What happens to your work in Logos when you die?

Logan Mann · 2025-05-20T16:33:43+00:00

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I used to do sermon study and sermon notes with pen and ink. Today, I do that work entirely in Logos. One of my sons is currently in Seminary at SBTS and plans on going into full time ministry. I think several of my kids, and hopefully my grandkids one day when I have them, might be interested in having access to the work that I did. Since we don't leave behind journals in the same format that we used to, how do you plan on giving access to your work to your family or church when you die? Is there already a mechanism for this built into Logos?

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JJ Wurtz

I’ve thought a lot about this. I plan to will my account to our diocese. My feeling is, I would ensure your sons have access to your account to ensure if something happens to you they have the ability to take it over. Additionally make sure they know how to get into it. Just my thoughts.

Lew Worthington

There's a huge pile of forum conversation about this topic. The central issue seems to be that a license transfer can only happen once. It would be great to have a heir willing and able to make use of that lovely library. But those books will apparently be lost after they are gone. While Logos possibly offers a better situation than other digital formats (say, Kindle), the succession of resources is much more wasteful than with traditional formats. Besides, I don't know anyone who has invested 10% in Kindle format what many of us have invested in Logos.

For those of us with significant investments and no interested heirs, the situation is even worse.

I don't have many answers, but I'll be reading this conversation with interest.

EastTN

My younger sister is a math professor at a Christian college. My current plan is for her to ask her colleagues in the Bible department to find a deserving student who will use my resources for the benefit of the kingdom.

MJ. Smith

I may have misunderstood but I thought it was resources you could leave in a will - not an account. I would make a group for those I wanted to have access to my sermons, notes, etc. and make my files viewable to that group.

DAL

Your works follow you when you die! (Revelation 14:13) 😂😂😂

EastTN

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1369661#Comment_1369661

That's my understanding as well.

Robert Williams

Sometimes it feels like it would be so much simpler to just leave login information to someone in a will, along with clear instructions on how to keep things going. But planning for death—it's never that straightforward. It can be overwhelming and emotionally exhausting.

John Kaess

The current position that Logos has: that your account, and as far as I know, all your resources can only be transferred once is completely unreasonable and indefensible. I know it is indefensible because I've started 3 threads about this and asked Logos to explain why, and they have refused to respond in any way, which de facto means their policy is indefensible.

Many of us have invested tens of thousands of dollars in our libraries, just as if they were physical books. I feel that their great fear is that without the one transfer rule they think a secondary market would open up for buying and selling resources, and that packages of resources bought at discount could be broken up and sold for profit, but that is an entirely different thing in principle and in fact from limiting the transfer of an entire library/license in total being transferred or even sold.

It is the breaking up of a library that would lead to problems, but passing an entire account and library to a person or an organization, or even selling the entire library as a whole would have no downside that I can see and would not cause the problems which Logos fears.

I am confident that this thread, like all the prior threads about this, is a waste of time, but nevertheless, I'm going to participate whenever this issue comes up.

GaoLu

I am taking mine with me.

JJ Wurtz

I would agree that leaving my username and password would be the easiest thing to do. I’m not looking to sell what I have as much as I am to help the next person with their studies.

Logan Mann

Well I think this conversation brought up something I wasn't thinking about. I was wondering what people plan to do with their own content. I have study notes, sermon notes, diagrams, etc. I'm wondering if anyone has a plan to pass their own content on.

I understand peoples frustration, but if we can begin passing digital content endlessly then Logos would probably go out of business. To some degree I understand them not being able to pass resources along. As my sons enter into ministry, they won't just be able to take my books…I still need them. They would have to buy their own physical copies of books, and I can see why they would need to buy their own digital copies as well. Hopefully they are smarter than I am and don't buy any of the packages that logos has to offer. I always encourage people to only buy what they actually want. I haven't found the packages helpful. Maybe they are more helpful now that you can buy them in your denominational tradition, but I still like to read outside of my own theological bent.

Anyways, what is your plan to pass along the things you have written and done?

xnman

Well… after reading tons of posts about this, I have about decided that I'll give my login information to the one I designate in my will and then tell them to go into Logos.com/billing and change the credit card on file to their credit card and then just use my name and login and continue on. What would that hurt? Logos still gets paid (subscription) and my heir gets use of my resources, my note, etc. right? That seems very simple to me. 😎

Ronald Quick

If someone is given your login information, would they also not have access to your order history and credit card information?

xnman

@Ronald Quick Good point! I was talking about a heir, maybe a relative.

DMM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1369767#Comment_1369767

Order history: Yes.
Credit card info: Only the last 4 digits and the expiration date. Check out the Billing Info tab for exactly what they'd see. You can always delete those at any time.

David McClister

It seems to me that leaving behind a Logos library is no different than leaving behind a collection of print books. Biblical scholarship changes frequently. If all I had to work with were the books of my father's generation, I would be seriously hampered, and if my grandchildren inherited all my Logos books, they would find them all seriously out of touch with what was being discussed in their adult lifetimes. It is the nature of books that they become outdated and unread. That is true whether they are in electronic format or printed on a page. The Logos policy of one transfer (in this case, to one of your children) seems reasonable in this light.

Bura

I wish I could donate my library to a bible college and the whole of my library could be given to a student with limited resources and much potential. I have over 14k books in my library. I have no idea how much invested.

John Kaess

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1369797#Comment_1369797

i'm going to seriously disagree on this. Just a very very few examples which are a part of my 5,000+ resources. Everything written be and about:

Luther. Calvin. Spurgeon. The Church Fathers. Wesley. And many many others. Including their sermons, journals and commentaries.

I also can imagine that future generations will still find enourmous value in writing, sermons and commentaries by: D.A. Carson, Ben Witherington, F.F.Bruce, and so many others in the same way we value the writings and commentaries by Spurgeon, Calvin and Wesley.

The passing on of my library doesn't in any way mean that whoever gets it won't continue to add to it.

Ed Fernandez

Great thread… Altho I am sure, like others have said in a different way: “This Too Shall Pass"…

I just talked to my son in law who is the son of a preacher. He is following on the steps of his dad… I was telling him about Logos, and he loved the idea of inheriting my investment… I told him that he can check it out, as long as it is ok, with the powers that be here, perhaps sharing my credentials so he can experience what Logos has to offer. So, I learned. by reading you guys, that at some point in time, I will die and I need to think of what to do with my legacies…Never thought I was gonna die, although I did die already once…

Thank you for a very informative thread!

Pax,

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1369797#Comment_1369797

I can't understand this on any level. Statistically I'll be dead in 6 years. Of course I'll be buying right up to keeling over. But my library of Logos' best will not be worth it to kids headed off for Bible college? Trash it.

I'd agree, with my Dad. He combined an aged print library (eg Lenski) with an out of date Bible app. But neither (print or old software) match up with a recent Logos library.

I do however suspect the policy of only one transfer has to do with unbelievable pricing to Logosians, when negotiating publisher contracts. I DID get a great deal.

David McClister

You will notice that I mentioned grandchildren. Yes, books are generally valuable for the next generation, but speaking from my own experience, there are not many books that were written prior to the 1970's that I would consider must-have's still today. Some reference works and some monographs that have stood the test of time would be on my list. Some of the older encyclopedias and dictionaries contain info not carried on into modern ones. I could probably come up with maybe 200 titles. And yes, there will always be some "classics" that remain in use. But Biblical studies are always running in new directions, and the discussions of yesterday often (not always) become irrelevant to later generations. If the cycle repeats itself, I am confident that students 50 years from now will be reading the latest stuff available to them, and they will not be reading the books I read in my time. For example, if you want a commentary that is sensitive to the narrative features of a Biblical text, you're not going find one prior to the 1970's. The same is true with the New Perspective on Paul. The grammars by Robertson and Moulton, which were the best available in their time, have now been replaced with more linguistically up-to-date works. And the same kind of thing will be true 50 years from now. The BDAG lexicon will have been updated. Volumes in commentary series will have been replaced with newer treatments. They won't be reading books on postmodernism because in their time that topic will be well "over," and they will have moved on to what is facing them. Students and preachers will be reading books that address issues we have not even started to discuss today, and for that reason, my Logos library will likely be of limited usefulness to my grandchildren.

Having said all of that, I do agree that part of the Logos policy is problematic. They insist that the Logos books I buy are mine, but when to comes to giving them to others, they seem to act as if those books are somehow theirs to control (with the one-time policy). There is no reason there should not be a used Logos book market possible.

MJ. Smith

@David McClister

there are not many books that were written prior to the 1970's that I would consider must-have's still today.

As a reminder of how diverse our community is, I would say that there are few books written after the 1950's that I would consider must-haves today. I have friends who would put the date closer to 1900. I do agree with you that academic fads come and go with some regularity. Then, again, so do heresies/theological fads.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1369886#Comment_1369886

Ok … now I understand. You're talking largely theology, hermeneutics, etc My library's largely hard-core … I think the rest of Patrologia would fill it out.

Like MJ, I don't buy much past the 1930s beyond the big commentaries. Those do stick around eg Lenski, ICC, etc).

scooter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1369910#Comment_1369910

DMB, what is hard-core?

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1369953#Comment_1369953

That's geology (with me) … it's what everything else sits on.

xnman

Welll…. I will disagree with some on this thread as to the "currentness" of the resources. I once was given a part of a preacher's library of text books. I found the truth of what they taught is still as fresh today as it was then. Truth does not change. Peoples ideas change, but truth remains the same through out the ages. This one fact is what makes the bible still as relevant today as it was when Peter, Paul, Timothy and the others preached it and wrote it some 2,000 years ago. Object truth does not change. 2+2 will equal 4 no matter how differently man my preach it. That's a fact! 😎

Doc B

Either heaven or hell.

Or if you are RC, maybe purgatory.

😎

Doc B

» DMB, what is hard-core? «

Pretty sure it's an obtuse reference to a pineapple.