I would like to know –
My friend shared her Steam library with me. Does she also have access to my games or do I specifically have to share my Steam Library with her?
Steam Family Sharing – can it go both ways
steamsteam-family-sharing
Related Solutions
When this question was asked, Steam Family Sharing was in beta. However, as of March 3rd 2014, Steam Family Sharing is out of beta and available to everyone.
If you open that tab now, you should see a screen like this:
As Scott Weldon said, there doesn't seem to be any way to do this other than disabling sharing of the friend whose library is in use, or using offline mode as Jaxir said to prevent the library from being in use in the first place. You can change the order in which your friends share libraries with you by having them unshare and reshare the library with you, in order to play your games with the library of whichever friend is least likely to be using it, but for a general solution to choose which friend's library to use, you'll need sfs-select.
SFS-select is a python tool to enable and disable friends' shared libraries by modifying the local cache remembering which accounts have authorized you. It's a bit of a clunky workaround, but it lets you pick exactly which friend's library you would like to use for a shared game, without needing your friends to log in to your computer again, or changing the actual permissions registered on the Steam server at all. It includes both graphical and command-line versions. You can download it here or read about it on the Steam forum thread.
Related Topic
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- Steam – Issues setting up Steam Family Sharing
Best Answer
One person sharing does not automatically cause the reverse. You have to choose to share your own games on the specific computer. Sharing on one computer you have logged in will not share on all the computers you have used.
As a reminder you can't both play games from the same library at the same time, regardless of sharing settings. But if you are both sharing, you could both be playing a game from each other's library.