Collections
Collections decide who sees what. They let admins section off parts of the library for specific people, without splitting it into separate libraries.
Most apps carve up a library with folders or multiple libraries. ListenUp keeps everything integrated: there’s one library, built from your folders, and collections manage access to it. A book lives in your library once; collections decide who can see it.
What collections are for#
A few ways people use them:
- A safer library for the kids. Tammy doesn’t want her children getting into the latest Stephen King before their road trip, so she makes a Kids collection of just the books they’re allowed and gives them access to that.
- A private shelf of your own. Steve would rather the boys not discover his monster-romance habit, so he keeps a private collection that only he can see.
- Sharing a slice, not the whole thing. Ron’s book club doesn’t need his entire library, so he creates a Sci-Fi Book Club collection and gives the group access to only that.
How collections work#
Collections are created and managed by admins, in two places:
- The Administration pane: for creating and managing collections directly.
- A book’s detail page: choose Add to Collection from the overflow menu.
Multiple books can be added to a collection by long pressing on a book cover, selecting the relavent titles and hitting ‘Add to Collection’
The moment a book is added to a collection, it’s pulled from every active client belonging to a user who doesn’t have access, in real time.
For unauthorized users, those books don’t exist: they’re absent from the Library, Streaks, Activity, and everywhere else. Associated data follows the same rule: a series or contributor disappears too, as long as all of that series’ or contributor’s books live in the collection.
Access is enforced live. Adding a book to a collection, or removing someone’s access, updates connected devices right away. There’s no “sign out and back in” step.
Collections vs. shelves#
They look similar, both group books, but they solve different problems:
- Shelves are personal. Any user can build their own groupings, and they never affect what anyone else can access.
- Collections are administrative. They’re managed by admins specifically to control access.
Rule of thumb: if it’s about organizing your own listening, that’s a shelf. If it’s about who’s allowed to see something, that’s a collection.
Built-in collections#
ListenUp ships with two built-in collections: one enabled by default, and one you can switch on.
All Books#
Think of All Books as the default door to your library. Anyone with access to it sees the entire library, minus any books locked away in other collections they’re not part of. Every user has access to All Books out of the box.
Removing a user from All Books leaves them with an empty library unless they belong to another collection. It’s the simplest way to switch someone from “sees everything” to “sees only what I explicitly share.”
Inbox#
The Inbox is optional. turn it on under Administration. When it’s enabled, newly scanned books land in the Inbox before they reach the library, so you can:
- Get metadata and details right before anyone else sees the book, and
- Safely sort books into collections without briefly leaking them to users first.
Books stay in the Inbox until you release them. Once released, they’re sorted automatically into each user’s library according to the collections they belong to.