Source for audiobooks?

[FishProf]

Neil Gaiman reading his own stuff is a joy.

[pink_]

Ever since Covid hit, I have found that I have a very difficult time maintaining my fun reading, and that's something important to me. I loved audiobooks before then (though I had long resisted them until a broken foot and rehab stint that required time in a pool that bored me to tears convinced me to give it a go), but I did a decent job of balancing eye and ears. Not any more.

In any case, my public library system has two different sources for audiobooks: Hoopla and Overdrive/Libby. Between the two of them, I have saved thousands of dollars over the last few years. When I buy, I generally buy from Audible, though I have also purchased from Libro. Audible offers a catalogue of titles with it's plus membership tiers that also allow listeners to download at no extra cost, and I've found some good material there.

But I don't think that there are "rentals" per se. At least not from Audible or Libro. You pay the membership fee and buy the credits. I suppose that they could revoke a purchase like Amazon has for a few kindle titles over the years, but aside from that possibility, once you buy a book, it stays in your library (though not necessarily on your device unless you have the space).

[Puget]

Neil Gaiman reading his own stuff is a joy.

Yes, this is a great example of where the audio books are really better than print. Another would be David Sedaris reading his own books-- they are really meant to be performed by him.

Almost all my "reading" for pleasure is audio books these days, since I can check them out through the library (Libby) and listen while I do housework and walk/run.

[Ahania]

I second (third?) Neil Gaiman and David Sedaris reading their own works. 

In addition to Simon Vance, I also look for works read by Jonathan Cecil -- especially anything by P.G. Wodehouse.

[apl68]

Neil Gaiman reading his own stuff is a joy.

Yes, this is a great example of where the audio books are really better than print. Another would be David Sedaris reading his own books-- they are really meant to be performed by him.

Almost all my "reading" for pleasure is audio books these days, since I can check them out through the library (Libby) and listen while I do housework and walk/run.

The audio e-books from the public library are in effect rentals.  It's just that the library is paying the fees.  Most of them anymore are "metered" titles--they expire after X number of checkouts and have to be re-purchased.  They also frequently cost us three or four times what the same title would cost for an individual purchaser on Amazon.  And the library has to spend thousands of dollars a year on platform fees in addition to the actual cost of the e-materials.  The minimum platform fee for a small public library is $1,500 a year!  That's a lot of money for a little operation.

Small and even mid-size systems can only afford to offer e-books by joining consortia to share costs.  Our state formed a consortium to offer OverDrive e-books the year before last.  I was on the committee that came up with by-laws and such.  It's been a great success, and has made e-books and audio e-books much more widely available in our region than they were before.  We've seen usage go way up during the pandemic.  Our consortium was very fortunate in that our state library was able to kick in a substantial amount of year-end money to help with our collection development.

[pgher]

I'm currently listening to a nonfiction audiobook where instead of quoting a person, audio of the person is played. Adds some reality to it.

[Puget]

Neil Gaiman reading his own stuff is a joy.

Yes, this is a great example of where the audio books are really better than print. Another would be David Sedaris reading his own books-- they are really meant to be performed by him.

Almost all my "reading" for pleasure is audio books these days, since I can check them out through the library (Libby) and listen while I do housework and walk/run.

The audio e-books from the public library are in effect rentals.  It's just that the library is paying the fees.  Most of them anymore are "metered" titles--they expire after X number of checkouts and have to be re-purchased.  They also frequently cost us three or four times what the same title would cost for an individual purchaser on Amazon.  And the library has to spend thousands of dollars a year on platform fees in addition to the actual cost of the e-materials.  The minimum platform fee for a small public library is $1,500 a year!  That's a lot of money for a little operation.

Small and even mid-size systems can only afford to offer e-books by joining consortia to share costs.  Our state formed a consortium to offer OverDrive e-books the year before last.  I was on the committee that came up with by-laws and such.  It's been a great success, and has made e-books and audio e-books much more widely available in our region than they were before.  We've seen usage go way up during the pandemic.  Our consortium was very fortunate in that our state library was able to kick in a substantial amount of year-end money to help with our collection development.

Yes, all the libraries in the metro area are in a consortium for e-materials here too, and the selection is large (sometimes long wait times, but that's OK). We also have fairly high property taxes which help fund the libraries among other things, which I'm happy to pay. I'm sure demand has gone up as the physical libraries are still mostly closed. I'm grateful for this service!

[apl68]

Neil Gaiman reading his own stuff is a joy.

Yes, this is a great example of where the audio books are really better than print. Another would be David Sedaris reading his own books-- they are really meant to be performed by him.

Almost all my "reading" for pleasure is audio books these days, since I can check them out through the library (Libby) and listen while I do housework and walk/run.

The audio e-books from the public library are in effect rentals.  It's just that the library is paying the fees.  Most of them anymore are "metered" titles--they expire after X number of checkouts and have to be re-purchased.  They also frequently cost us three or four times what the same title would cost for an individual purchaser on Amazon.  And the library has to spend thousands of dollars a year on platform fees in addition to the actual cost of the e-materials.  The minimum platform fee for a small public library is $1,500 a year!  That's a lot of money for a little operation.

Small and even mid-size systems can only afford to offer e-books by joining consortia to share costs.  Our state formed a consortium to offer OverDrive e-books the year before last.  I was on the committee that came up with by-laws and such.  It's been a great success, and has made e-books and audio e-books much more widely available in our region than they were before.  We've seen usage go way up during the pandemic.  Our consortium was very fortunate in that our state library was able to kick in a substantial amount of year-end money to help with our collection development.

Yes, all the libraries in the metro area are in a consortium for e-materials here too, and the selection is large (sometimes long wait times, but that's OK). We also have fairly high property taxes which help fund the libraries among other things, which I'm happy to pay. I'm sure demand has gone up as the physical libraries are still mostly closed. I'm grateful for this service!

We've been seeing a number of long-term patrons taking the plunge and getting e-book PINs lately.  Most of our checkouts are still for physical materials, even with the rise in e-book use, but the ratio is changing.

A big part of the discussion in setting up our consortium involved deciding what proportion of the consortium's budget to put toward "holds reduction"--buying additional copies of titles we already have to reduce the wait times.  How were we going to weight the need to prevent excessive wait times for popular titles versus wanting to build a more diverse collection?  Since I work for a small library that seldom buys more than one copy of any given title, I didn't have any relevant experience to contribute toward that conversation.  We've had a LOT of conversations over the past two years regarding allocation of resources and ideas for possible upgrades to services.  A consortium takes a good deal of maintenance!

[ergative]

Neil Gaiman reading his own stuff is a joy.

Yes, this is a great example of where the audio books are really better than print. Another would be David Sedaris reading his own books-- they are really meant to be performed by him.

Almost all my "reading" for pleasure is audio books these days, since I can check them out through the library (Libby) and listen while I do housework and walk/run.

The audio e-books from the public library are in effect rentals.  It's just that the library is paying the fees.  Most of them anymore are "metered" titles--they expire after X number of checkouts and have to be re-purchased.  They also frequently cost us three or four times what the same title would cost for an individual purchaser on Amazon.  And the library has to spend thousands of dollars a year on platform fees in addition to the actual cost of the e-materials.  The minimum platform fee for a small public library is $1,500 a year!  That's a lot of money for a little operation.

Small and even mid-size systems can only afford to offer e-books by joining consortia to share costs.  Our state formed a consortium to offer OverDrive e-books the year before last.  I was on the committee that came up with by-laws and such.  It's been a great success, and has made e-books and audio e-books much more widely available in our region than they were before.  We've seen usage go way up during the pandemic.  Our consortium was very fortunate in that our state library was able to kick in a substantial amount of year-end money to help with our collection development.

Yes, all the libraries in the metro area are in a consortium for e-materials here too, and the selection is large (sometimes long wait times, but that's OK). We also have fairly high property taxes which help fund the libraries among other things, which I'm happy to pay. I'm sure demand has gone up as the physical libraries are still mostly closed. I'm grateful for this service!

We've been seeing a number of long-term patrons taking the plunge and getting e-book PINs lately.  Most of our checkouts are still for physical materials, even with the rise in e-book use, but the ratio is changing.

A big part of the discussion in setting up our consortium involved deciding what proportion of the consortium's budget to put toward "holds reduction"--buying additional copies of titles we already have to reduce the wait times.  How were we going to weight the need to prevent excessive wait times for popular titles versus wanting to build a more diverse collection?  Since I work for a small library that seldom buys more than one copy of any given title, I didn't have any relevant experience to contribute toward that conversation.  We've had a LOT of conversations over the past two years regarding allocation of resources and ideas for possible upgrades to services.  A consortium takes a good deal of maintenance!

This is a really fascinating peek behind the scenes. If digital resources are a sort of metered rental, then for high-demand books you only have to re-purchase it as long as demand stays up? And then, when demand drops, stop re-purchasing it (or need to re-purchase it less often)? It almost seems that this arrangement is a better arrangement for really high-demand titles, because you don't end up with leftover copies after the demand goes down.

[Vkw10]

This is a really fascinating peek behind the scenes. If digital resources are a sort of metered rental, then for high-demand books you only have to re-purchase it as long as demand stays up? And then, when demand drops, stop re-purchasing it (or need to re-purchase it less often)? It almost seems that this arrangement is a better arrangement for really high-demand titles, because you don't end up with leftover copies after the demand goes down.

When I was a public library trustee before ebooks were popular, our budget included money for leasing multiple copies of bestsellers. The library paid for a certain number of books, requested copies as needed, and returned as demand dropped. Today, my university library subscribes to an ebook package for popular computer apps and coding, instead of buying them, because that's the best way to provide current books on Excel and R and JavaScript. They looked at streaming audiobook programs recently, but the fees were high so they decided journals are more important for university. Being on the library committee is actually pretty interesting, because I keep getting these peeks behind the scenes.

[apl68]

Just got our library digital consortium's statistics for last month.  We currently have nearly 86,000 titles--e-books, audio e-books, and magazines.  Checkouts for last month were nearly 94,000.  Not bad for a February.

Consortium members purchased in the neighborhood of 1,700 items, at an average cost of around $24.  Not a high average for retail hardcovers, but pretty high compared to the blend of hardcover/softcover at wholesale prices we normally purchase for the physical collections. 

For the more popular titles the consortium purchased an average of about 6.5 copies.

And we have an alert that OverDrive has noticed that some libraries (not in our state, apparently) have been swamped with recommendations for expensive niche titles.  It's unknown who has been doing this or why, but OverDrive's reps felt it was odd enough to alert libraries about.  It goes to show why we don't automatically purchase materials--they are only purchased after our designated selectors have gone over the purchase carts to be sure we're really buying what we need.

[nebo113]

Another reason I avoid Amazon:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/10/amazon-library-ebook-monopoly/

[Cheerful]

Another reason I avoid Amazon:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/10/amazon-library-ebook-monopoly/

I can't access.  Paywall, can you summarize?

Amazon is a concern on many fronts, including labor practices.  I try to avoid but difficult.  Needed items during pandemic.  Plus Kindle, etc.  Their vast marketplace is Buyer Beware. Some vendors with questionable-quality goods and return practices, etc.  Unless consumers read carefully, some items may not be what the US consumer thinks they're ordering (e.g., an electronic item where only the reviews specified it was from Europe and needs a US plug adapter).

After putting others out of business, amazon has some brick-and-mortar "4 star" stores.

[nebo113]

Another reason I avoid Amazon:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/10/amazon-library-ebook-monopoly/

I can't access.  Paywall, can you summarize?

Amazon is a concern on many fronts, including labor practices.  I try to avoid but difficult.  Needed items during pandemic.  Plus Kindle, etc.  Their vast marketplace is Buyer Beware. Some vendors with questionable-quality goods and return practices, etc.  Unless consumers read carefully, some items may not be what the US consumer thinks they're ordering (e.g., an electronic item where only the reviews specified it was from Europe and needs a US plug adapter).

After putting others out of business, amazon has some brick-and-mortar "4 star" stores.

In 2020, Kaling switched to a new publisher: Amazon. Turns out, the tech giant has also become a publishing powerhouse — and it won't sell downloadable versions of its more than 10,000 e-books or tens of thousands of audiobooks to libraries. That's right, for a decade, the company that killed bookstores has been starving the reading institution that cares for kids, the needy and the curious. And that's turned into a mission-critical problem during a pandemic that cut off physical access to libraries and left a lot of people unable to afford books on their own.

[apl68]

Another reason I avoid Amazon:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/10/amazon-library-ebook-monopoly/

I can't access.  Paywall, can you summarize?

Amazon is a concern on many fronts, including labor practices.  I try to avoid but difficult.  Needed items during pandemic.  Plus Kindle, etc.  Their vast marketplace is Buyer Beware. Some vendors with questionable-quality goods and return practices, etc.  Unless consumers read carefully, some items may not be what the US consumer thinks they're ordering (e.g., an electronic item where only the reviews specified it was from Europe and needs a US plug adapter).

After putting others out of business, amazon has some brick-and-mortar "4 star" stores.

In 2020, Kaling switched to a new publisher: Amazon. Turns out, the tech giant has also become a publishing powerhouse — and it won't sell downloadable versions of its more than 10,000 e-books or tens of thousands of audiobooks to libraries. That's right, for a decade, the company that killed bookstores has been starving the reading institution that cares for kids, the needy and the curious. And that's turned into a mission-critical problem during a pandemic that cut off physical access to libraries and left a lot of people unable to afford books on their own.

I have no doubt that if they could they would happily replace libraries as well as bookstores.  I hate dealing with them.  We only order library materials from them when we can't get them through our normal wholesalers.  Amazon is like Wal-Mart--no matter how much you'd like to avoid dealing with them, it's impossible to stay away completely.  The best you can do is try to minimize your dependence on them.

I'd like to see Congress take an anti-trust sledgehammer to the entire Fortune 500.  They're all too big for society's good.  They're killing genuine, competitive capitalism as surely as socialism would.