VitalSource Technologies Reviews 

Website loading a page every 5 minutes today. Assignment due tomorrow at midnight and I am completely SOL. Do not use. Unreliable.

Its such a pain using vital source bookshelf. I have such a poor experience that I interrupted 'my studies to rant at how much I hate using it. No thought went into the creation of the website or app. I need features that allow me to work on my terms.
1) please allow me to adjust my zoom. Neither the computer app or website allow you to adjust the zoom. I need to resize my browser and crop the page using the bookmarks column.
2) Can you please, please add a scroll feature. I don't want to click the button to get to the next page. It is unnatural and hinders my learning experience. Neither the website or app allows one to active a scroll feature
3) I would like to scratch in my book how I please. Give me a pen or type function.

I loved how I could interact with the content it helped with my notes and allowed me to study - amazing for my course work. Any course book I have if its available here - Im definitely gonna get it.

COMPLETE RIP OFF!!!

I ordered a book and got a text full of quotes and random people's notes -- NOT the book itself!

I purchased 2 books from this company. After a few weeks of using, when I opened one of the books, I received a prompt to download an updated version. After doing this, 3 of the books chapters disappeared. I contacted the company over the course of one week and each time received a reply ‘We are dealing with your request’. To date, I have not had a solution. Definitely would not recommend. I am a Masters student and need the book for assessment. Totally unreliable.

worst website and app ever!

I paid €60 for a textbook from Routledge only to be forced to use this garbage app to access it! it somehow took over my system bringing me back to Chrome automatically when I swiped between screens and blocking all my other apps that were open. for example, I couldn't type on Pages anymore!!

Also, ever since I opened their garbage bookshelf my Macbook has been making this sound that it makes when it's overworking, and even though I deleted the app and restarted my Mac, the sound hasn't stopped yet. I'm shocked by the sheer incompetency and greed of both Routledge and Vitalsource forcing me to waste so much of my precious time struggling with their garbage software rather than studying. Do not, under any circumstance, make the mistake of buying e-books from Routledge.

You can only use the books within their "bookshelf", you can't export in any way and the reader only let you see 1 page at a time and has to load the next page when you turn a page. You should be able to export it in ePub so you can use a better reader, but then they can't force users to stay on their platform.

"Ready anywhere" except when they never send the confirmation email so you it's literally never ready ever.

Very poor customer service. I am a faculty member and changes institutions. They refused to update my account to reflect my new work email. They gave me no solutions other than, sorry we can't do that. Totally unacceptable and horrible customer service.

I purchased an e textbook that said I'd get access through vital source reading bookshelf app. After purchasing it I couldn't get the access code to work and after a convoluted conversation with support I learned it had to be redeemed on the publishers website. Had issues with the publisher and learned that my instructor needed to create a course and send me a link for access before I'd be able to access the course but my instructor doesn't use that publishers platform. All this to say there's no way I can get access to the ebook I purchased and vital source never told me there were conditions on the access or gave me a refund. Really bad setup overall where I was not informed of the conditions of access before I purchased the book. Lost $50 to this site. Please be careful to know the conditions before you buy from them!

I just can't understand how such an app, which is intended for reading non-fiction and professional books, can be that bad. Alignments are horrible, the choice of fonts is extremely frustrating, you can't download books on more than 2 devices (in 2024!!), the "paginated" view has more bugs than an app from 10 years ago. This is just shameful and subpar.

Poor customer service.
e-Textbook does not scroll through entire chapter. Have to click each section one at a time. Tech support is horrendous. All they can tell me is it's working on their side. Well obviously isn't working on my side. One book did work and then stop scolling. No one wants to reach out and figure out why not working. In the meantime, I have to click through each section of a chapter. This has been going on since the day I purchased the first textbook and it's a week later.

Don't use Vital Source -You paid full price for the book -like you own the textbook

Vital Source does not allow you to download your textbook if forgotten regardless if there was a pandemic or any crisis. I purchased a textbook in 2021 and I forgot to download it. I requested they allow me to download the book. Also, you have to again buy storage to store the textbook. They tried to differentiate their services, but they cannot overcome these challenges. They are taking advantage of their customers. They should provide a refund or allow customers to download their textbooks free of charge

The app itself is laggy and loads very slowly. Changed internet connections and it is still the same. I flipped one page and it takes a while just to load it. So does that mean every page I flipped I need to wait for it to load for a moment before i can flip to the next one? Until when i can reach to the page i actually want to refer if i am not sure about the page number. I have used other apps before similar to this and none of it has this problem and they don't seem like they intend to improve it anytime soon. The amount of time wasted while waiting for it to load can let me finish my assignment few hours earlier. The only reason why i am using your app is because my textbook only works with your app. Maybe that is why the app doesn't bother to make any improvement because everyone had no choice but to rely only on them. The search bar can't work as well. What do you mean 'this feature is unavailable at this time'? Do you have a special time period to use it? Is it available on certain time of the day? Then please do inform the users about it because why is it always unavailable when i need to use it? Does the app have prejudice against me? Why whenever i need it the most it doesn't work? I couldn't help but wonder the amount of money this app earns goes where. Is it not enough to improve it? Why is it so hard for the app to improve this small matter. I just started college and I feel like the next four years is going to be a nuisance whenever i need to access the textbooks. Please do better. I believe you were once a college student as well.

Asks to verify email, does not send for like 10 minutes when im just trying to do my homework from a textbook i paid 80 dollars for. You guys are ridiculous, why am I verifying email for a book, who tf wants info to a book.

I wish these people didn't exist. Let me download the book I paid for! Take your watermark and do you-know-what with it.

Here is my order number since you tried to delete my honest review: 10000106557282

Software Malfunctions

The more you use the software's features, such as highlighting and cue cards, the more it begins to glitch and eventually becomes dysfunctional. Customer support states "It is a known issue" and has no fix. Their recommendation was to "delete highlighting" and be "more judicious" with its use.

As such, I am being very judicious and never using it again.

I've been using Vitalsource since I discovered it in 2019. I was tired of carrying around textbooks and at the time most eBooks were still on Adobe's Digital Editions software, which was a very barebones reader more concerned with DRM protection than offering an actual reading experience, to put it nicely.

When I mention Vitalsource, I'm referring to two things: 1. The eBook store, and 2. the Bookshelf app that they author.

The Store
--Selection
The VitalSource store has a good selection of textbooks. Most books you'd need for school (or supplemental learning) on mathematics, physics, and computer science authored within the last 10 years are there.

--Purchases and Refunds
Purchases and access are easy. Most books have both rental and lifetime purchase options. The options seem to be dictated by the publisher, so every once in a while a books is rental only or lifetime only. Everything is laid out on the product page and I've never run into any errors. Prices are competitive with Amazon and other retailers. Refunds seem to be automated, so as long as you haven't already read more than 20% of the book, haven't returned the same book in the past, and haven't already returned 3 books in the last 90 days, you can expect a quick refund. Sometimes books from certain publishers or delivered by the publisher cannot be refunded. This is all detailed in the return policy.

The Bookshelf app
--Features and Performance
The Bookshelf app's feature set has stagnated in recent years, and I stumbled on this page because I was looking for a way to report feedback on how highlighted notes should have better UI, but the desktop and web apps are good and by a country mile the best DRM reader out there. It's even better than the Kindle app - step up your game, Amazon.

As with everything else in life, there are some weaknesses. The desktop app is a memory hog. This might have to do with existing DRM protection implementations, but if not, performance in this aspect can be improved, and may be the reason users with lower end hardware face issues.

Conclusion
Vitalsource has a great marketplace and offers the best DRM reading app available today. They're not perfect, and the app has weaknesses that regular PDF apps like Adobe Acrobat or Readdle's PDF Expert don't have, but it has more than enough features and is stable enough to rely on for daily use. Well worth checking out if you prefer eBooks over paper copies.

Just bought a book from them and I have no way of accessing it. $43 to only be able to see the cover of the book. They are a scam company.