The 123,291 libraries in the United States are the nation’s single largest consumer of audiobooks, making up a whopping 32% ($295.4 million) of the total annual audiobook market (according to the Audio Publishers Association), says LISWire.

CDs are still the dominant audiobook format but the digitally downloaded audiobook format has been growing at over 50% a year since 2004, and modern libraries are leading the way when it comes to digital audiobooks.

I am not surprised at the numbers, being devoted to digital audiobooks and the free access I have to them through my library. 

A popular audiobook series called The Freeway Guides sold into libraries nationwide and Jared Patrick, owner, states, “two years ago we would never have guessed how many people would be downloading the Freeway Guides directly from their local library websites without ever leaving their homes.  Increased commute times, improvements in technology and the expectation of information on demand are driving this movement, and we are excited to see libraries leading the way.”

The industry’s leading magazine on audio trends, AudioFile Magazine, reports that audiobook use continues to soar.  Libraries offering digital audiobooks via their websites have expanded their patron base, they say, because of the 24/7 availability and ease of access.  Robin Whitten editor & founder of AudioFile states, “The amount of digital audio content purchased by libraries will only continue to increase.”

Digital audiobooks cover many topics and genres, including best-selling fiction and nonfiction.  If you haven’t looked for them at your library, you may be missing out.  The library audiobook services I am familiar with require an MP3 player rather than an iPod, but there are many players that are simple and inexpensive.  Audiobooks are perfect for those on the go.  On a recent trip abroad, I took 6 unabridged audiobooks with me on an MP3 player no bigger than a pack of gum.

CommonCraft  just keeps pumping them out — great videos in plain English to explain and educate. 

Below you will find one on “Podcasting in Plain English,” and “Twitter in Plain English” is in another post.  Enjoy and learn.

Music: Mix it up
ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want, they say.  You can download and sample from music on the site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime.  Watch for occasional copyright restrictions, depending on the specific license.

If you are just browsing and listening there is no need to register.  But if you register you get your own artist’s page where you can upload your own music, cut-ups of other artists and loop libraries.  You can leave reviews, and interact in the forums, pick favorites and more. 

Those who create music that they want to retain all rights to should not upload it to ccMixter.

MySpace Music CEO sees money in free tunes
 MySpace Music, the major-label-backed online service slated for a summer rollout, is planning to deliver “all the music in the world” for free.

Once that mission is accomplished, according to MySpace CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe, the cash will follow as music fans turn MySpace Music into a money-making machine with multiple revenue streams.

The new service will strip out band pages from the original MySpace — currently the most popular social-networking site — and stream full-length songs and videos for free.  MySpace Music will peddle DRM-free downloads, ringtones, concert tickets, T-shirts and more.

For more information read Wired.com’s in-depth interview with DeWolfe.

The books at Podiobooks.com are completely free because authors choose to make them so for a variety of reasons, mostly to gain exposure for their work.  You can make a donation to the author if you wish.

Books can be browsed by 20 categories, ranging from alternative history to young adult.  Choose a title and you’ll often find an indication of its “adultness” (although not always), customer ratings and reviews, a link to hear a sample, a link to let you begin listening to the first episode on your computer, and a way to subscribe to the book.

You can choose to receive the episodes of books via an RSS feed or by directly downloading episodes from the Podiobooks site.  Audio files can be kept on computers, transfered to CD or to an MP3 player so you can listen no matter where you are.

You can just click and listen from the site or register for a free account and have episodes sent to you one at a time.  Subscribe in iTunes, Juice, or Transistr (formerly iPodderX).

They have recently posted a list of the best Podiobooks of 2007.   Check the FAQ for more information.  Thanks, Nicole. 

eBook readers
eBook readers have sought to bridge the gap between paper and digital publications.  Newer devices offer a suite of functions to enhance the experience, including enough memory to store multiple resources.

Quincey Hobbs writing in The Tucson Citizen points to three devices that show promise for the format:

• Sony’s Reader is compact and has a number of navigational and document functions.  It is priced at around $300.
• The Iliad from iRex, selling for nearly $700, “is by far one of the strongest eBook readers on the market.” It has the navigational features of Sony’s reader, and also has a wi-fi connection with its ability to play music and store pictures.  The Iliad also allows you to write on the screen with its stylus and save your notes.  It is slightly heavier than the Sony Reader, “but there is value in the weight.”
• The iRiver eBook Reader is not on the market yet but Hobbs thinks it will be a winner.  It has two display panels and opens like an actual book.  Adding to the attractiveness of the device is that two AAA batteries can power it for six months.

Podango purchases GigaVox Audio Lite
Podcast network and hosting service Podango is enhancig its service with the purchase of podcast publishing software from GigaVox Media. 

TechCrunch says the content-management system, called GigaVox Audio Lite, “allows podcasters to automagically manage the different parts that make up an audio or video podcast, including ads, intros, promotions, and other program material.”

Podango hosts 1,300 podcasters across 250 different stations.  They will soon launch Girls Gone Geek, which CEO Lee Gibbons describes as a “cross between the View and Motorcycle Maintenance.” 

Podango-hosted shows are downloaded two million times per month, up from a 20,000 downloads six months ago.  The are aiming for 10 million downloads per month by next spring.

Will podcasting survive?
Read/WriteWeb says that the original idea of a podcast was simple. A user-generated audio broadcast (radio) thrown on top of RSS so that people were aware of it and could consume the content on demand.

Anyone with a decent microphone, a computer, and recording software can create one, and large audio files are available to many since broadband is widespread.  When podcasting was introduced in 2004 it quickly became popular, but that may be changing.

The post contains trend charts and RWW’s ideas about why podcasting seems to be stagnating.

Free video stock footage resources online
I love free stock photos and image sites so I naturally noticed this post on free video stock footage available online.

At Robin Good’s you’ll find the first hand-picked selection of readily-available 100% copyright-free online video footage sources online that you can start using immediately:  Public domain video — 9 legal sources by Michael Pick

Back to school with open source
Free stuff:  Office Suites, Project Management, Image Editing, Organization, Stress Management — an open source version of Risk game.
 

What happens when today’s tech savvy kids hit the workforce?  Training Magazine’s July/August, 2007, digital issue explores the topic of “Biz Kids.” 

Kids are more comfortable with technology than anybody in the workforce right now, say Gene Maeroff, senior fellow at the Hechinger Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. 

Despite the fact that most classrooms still look very traditional while kids’ homes may be full of a variety of technololgies (games, MP3 players, computers), — in the workforce kids are going to be familiar with many technologiess that adults have taken awhile to get used to, such as asynchronous, self-paced, online courses, and interactive whiteboards and simulations.  This could be true of libraries, as well, assuming we can attract young people to our workforces.  I speculate that they might also be more comfortable with the concepts of sharing and collaboration to achieve a goal.

Tim Magner, director of educational technology at the U.S. Department of Educucation, says, “There’s a growing distinction between formal and informal learning and the use of technology in each context… The Internet and mobile technologiess are giving kids access to information and learning opportunities outside of school that are becoming significant… Kids are learning by way of video games, podcasting, the Internet, video, computer-based training and other technologiess… That’s the challenge from the workforce perspective when these kids grow up… There isn’t a universality of experience on what they’ve used and what they’re used to.” 

I signed up for a free online subscription to Blogger and Podcaster Magazine, which launched in April, and just got around to looking at the July edition.  While this particular issue didn’t have any articles that called out to  me right now, you may find some. 

I was interested in their interactive B&P Guide which features four pages worth of blogs and podcasts organized by general topic. (e.g., from “Arts” to “Web”)  Just click on the link to go to the resource.

You can sign up for a subscription here.  Digital and podcast subscriptions are free, the print edition is $79 in the U.S. (12 issues). 

The online magazine uses Olive Software which allows you to click through pages, change print sizes, consult a Table of Contents with links and much more.  You can extract content and email or print it and also download and save the magazine for offline reading.  There is a helpful interactive user guide to Olive Software, showing what you can do with the magazine.

40+ tools for PDFs
Includes sources for ripping, burning, and mixing PDFs.  Some are free, some are more technically difficult than others.  Mashable has brief info about each of the tools that are linked to. 

12 ways to use Facebook professionally
Web Worker Daily details and explains 12 good ways to use Facebook as a professional tool.  There has been so much hype lately about Facebook and new apps developed for it, the potential effectiveness of the social site can get lost.  Essentially the message here is to be thoughtful and selective as you build your Facebook and smart about using the available tools, which are many.

Audiobook podcast collection of free audiobooks
Thanks to What I Learned Today for calling attention to this collection of free audiobooks.

The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries Innovate
A popular program at the 2007 American Library Association (ALA) Annual conference is now a podcast on the blog of the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of ALA.

The debate about innovation in libraries is moderated by Andrew Pace and features Joseph Janes, Stephen Abrams, and K. G. Schneider.  It runs 1 hr, 50 min.  

The Good, the Bad, and the Web 2.0  debate
The Wall Street Journal’s Jamin Brophy-Warren invited two authors to debate the topic of Web 2.0.  Andrew Keen, who wrote The Cult of the Amateur, argues the Web has become overwhelmed with useless noise.  David Weinberger, author of Everything is Miscellaneous, argues that Web 2.0 tools let users filter out irrelevant (or inaccurate) information.  The condensed version of their discussion can be read here.  The full debate is covered here.