Thursday, February 18, 2010

Looking for Free Audio books?






There are a number of different audio book services, using either ITunes, or Audible, that allow you to purchase audio books and play them on a portable player, but did you know there is also a free service for audio books?

Introducing Librivox, a service whose goal is to  “To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.” Public Domain materials are creative works that are not protected by copyright and may be freely used by everyone and this includes many older works of fiction.  Librivox won't have the new bestseller by Dan Brown but it will have a number of classic works like "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" or Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".  All of these works are available as mp3 downloads that don't require any special software, and you can listen on your computer, transfer them to an mp3 player, or burn them to a cd.   

Librivox has 5 fundamental principles
  • Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free 
  • Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain 
  • Librivox is powered by volunteers 
  • Librivox maintains a loose and open structure
  • Librivox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languages

You can browse the entire catalog, or search for a particular author or title. Maybe you are interested in horror stories, or mysteries.  You can also browse by genre, and subsribe using one of their rss feeds, including a feed for new releases.  If you are already an ITunes user, you can subscribe to Librivox audio books in ITunes.  They have put together a page of useful instructions for new users on how to listen and subscribe to their content.

If you are looking for newer materials in audio book format you can also download audiobooks from the CLC Library's website.  You can search our catalog, or browse My Media Mall website.  Just be sure to choose College of Lake County from the drop down menu when you check out.

Enjoy

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