List of Available eAudiobooks

This week I have decided to create a list on Excel of all of the audiobooks that are currently available for download on Netlibrary. Netlibrary is a website that contains over 1500 downloadable audiobooks. Patrons must register at the library first in order to access the site elsewhere. I think that having a printed list that the patrons can look through may help get them more interested in downloading audiobooks. So far I've found that there is a large selection of foreign language courses and books of the Bible, as well as mysteries and westerns. It will also help the library staff because we may be less likely to buy a book on CD if it is available to download.

Early Interviews

This week I have discussed the concept of downloadable audio books with a few of the library patrons that check out books on cassette and/or CD. These patrons have been interested in the idea, but slightly hesitant about the technology involved. None of the patrons I've talked to so far have a portable audio device at home, but they do all have a computer with internet access. One of the patrons wanted to know if the books could be downloaded onto a CD rather than a portable player since she only listens to books on CD in her car. One patron was concerned that the library would stop ordering books on CD if we started downloading them instead. None of the patrons I've talked to so far seemed interested in purchasing a portable audio player for themselves, so the library may need to get a few players to be checked out, at least until the patrons become more familiar with the technology.

Survey

Today I created a survey outline to use when interviewing patrons at the library who check out books on cassette and/or CD.

Basically, the questions on the survey are:
1. Do you have a computer at home?
2. Does the computer have internet access?
3. Do you have a portable audio player (other than an iPod) at home?
4. If no to any of the above, would you be willing to purchase these items in order to download audio books from home?
5. If no to all of the above, would you interested in checking out a preloaded portable audio player from the library?

I did some research into how other libraries are handling downloadable audio books and found that many of them do actually check out the audio players to the patrons with the books already loaded on them.

Action Learning Project

I have decided that my action learning project is going to focus on downloadable audiobooks. Books on cassette and CD are extremely popular at my library (Rutherford County Library). Patrons are constantly requesting that we add to our collection of audiobooks. However, the library is running out of shelf space to store all of the books on cassette and CD. We have been forced to discard many of the books on cassette to make room for new books on CD. As part of my project, I hope to increase the interest of the patrons in downloading audiobooks. I also hope to decrease the intimidation that many of these patrons feel in using this relatively new technology.

First Post

Congratulations to myself on the creation of my first blog, Monday, February 5th, 2007.