Saturday, December 6, 2008

Thing 22- NetLibrary & Audio Downloads

I had a little advantage here as I had already created NetLibrary account for our library. I think it's a great service. But, so far, it hasn't been a big hit at our library. I think this is because most of our patrons find the site rather complicated and because they still tend to prefer the text-in-hand or pre-recorded audio versions. Downloading the versions seems to be too much trouble for them. Although, I can see where this would be different in other demographic groups. It is a service we promote, but it is not highly used.
It is a good place to find the classics. For this exercise, I accessed Jane Eyre by Bronte. It is a good service, but at the institutional level it is limited to the titles that your institution purchases. So, it may not have a great deal of variety. It has been my experience that people prefer to either read text-in-hand or listen to a pre-recorded audio version. Text versions of the classics can also be found on Project Gutenberg which offers 25,000 free books with less hassle. But, NetLibrary has a lot of options that Gutenberg doesn't.

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