No skill books in library

Hi @RaichiSims - There are a lot of simmers with much more experience in this type of thing than I. I'm sure someone who knows what they're doing will come along shortly. 🙂

In the meantime, I know a couple of things that you could check. I just recently used a cheat (my first time) and it seems that a lot of simmers who are used to using them neglect to tell you that you have to turn the cheats on first in order for the code to work. Just in case this is the problem, bring up the cheat code window (ctrl-shift-c) and enter "testingcheats on" without the quotation marks. Then enter your cheat code. Once you're done, turn the cheats off by entering "testingcheats off" and then exit by doing ctrl-shift-c again.

I'm not in-game at the moment, so can't test to see if the code you have is the right one, but I'll ping back if I find anything. 

I could swear I got skill books from the library - did you download from the "My Gallery" (Maxis created library) or the online Gallery? If it wasn't made by Maxis, then it might be different than the actual game libraries in some way. I do know you should be able to research skills on the computers at the library, even if there are no skill books there.

Hope this helps! If not, please reply back and hopefully one of the more knowledgeable simmers will probably know the answers. Happy Simming!

I know how cheats work and that I have to turn on for it to work first.

I figured after I made the post that someone was going to suggest the obvious, so it's on me for not being thorough enough in my explanation. 

When I say download from the gallery I mean a creation by another simmer, not a creation by EA. 

If you like to test it yourself, the creation was "Library" by user vpmh87.

Situation still very much unresolved. I would like to be able to read skill books at any library, not just the standard libraries that came with the game. 

I think I will leave your question to someone with more experience in the game 🙂  Maybe @PugLove888 or @SheriGR have some insight that could help? 

@RaichiSims Did you try having your sim purchase the skills books you want left in the library and have them visit the library and leave them there? Then when they are put away they will hopefully be findable there. Are the books that come in the bookshelves by default present? I have not experimented with this on a public lot, so will try a few things, but some of the more expensive bookshelves come with more books when purchased, I think, and some of the cheaper ones only have a small number of books. But... if it is a public/community lot you probably cannot order the extra/skills books. Good point. Anyway, I will experiment a bit now and let you know what I find. I don't use mods or cc so I'm not sure about any of the details on how they work.

I would also try changing the lot designation to 'residential', move a sim in, have them stock the bookshelves, save, move them out, then go back inedit lot/builder (with no owner) and change it back to a commercial lot and save.

I have a 'library room' that I made for a challenge. I will try adding it to a lot, designate it for community, add a roof and stairs, and experiment with that. In the case of this room the bookshelves are some of the more expensive bookshelves, and when I built it (with residential designation) I also purchased gardening, herbalism and flower-arranging books for the shelf. I also deleted most of the other books, but it may be a good place to begin the experiment: Gardener Conservatory .

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@SheriGR wrote:

@RaichiSims Did you try having your sim purchase the skills books you want left in the library and have them visit the library and leave them there? Then when they are put away they will hopefully be findable there. Are the books that come in the bookshelves by default present? I have not experimented with this on a public lot, so will try a few things, but some of the more expensive bookshelves come with more books when purchased, I think, and some of the cheaper ones only have a small number of books. But... if it is a public/community lot you probably cannot order the extra/skills books. Good point. Anyway, I will experiment a bit now and let you know what I find. I don't use mods or cc so I'm not sure about any of the details on how they work.

I would also try changing the lot designation to 'residential', move a sim in, have them stock the bookshelves, save, move them out, then go back inedit lot/builder (with no owner) and change it back to a commercial lot and save.

I have a 'library room' that I made for a challenge. I will try adding it to a lot, designate it for community, add a roof and stairs, and experiment with that. In the case of this room the bookshelves are some of the more expensive bookshelves, and when I built it (with residential designation) I also purchased gardening, herbalism and flower-arranging books for the shelf. I also deleted most of the other books, but it may be a good place to begin the experiment: Gardener Conservatory .

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@RaichiSims Okay... I did the experimenting that I mentioned above.I discovered several things that did and did not work for adding books to the library:

• When I downloaded the room that I had saved as a residential room and added books to the bookshelf (extra gardening books) from the gallery (mine)... The bookshelf was empty. So... Books must be considered a part of the non-retained inventory/content.
• In other words, the bookshelves not only did not contain the books they would normally contain when you purchase a bookshelf, they also did not contain any of the extra books that I had purchased specific to my gardening theme. So...
• I tried clicking the shelves to order/purchase books. They were still empty afterward. Then I clicked the computer and purchased books there, and the book shelves were still empty... then I checked the personal inventory of the active sim when I was purchasing the books and discovered the books in her inventory. 
• If I then dragged the purchased books out of the sims' personal inventory and onto the floor (I had them all over the floor, and click on the bookshelf and tell the active sim to 'put away books' (take several sims with you and tell them all to do this) they will start putting the books from the floor into the book shelves. In face, other sims showed up at the library, plus sims who were already there and started putting the books away and taking them from the shelves to sit down with and read... like magic, they were all about it! Even that new shiny-lady-movie-star with the big hair was there floating her shiny self around! 🙂

When I then saved and exited they books were retained on the lot in the bookshelves' content. Yay!!

Thanks for trying and going out of your way to come up with a solution.

I just think it's not suitable/acceptable. I paid a lot of money to play this game so I expect not having to go through all of that to get skill books in the library... 

Simply put: it breaks gameplay.

My sim is short on cash/saving up for a house, so he goes to the library in order to read free books. 

Having to buy books FOR the library himself, or me having to cheat that money into his wallet so he can spend it on books used at a community lot just is counter intuitive. It is also rather a hassle, for something that shouldn't even exist as an issue to begin with. 

I am hoping someone will come with a solution that doesn't involve me manually purchasing every book that the library is lacking and having the sims put the books away. :/ 

@RaichiSims I can understand your frustration, and I am happy to help in any way I can. I'm sorry it's frustrating. If you don't come up with a better solution, and your sim is short on money, you could always go into a household of an in-game (not your) sim and play that sim - take them to the library, and have them buy/stock the books you want. Hey, what else do they have to do? 😉

This will sound really weird, but if you make the library residential, move a sim in, the bookshelves should have books. If they don't, buy new bookshelves - some of the nice ones with more books, and there should be books in them. Some of the skills books may be in the more expensive shelves, I don't remember. Then if you drag all of the books to the floor and have the sim leave the lot (before anyone puts the books away), then change the lot to a library again, those books will be picked up and put away by the community sims and then they will be part of the library. You would then just need to have a sim add the skills books or any that didn't come with the bookshelves. That would cost less than providing all of the books. And, as I said, you can play a rich sim and have them go in and purchase and lay out the skills books for everyone to put away. It can be their benevolent philanthropic contribution. 😉

Having said all of that, I think you make a great point... if a bookshelf is placed on a public lot (library, etc.) it should contain the books it would normally. It would also be good if there was a way to purchase books for it during build to be used in the library when placed. Perhaps it was not an aspect of people being able to build/add libraries that the developers realized was going on? If you would like to I expect you can post this issue on a suggestions forum. @PugLove888 do you know of any for this?

@RaichiSims
Unfortunately, each EA bookcase contains only similar books by EA design.
The only advice - if someone plays without codes to quickly earn money to buy his own bookcase and books, instead of going to work he must go to the museum and paint. The first painting will not bring extra money, but already the fourth painting will start to bring profits much bigger than from regular work

@RaichiSims Hello again! If you see this and are still looking for a library with skills books (and some of the skills 'stuff' as well), I just finished my community library that I mentioned. I experimented with different ways of getting some skills books to stay in the shelves once downloaded from the gallery, and only the books that come in the bookshelves were there... I had never realized that the skills books will not stay in the library when uploaded/downloaded from the gallery. Grrrr.... Thank you for the heads up, as this helped me to prep my library in that I ended up putting the skills books on the library floor so that once someone downloads the build from the gallery their sim can add the books to the shelves once placed in their world so that the books can successfully 'live' in that build/lot's shelves after that. If you are willing to test it out I would love to find out if it works for you! it is at this link in the gallery: https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/F3C44832F52E11E882EAB573E4FD424D?category=all&searchtype=ea_origin_id&sortby=newest&time=all&searchquery=SheriGR&max=50&maxis=false

Or if any of you have time to try, I'd appreciate knowing if it works on your end. @kreatora @PugLove888 @BlackjackWidow

Thanks! 🙂

@SheriGR, @RaichiSims, @kreatora, and @BlackjackWidow, I have downloaded, placed, and tested @SheriGR's Conservatory Library.  So far so good on my end! 🙂 I had my Sim enter and found the skill books scattered on the floor, and the librarian started to replace them on the shelves.  I directed my Sim to help her and then when they were finished the books (so far at least) remained on the shelves! :eahigh_file:  I then had my Sim water the plants because how could I not do so?!? 🤓  I have yet to send my Sim back to the library to double check, but it looks like placing the skill books on the floor is a good way to circumvent them from disappearing on the shelves when loading a lot with a bookcase! 😇

It is a really beautiful and peaceful library! ❤️ Even the illustrious legendary star ⭐Judith Ward⭐ seemed to like it! 😃