Kieran’s notes from the back room :
Strangest thing happened the other day, I met a woman who reads this column… and she seemed perfectly normal and nice. She actually came in to the back room to say hi! (… to me! …a scary prospect I am sure.) We talked about audio books. There are quite a few different kinds of formats for audio books. CDs, playaways, & MP3 discs are the John C.’s main formats, but we also provide access to Talking Books and down loadable audio books. CD’s comprise the majority of our audio collection, but I think sometimes people mistake the discs for coasters or Frisbees judging by the amount of scratches they often get. MP3 discs are similar, but one MP3 disc can contain four or five times the amount of data as a regular CD, so there is less to get scratched. Of course MP3s only play in certain kinds of CD players or on computers, so there is less demand for them. Let’s face it, most of us just want to toss a CD in our old boom box and call it good. Playaways are an alternative to discs. They are wee little (think cell phone sized) boxes that have a book in them. Plug in headphones, hit play and off you go. Of course to make up for the convenience, they are pricey, so we only have 40 titles available. Enter the realm of the down loadable audio book. Cheap! Lots of them! But a bit more complicated. The patron (that would be you) has to own a device called an MP3 player or Ipod, use the internet, and put the books onto the device. We installed a new computer back in the teen area to make this process easier. It is our Download Station/Teen computer. It is FAST! We also provide access to the Talking Book program from the Library of Congress. It is a ‘National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped’. The program is free for those who qualify. They send you a machine and you can pick the titles you want to hear – books & magazines. So, if you are brave enough to follow in Trish’s footsteps, come to the back room and say hi…. apparently I am not scary!
