The Library Tab

The Library tab is the 3rd, or middle tab at the bottom of the screen in JW library. This is where you can find any publication available in the app, with the exception of the Bible which is downloaded and opened in its own tab.

At the top of the screen you will find the word Library to identify the tab, then the name of the currently selected language. Swipe right once more to find the Language button. The last button in the top bar will be History.

Switching language

Double tap the language button in the top bar of the app if you want to switch to another language in order to see what publications are available in it.

In the language dialog there will be a search edit where you can type in a language name to find it. You could also scroll through the alphabetical list, but that could take an extremely long time, because there will be over a thousand. It is very useful that the languages are listed by their name in the currently chosen language followed by the language name in that language. For example, Spanish Español. You can find a language by typing in either name.

Switching languages won't change the name of the tabs, but it will switch the names of the categories within the tabs.

History

This feature exists in multiple places in JW Library. I have explained it on the page about the Home tab.

Tabs within the Library tab

The Library tab has 5 tabs within it. Publications, Videos, Audio, Downloaded, and Pending Updates. They can be found near the top of the screen below the Language and History buttons.

All 5 tabs may not fit across the screen, but that is unlikely to affect VoiceOver users, since swiping right or left through the tabs with one finger will go through all of them. Double tap any tab to make it the active one.

There is another way of switching tabs

If you activate the Library tab, but do not open a publication, it is possible to switch between these tabs using 3 finger swipes. For example, a 3 finger swipe from right to left will switch from Publications to Videos.

You can keep using 3 finger swipes to move to subsequent tabs, but you must touch somewhere near the middle of the screen with one finger each time before it will work.

When it fails VoiceOver will make that distinctive dungk sound instead of the squeaky page scrolling sound you want to hear.

A 3 finger swipe from left to right will go backwards through the tabs.

Publications

Within publications can be found a list of categories. On an iPhone the list will be in a single column. On an iPad the list of categories will be in a grid. In either case right or left swipes will move through the entire list. Double tap a category such as Books, Watchtower, or Programs to open that category.

Some categories will be further divided into subcategories. If you pick Watchtower, for instance, there will be a list of years to pick from. Double tap a year to open the list of individual magazines available from that year.

There will be a heading in the list for the Public Watchtower and another heading for the Study Watchtower.

Many of the categories have lists of publications that are divided by headings, but VoiceOver doesn't always jump to the headings when you try to navigate by them. It seems to only jump to the heading if it isn't too far up or down in the list.

Many categories of publications will bring up a long list of items. To help you find what you need they are organized in alphabetical order by default.

Note that unlike many library listings the words "a" and "The" are considered part of the name. That means that "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived" will be after "Sing Out Joyfully to Jehovah" in the list of books.

It is also possible to reorder the list by publication date. To do so, find the Sort By button at the top of the screen between the Language and History buttons.

When you double tap the Sort By button a dialog will open. There is a Done button to close it without making changes, followed by Title and Year buttons. Double tap the one you want. The dialog will close and return focus to the Back button above the list of newly reordered publications.

Exercise: Download the Research Guide

The Research Guide is a helpful tool, is often referenced, and is used in other parts of the app, so it is an excellent publication to use for demonstrating the procedure for finding, downloading, and opening a publication.

Double tab the Library tab at the middle bottom of the screen in JW Library.

Double tab the Library tab again. That will ensure that the first tab, which is the Publications tab, is selected.

Touch somewhere near the middle of the screen with 1 finger. You should hear Voiceover say a category of publication followed by the word button.

Swipe right several times until you hear "Index, button." If you hear, "Guidelines" you've gone too far.

Double tab the Index button.

At the time I'm writing this in 2023 there is only one item in the list of publications in the Index category.

Voiceover should say "Research Guide for Jehovah's Witnesses, 2019 edition, Index, 108MB." Or something very similar. This means focus is on the publication you want.

If VoiceOver does not say how many MB the Research Guide is at the end of speaking its entire long name, it means that it is already downloaded.

Double tap the Research Guide to download it if it is not already downloaded. You may have to give permission for JW Library to use your cellular connection for downloads if you are not on WiFi.

Give it some time, then come back and double tap the downloaded Research Guide to open it.

Managing Publications

Note that you can verify the status of a publication without listening to VoiceOver blab the entire name and details. Swipe down with one finger when on any publication to go through the Actions menu for that item. Each time you swipe down you will go to the next option in the menu. It will cycle back around to the first item if you keep swiping down. When you hear the option you want double tap.

Activate is the default, and is what happens when you double tap without first going through the menu options.

Download will be in the menu if the publication isn't already downloaded.

Update is another option that may be available after a publication has been downloaded for a while.

More is an option that is always available. It opens a dialog with more options. These options change depending on the type of publication, its location, and other details. Double tapping the More Actions Menu item is the same as non-Voiceover users touching the ... three dots that appear behind each publication.

This More dialog usually contains options for Sharing, Favoriting, and Deleting.

Video tab

When you first switch to the Video tab in the Library tab of JW library there will be a list of categories. They will be in a single column on an iPhone, but a grid on iPad, but swiping through the list works the same for Voiceover users. The list of video categories starts with JW Broadcasting and ends with Audio descriptions

Just like in the Publications tab, double tapping a category will open it and give a list of all videos in that category..

The organization of videos is very different from the display of other formats of publications. One difference is that many video titles appear under more than one category. Within each category there are Headings that are subcategories. Each sub-category will have a "Play all" and a "Shuffle" button that you can use if you'd like to watch every video in that section.

Navigation suggestions for lists of videos

Under the sub-category headings the video titles are listed horizontally instead of vertically. This makes navigating them kind of strange.

The first and most unreasonably tedious option is to start at the top and swipe right through every single video within each and every sub-category. You won't miss anything and the headings will tell you which sub-category you are in. There may be categories that are small enough for this to work, but usually it will take too long and cause a repetitive stress injury.

Second option: Turn your Voiceover rotor to headings and attempt to swipe down through the sub-categories until you find the one you you need. This often works to some extent, but sometimes Voiceover will say, "Heading not found," when there are actually more headings.

When VoiceOver says, "Heading not found," when you suspect there are more: Tap the screen with 3 fingers. This should cause Voiceover to say which rows are showing and the total number of rows. If the numbers of the rows showing don't include the highest row number available, and Voiceover doesn't say "Bottom of screen," the heading navigation has failed.

Swipe up with three fingers until the last page is reached. Now go back to navigating by heading, but swipe up instead of down.

If you touch a button with the name of a video the Voiceover rotor will no longer be set to navigate by headings. Swiping up or down at that point will move through the options in the Actions menu for that video.

Once you have found the correct sub-category, start swiping right with 1 finger until you find the video you want.

At any time that focus is on a button for a video you can tap the screen once with three fingers to hear where you are in the horizontal list. Voiceover will say Group, the title of the video, the page it is on, and the total number of pages.

You can scroll right by swiping left with 3 fingers if you know that a video you want is near the end of that sub-category.

Description of Media Player

Exercise: Favorite "Why Does God Allow Suffering" video

Double tab the Library tab at the middle bottom of the screen in JW Library.

Double tab the Library tab again. That will ensure that the first tab, which is the Publications tab, is selected.

Touch the middle of the screen.

Swipe left with 3 fingers to switch from the publications tab to the Video tab.

tap near the top of the screen with 4 fingers to bring Voiceover focus to the first item on this screen of the app. VoiceOver should say, "Library."

Turn the Voiceover rotor to containers, then swipe down. It should say, "JW Broadcasting."

Swipe right repeatedly until you hear, "Our Meetings and Ministry." Double tap it.

Voiceover should say "Shuffle" and you will be at the top of the list of videos. Turn the rotor to Headings and swipe down repeatedly until you hear, "Essential Bible Teachings, heading."

If VoiceOver says, "Heading not found" before you've found Essential Bible Teachings: Scroll down several times using a 3 finger swipe up. Now swipe up with 1 finger until you find the correct category.

Swipe right a few times to get to the first video in that sub-category.

The video "Why Does God Allow Suffering" is no where near the beginning of the list, so it is wise to scroll right several horizontal pages using several 3 finger swipes to the left.

You will have to tap the screen once with 3 fingers to check where you are. There will be many more pages on an iPhone than an iPad. Stop scrolling when you are more than half way to the end.

VoiceOver focus should now be past the middle of the Essential Bible Teachings sub-category, so swipe right with 1 finger until you hear "Why Does God Allow Suffering."

When Voiceover says, "Why Does God Allow Suffering?" Swipe down with 1 finger. Swipe down until you hear, "More," then double tap it.

When the More dialog opens VoiceOver will say, "Alert, Share Link button."

Swipe right until you find the Favorite button, and double tap it.

The video "Why Does God Allow Suffering" should now be in Favorites under the Favorites heading in JW Library's Home tab. It may or may not be downloaded yet.

Here you will find a number of tips for playing videos.

Audio Tab

The Audio tab in Library has a fairly simple layout, so items within it are easy to find.

The list of audio categories starts with original songs and ends with the audio of several of the most recent conventions with and without audio description.

When you double tap on a category the category list will be replaced by a single column list of items within that category. Notice that there are Play all and Shuffle buttons at the top of the list.

Double tapping on any item in this list will begin to stream it from jw.org. You may get a dialog asking you if you want to stream it over your cellular connection, or warning you if you have enabled offline mode. You can choose to stream or download it anyway.

The full Media Player will not appear, but the compact strip of media controls will be near the bottom of the screen right above the tab bar.

Read this page about audio in JW Library to learn more about the media bar and how to find and control it.

As in all other lists of publications, swipe down on any item to go through its Action Menu items. Double tap when you find the one you want.

The Sing Out Joyfully categories have the songs listed in the order they appear in the song book. Not all songs have been released in a vocal version.

I believe other categories are organized by release date with the latest releases at the top of the list.

You will notice that no audio categories exist for books and other printed publications. This is because the audio for them is accessed from within that publication. An explanation of how to do that is given in the guide I've linked to earlier. Either find the Media Player link on this page, or find the Audio link in the site navigation at the top of the page.

Downloaded tab

The Downloaded tab within the Library tab is the solution to the problem of realizing you have been using JW Library for a while now and have probably collected too much stuff in it. Obviously, there is quite a bit you intend to use over and over again, but there are other things you don't expect to need again, and space is limited.

The list of publications in the Downloaded tab includes every publication in every category and format that you could have downloaded from either the Home or Library tabs. Yes, that means that Bibles and the audio files downloaded within publications are not included.

You can reorder the display of downloaded publications by using the Sort By button at the top of the screen just to the left of the History button.

The options include Title, Frequently use, rarely used, and largest size. When you double tap the option you want the dialog will close and the items will be reordered.

In this list the size of the publication is always shown.

Deleting items is just as many steps here as it is in any other list. Swipe down until you hear More, then double tap.

Touch the bottom of the screen with 4 fingers to go to the end of the More dialog.

Swipe left to the Delete button, then double tap.

Voiceover focus may or may not be near the place you were in the list when the More dialog closes.

Updates tab

Instead of updating each item you have previously downloaded one at a time, you can go to the updates tab within the Library tab.

A list of every publication that has an update available will be shown.

You could use the VoiceOver Actions menu to swipe down to Update and double tap for every single item you want to update, or you could just double tap the Update All button at the top of the screen and get them all taken care of at once.

Just make sure you have a good internet connection when you do it.