RedShelfReviews 87

The site was straightforward and easy to navigate. Slightly heavy on the browser, but should be fine for most users. The support was also very good. I got a swift response at the endo of the day (after most offices are shut). It saved my bacon in terms of the fact I had a course starting just after the weekend).

Unfortunately, the flakey DRM kept corrupting my offline access to the book, so I was unable to load it onto my Kindle over the weekend preceeding my course. Customer Support managed to reset my access once, but it corrupted again soon after, and I was too tight on time to go through recovering it again. I was away at the weekend due to a last minute invitation and so I couldn't spend spare moments checking the book out.

I appreciate that sometimes it's necessary to apply some sort of restriction on books, films etc. But it really shouldn't be at the expense of legitimate paying users' convenience. The solution should be robust.

I will be looking at and recommending alternative websites/solutions in future for these reasons.

Picture this, broke college student, $100 book, buys it, THE BOOK NEVER OPENS UP. Only errors. Fails course. Really simple story.

Red Shelf itself is a good program, but on important deadline days, the site will go down and won't allow you to access your own textbooks. I find it ridiculous the developers of this site find it impossible to fix their own website for a day on a common due date. Would not recommend it until they fix their website.

This company started out well but has gotten terrible by the years. There is no customer service and I am starting to believe that redshelf is a ripoff and I am seriously thinking about filing legal action against this company.

RedShelf is absolutely dog water. It is horrendous. I don't like it all. It makes you enable all cookies and tries to steal your private information.

I called 3 different departments, including corporate, to ask a basic question before purchasing a test bank for a class I am teaching. No-one answers the phone. Yes, you do get a friendly voicemail, but otherwise so much for their self-proclaimed "excellent customer service"
DGC

I have been submitting help requests for 3 weeks, but each time they just make it solved without even trying to reach me.

I cannot download ANY ebooks at all on any device. When I try to, it says "Publisher only allows 1 copy downloaded, please delete it from iPad." But it's not even downloaded on my iPad (that's where I'm trying to download it) so I can't delete it from there. So I can't download it on any device.

Only got 1 reply from them ever asking a question I had already explained in the original ticket, I replied right away, and they've ignored me ever since (2 weeks ago).

I purchased a book and cannot access it. When I contacted customer service, no one responded. Do NOT purchase from this site.

My entire Anatomy textbook was blurry as if they took a screenshot of every page and sent it through so many forms (. Png, pdf, etc.) until it got blurry. I could not read a single word and could not: copy or paste, no highlighting, couldn't download the textbook, you could barely zoom in. I requested a refund, I guess you do get what you pay for. The only reason I made the purchase was because it's the only E-book version of this Textbook that I could find and I didn't want a hardcover. Not worth it, I don't know why they have good reviews, am I the only one this has happened to?

I love having access to online books. As a part-time student who works full-time, RedShelf makes studying easier and more convenient. Being able to use the books offline is also a great perk.

I only have one frustration that keeps popping up... being able to clear my offline sessions when a previous offline session has become disconnected. To be more specific, I will download an offline session to use. Before I can clear it, the bookmarked link stops talking to the offline cached version. However, the Redshelf website doesn't know I can no longer access the cached version, I am blocked from starting another offline session, and the "clear your offline session" link disappears. After the error appeared, I cleared the cache on every electronic device I own, and it still doesn't solve the problem.

Is it possible to make the "clear your offline session" link not disappear regardless of whether or not the website thinks I have an offline session cached to my computer? Or, as an alternative, could there be an option under "My account" to clear all secondary devices or sessions attached to the account? I'm thinking about how Amazon allows you to disconnect devices under their "Device Management" page.

Those suggestions would allow me as a user to solve a pretty easy problem without being tied to the help desk schedule. Thank you!

I have trouble every single day when I try to move to the next page and e systems hags up. An example of how not to build an electronic reader platform

I reached out about an issue with the app in October 2021. As a student, obviously, a prompt response is needed to address a current problem. I got a response weeks later. The response was defensive and not helpful for the issue that still existed. I am not a fan of ebooks anyway but -for this course. It was the most cost-efficient option. NOTE: The search feature does not highlight each parameter found by page number, so you never know where the search item is without going through the entire list. NOT HELPFUL.

As law student with a focus in environmental law, I buy all texts in e-version. This wasn't an issue last year when the software contracts were with VitalSource, but things have become nearly unmanageable since having to use RedShelf. The texts typically take over 15 minutes to load, and that's after having to force close and restart the app multiple times because it freezes &/or when it finally does load it doesn't import your highlights/notes so you have to keep refreshing app until it does. I have been in contact with technical support for over 5 months now, who have been extremely kind and communicative, but which has ultimately produced absolutely NO solutions to these issues.

Considering the $180+ price tags on these e-texts, it is absolutely absurd that they do not even work and that the company cannot provide any remedy or alternative option in the interim while attempting to resolve the tech glitches. Knowing that these texts are being sold for educational purposes, the company has an obligation to establish safeguards &/or remedies in these instances where their product is defective. The lack of such is a huge pitfall for me and will likely prevent me from working with them in the future.

This is one of the worst reading websites I have ever used. Features like page number, zoom in/out, etc. cover text while text-to-speech is in use and does not allow user to move the page as it reads, making comprehension of text extremely hard. I usually bookmark any textbooks I use for class on my MacBook and this website does not allow this feature for quick access when studying unlike all the other reading websites I have used in the past. When I go to their website, it is hard to find my book making it even more challenging to use. When I try to copy and paste important information to my notes, a popup makes me click copy and also confirm that I want to copy it wasting my limited study time when my initial 'command c' should have worked. Then when I go to paste the text, it is in quotation marks which is unnecessary and distracting when it is only going to my personal notes. Not only does it do that, but it also highlights the text that was previously copied and does not allow the reader to unhighlight it. As someone who has ADD and is easily distracted, it is extremely hard to focus when random parts of my reading are highlighted. When using this website, I often became enraged by all of the previously stated issues often finding myself yelling at my computer out of frustration and unable to continue reading. Would not recommend using this website if allowed other options.

Update: I have figured out how to unhighlight text but took a 20-year-old college student about a week to figure out so I'm not sure if I'm just stupid or this website is just challenging to use. If I wanted something highlighted, I would do it myself. I don't need the website to do it for me.

The customer service is so good and they help me to solve my problem very fast and I am very satified. The Redhelf is reliable!

This place is awesome. I rented my text book and I was drop from the waitlist and didn't get into the class and even thought it was past my time they still honored a refund! Highly recommend! Navigation super easy as well!

I am taking a Biology class and was required to have the Biology Edition #3 book. Online was cheaper than a hard copy, and so I bought that. I can't access it from my computer because I can only see half the page and the small Ipad that I can access it from keeps logging me out. And now I can't even access it from that. I really dislike this site. If you want a book, get a hard copy, don't download it off of here. Also when reading it's super hard to skip around it takes forever to find something, whereas a had copy, just flip a few pages and you're there.