Press Releases
Assessing Audiobook Services for Your Library
Chicago, IL, March, 07 2007 -
Latest Issue of Library Technology Reports Helps Librarians Make Informed Decisions about Audiobook Content and Services
A "report focus[ing] on digital audiobook systems for libraries, library consortia, and other institutional customers."
The first issue of Library Technology Reports in 2007, "Digital Audiobook Services through Libraries" (vol. 43, no. 1), "examines in some depth digital audiobook services that can be purchased or leased. It also looks briefly at a few free online digital audiobook sources."
Author of the report, Tom Peters—who is a librarian and an avid user of audiobooks—explains, "The purpose of this report is not to convince librarians
to implement a digital audiobook service, but to help
librarians make an informed decision."
Among the areas that Peters covers:
- The popularity of audiobooks and the demographics of the users who consume content in digital audiobook form;
- Major library vendors for digital audiobooks and free sources of digital audiobooks;
- How the interaction with audiobook content is understood or perceived by librarians: "As you consider a digital audiobook service," Peters notes, "it may be beneficial for librarians and other library staff members to discuss how users will interact with the content....Do users 'listen' to audiobooks, or are they 'reading' the book? This is not a merely semantic question. How your librarians answer may reveal the value they place on using audiobooks."
- Current digital rights management (DRM) issues (such as the "The iPod Impasse") that affect audiobook services for libraries;
- Content comparison and decision points, e.g., content characteristics; cost components; purchase, lease, and licensing options; circulation models; integration with other library services; and technical support;
- Methods for implementing and sustaining digital audiobook services in your library;
- Reports from the field (e.g., The Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center's field tests); and
- Potential new vendors of audiobooks this year and beyond.
Thomas A. Peters has been a librarian for nineteen years and is the founder/CEO of TAP Information Services, a company that helps libraries and library-related organizations innovate. TAP Information Services provides coordination services for Unabridged (www.unabridged.info), a downloadable digital audiobook service for blind and low-vision users in nine states. Tom also contributes to the ALA TechSource Blog and Smart Libraries Newsletter. Tom previously has worked at the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an academic consortium of research universities; Western Illinois University; Northern Illinois University; Minnesota State University—Mankato; and the University of Missouri—Kansas City. He currently lives in beautiful Blue Springs, Missouri, with his wife, children, cats, and dogs. He often listens to digital audiobooks while walking his dog Max morning, noon, and night.
About ALA TechSource
ALA TechSource is a unit of the Publishing Dept. of the American Library Association and publishes the periodicals Library Technology Reports and Smart Libraries Newsletter as well as the popular ALA TechSource Blog.
Contact
Mary Mackay, Marketing Director, ALA Publishing
mmackay@ala.org
(800) 545-2433, ext. 1532
(312) 280-1532 (outside U.S. and Canada)
http://www.techsource.ala.org/pr
