This discovery exercise was fun! I explored the LibriVox site, which takes its name from two Latin words -- libri (books) and vox (voice). LibriVox gives voice to books and that is cool. The tagline on their web site says it all ... acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.
I read the transcript of an interview with the founder Hugh McGuire, and was impressed with the LibriVox commitment to a "totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project" and the welcoming attitude of the administrative team, who are also LibriVox volunteers. The LibriVox commitment to both the rules and the spirit of U.S. copyright law also matters to me. They only do texts that are in the public domain in the USA and they take the right steps to ensure that they are in compliance.
Someday ... when I have time! ... contributing to this project by being a volunteer reader and recording books is something I would very much like to do. I also want to do the same thing locally with the North Dakota State Library Talking Books project. There are many people who cannot read regular print because they have visual, physical, or reading impairments. I would love to bring the joy of reading to those who cannot read for themselves.
The directions on the LibriVox site for listening to and downloading audio books were easy to follow. I downloaded Junior Classics, Volume 1 and the process was a piece of cake. I listened to a few Aesop fables and found the quality of the selections to be good.
LibriVox's goal to make all public domain books available for free in an audio format is a big bite ... very ambitious and very worthwhile. I would love to help achieve that goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment