#21. Audio eBooks (week 12)

I don't get what's Web 2.0 or even Library 2.0 about audio books. In fact, I'm worried that we're adopting terminology like "audio ebooks." Have we been so mesmerized by the technology ("ooh, pretty shining things") that we've lost all our critical thinking functionality?

Ok, I'll get off the soap box. I like audio books. They've gotten me through a rough patch and some long car trips. Back in my early career as a media librarian, I even reviewed about a dozen audio books for library publications. And I'm glad to learn that there are ready sources, free ones no less, for these.

I am a little disturbed to find that we're having format wars in cyberspace, that proprietary software is required and standards are being eschewed. I do use a Mac at work and at home and my only means of carrying audio recordings with me is my iPod. I find this a challenge. Unfortunately, I can't find my SCPL card, or I'd be trying to hack the format issue.

Instead, I headed over to Project Hindenberg. I'm interested in what Hart is trying to do (I hosted him during a visit to this campus in the 1980s), but skeptical of his absurd claims and I thoroughly disagree with the way he's chosen to go about this work. It's an enormous collective labor pointed in the wrong direction, on the whole. The books produced are useless for any sort of scholarly work and, personally, I could never see the use of large ASCII files for recreational purposes. Quality control also has been an issue. At one point they released an edition of Moby Dick missing a whole chapter.

Hart's main merit, as far as I can see, is that he's been at it a very long time. However, even this merit is diminished by the fact that he hasn't adapted his core vision to any of the changes in the online world. Check out some of the better conceived and better managed etext projects that have emerged in the meantime, such as the Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts where there is better quality control and more forward thinking about established standards. Or, better yet, he should be moving to something like a LOCKSS-type implementation.

Having said that, my visit to the Gutenberg site was a pleasant surprise. The search interface was intuitive and effective. I was pleased with the range of titles that came up and I even liked the fact that, though I started with a search for audio books, the results list mixed print and audio formats. I'm very grateful that they use accessible MP3 format. However, all the audio titles I looked at were of the computer-generated sort and, downloading a sample, I can say that you'd have to truly desperate to make use of these.

I think I will continue to explore titles here, dig out my SCPL card, as well as those available through other sources. A Google search for "free audio books" discovered Librivox which seems like a well-managed collaborative collection worth noting. (I'm listening to a good version of Daniel Deronda as I write.) There were other promising sources which I haven't explored yet.