The Library is built for return visits, not one-time reads
Every devotional, ebook, audio recording, class, video, and template on In Eden lives in the Library — and the architecture is built around the assumption that you'll come back to good things, not that you'll find them once and forget.
That assumption shapes three small features that, used together, turn the Library from a content list into something closer to a personal shelf.
Filter chips — Deepen, Study, Listen
The top of the Library has three filter chips. They map directly to the kind of attention each resource asks of you:
- Deepen. Devotionals, prayer journals, written meditations. Short reads meant for daily or weekly rhythm.
- Study. Ebooks, longer-form articles, classes (live and recorded), templates. The Library equivalent of "sitting down with a notebook."
- Listen. Audio recordings, podcast-style episodes, video. The bath-or-walk format.
Tap one to filter, tap it again to clear. You can't combine chips at v1 — the filters are exclusive — because the friction of combining them rarely paid off in our usability testing.
The All view (no chip selected) is what most members use most of the time.
The bookmark icon
Every resource has a small ribbon icon. Tap it to save the resource to your Saved row.
Two things to know:
- Saved resources stay saved even if the original is later removed. If a Founder pulls a resource from her group, your saved copy stays accessible — we keep it available to you specifically because removing it would break the trust of a member who saved it.
- Saved is private. Other members can't see what you've saved. We don't surface "popular saves" or "what your connections are saving." Your shelf is yours.
The Saved row
At the top of the Library, just below the filter chips, you'll always see a Saved row showing your most recently saved resources, swipeable horizontally. Tap See all to open the full Saved list, which you can filter by Deepen / Study / Listen the same way.
If you've never saved anything, the Saved row is replaced by a quiet placeholder: "Tap the ribbon on anything you'd like to come back to."
Recently played
For audio and video, the Library also tracks Recently played — a small row of resources you've started, sorted by most recent. Tap any to resume where you left off. Recently played is local to your device and clears if you reinstall the app; it isn't backed up to your account because we genuinely don't think your "I listened to 6 minutes of a podcast" data needs to live on a server.
If a video is finished, it drops out of Recently played the next day. If a video is unfinished, it stays in the row until you finish it or manually remove it.
Featured row
Above the Saved row sits the Featured row — admin-curated, refreshed weekly. This is where the In Eden editorial team surfaces the resource we think most members should be reading that week. We don't algorithmically personalize the Featured row at v1 — it's the same selection for every member with the same faith setting. Felt more honest than pretending an algorithm was making editorial choices.
The Featured row never auto-plays anything. Tapping is always required.
Search
The Library doesn't have a separate search input — the global Search tab (bottom bar) is where Library content lives in the universal search index. Searching for "anxiety" surfaces matching devotionals, ebooks, audio, and classes, sorted by relevance, alongside any matching people, groups, businesses, and events.
If you wish the Library had its own dedicated search bar inside the tab, we hear you — it's on the v1.1 roadmap, but for launch the global Search handles the job cleanly enough.
Free vs Paid in the Library
You'll see the full Library catalogue regardless of your tier — Free members aren't hidden from any resource's existence. What changes is access:
- Free. Daily devotional + admin-curated welcome content. Everything else shows a small lock badge.
- Paid. Full access to everything — weekly deep devotional, Founder content, online classes, ebooks, all formats.
- Founding Member. Same as Paid, plus early access to new resources 30 days before general release.
Tapping a locked resource opens the paywall card with the resource's preview text, the tier required, and the one-tap upgrade button. You're never penalized for tapping a lock — there's no "you've hit the limit, come back tomorrow." See the resource, decide, move on.