

Library Extension:

Add the Library extension to your browser! Just sign in to your library and the extension will show you if an Amazon book is available at your library. Many people share amazon links when recommending a book and this is a great way to act on book recommendations from across the web before you forget the title. https://www.libraryextension.com/

Learning

Head to the SF public Library eLearning page to set your Lynda and Treehouse accounts. Lynda is a bit easier to start with, as Treehouse has a review process to get started and will deactivate your account if you go too long without logging on.

Happy Reading & Learning

You should be good to go — you can read and listen to books on your mobile device or send them to you Kindle, and start learning new skills today.