Salt Lake City Public Library

Review by eFreeware

A library card is only useful if you have it with you, and a catalog is only useful if you can reach it. Those two small problems are what The City Library's Android app sets out to solve for patrons of the Salt Lake City Public Library, and the developer is the library system itself rather than a third party building on top of it.

The app is free, carries no advertising and offers no in-app purchases, which fits what most people expect from a public institution's software. The developer's summary describes it as a way to browse the catalog and the Digital Library, and that is the core of what it does.

It has been installed more than 10,000 times and holds a 4.5 average from 63 ratings, a modest sample for an app that first appeared in March 2018. The most recent update, in August 2026, was described simply as bug fixes and general improvements.

Finding something to read without leaving the couch

The catalog browsing side is the part I'd expect most people to open first. You can search the collection and see what the library holds before making a trip, which matters if you are deciding between placing a hold and simply walking in to browse the shelves.

The Digital Library is the second half of that job. Borrowed ebooks and other digital items live there, so the app becomes a place to check what is available to read on a phone or tablet rather than only a record of physical stock.

There is also a discovery element. The app is meant to help you find books you had not gone looking for, which is the sort of thing a library does well and a plain search box does not. How much that matters depends on whether you tend to arrive with a title in mind or prefer to be pointed at something.

A library card that lives on your phone

The feature I find most useful in principle is the digital library card. Instead of digging through a wallet at the checkout desk, you show the app, and the card is there. For anyone who has ever left a physical card at home, that alone justifies the install.

The app also links out to The City Library's social media accounts, so announcements and posts from the library are reachable from the same place. It is a small addition, but it keeps news and events from being scattered across separate apps.

Together these pieces cover the everyday loop of using a library: find something, borrow it, and prove you are a cardholder when you collect it. The app is organized around that loop rather than around reading itself.

What you need before it is useful

This is not a general-purpose reading app, and it is not a gateway to other library systems. It is tied to the Salt Lake City Public Library, so the catalog, the Digital Library and the card it displays all belong to that one institution. If you hold a card there, the app has something to show you; if you do not, there is little for it to do.

A library card with this system is the obvious requirement. The digital card is a version of the card you already hold, not a replacement for signing up.

There is nothing to pay and nothing to unlock. The free download, the absence of ads and the absence of purchases mean the whole thing is available from the moment you install it, which is the right model for a service like this.

A tidy companion for City Library regulars

The app is free, it does not interrupt you with advertising, and it covers the tasks a cardholder actually repeats.

The 4.5 average from 63 ratings suggests the people using it are broadly satisfied, though the number of ratings is small enough that I would not read too much into it. The August 2026 maintenance update is a reasonable sign that it is being kept in working order.

For readers outside this library system, the app has no role to play. Its value comes entirely from the account behind it, and that is a fair trade for a piece of software that asks nothing in return.

What's new in version 2026.08.19

Bug fixes and general improvements.