LibriVox » on the web http://librivox.org free public domain audiobooks Tue, 01 May 2012 06:43:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 LibriVox.org will go dark tomorrow – SOPA http://librivox.org/2012/01/17/librivox-org-will-go-dark-tomorrow-sopa/ http://librivox.org/2012/01/17/librivox-org-will-go-dark-tomorrow-sopa/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:57:09 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/?p=23304 Tomorrow, LibriVox.org will go dark (though the forums will remain up). Instead of our regular pages and catalog, you’ll see the following:

Today, many websites around the Internet have “gone dark” to protest against, and raise awareness about some very important proposed legislation in the United States, which could fundamentally alter how the Internet operates: House Bill 3261, The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and S.968, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).

Archive.org (where LibriVox hosts its audio), is going dark from 6:00 am – 6:00 pm PST on Wednesday January 18 (9:00 am – 9:00 pm EST – 14:00 – 02:00 GMT) as part of this important protest. This means that the LibriVox catalog will not be accessible during this time.

Legislation such as SOPA and PIPA directly affects libraries (pdf) such as the Internet Archive — and indeed LibriVox — which collect, preserve, and offer access to cultural materials. Furthermore, these laws can negatively affect the ecosystem of web publishing that led to the emergence of the LibriVox.

These bills would encourage the development of blacklists to censor sites with little recourse or due process. The Internet Archive (and with it LibriVox audio files) are already blacklisted in China. There are real concerns that this legislation could lead to similar blacklists in the United States.

For United States residents, please inform yourself of these issues, and if you think they are important, please take action.

For non-US residents: Sorry for dragging you into this, and if you are willing, you might wish to sign a petition to the State Department to express your concern.

]]> http://librivox.org/2012/01/17/librivox-org-will-go-dark-tomorrow-sopa/feed/ 3 iPhone Apps for LibriVox http://librivox.org/2011/11/09/iphone-apps-for-librivox/ http://librivox.org/2011/11/09/iphone-apps-for-librivox/#comments Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:10:56 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/?p=21910 LibriVox itself doesn’t produce any apps for the iphone, but we have an open catalog platform and all our books are free, so many others have built iPhone and Android apps for LibriVox.

Below you’ll find a collection of some of the iphone apps running off the LibriVox catalog (if you know of other good ones, please let us know). UPDATE: you can of course just download our audiobooks as you usually do, make sure they are in iTunes, and sync your iPhone – you don’t need an app to listen on your phone.

We’ll do a roundup of Android apps next week.

IPHONE/IPAD APPS RUNNING OFF OF LIBRIVOX CATALOG

LibriVox Selections ($0.99)

Description: “The best LibriVox recordings, all in one place. The app is 1.99, after that everything is free! LibriVox Selections brings together a curated collection of hundreds of favourite audiobooks (mostly solo recordings) from LibriVox. ”

Producer: Iambik Audio Inc.

NOTES: Iambik will donate 10% of app revenues to LibriVox. LibriVox founder Hugh McGuire, aka me, owns Iambik Audio.

iTunes Download Link

Audiobooks (Free)

Description: Join the more than 2,200,000 people who have used Audiobooks to listen to over 3,535 classic audiobooks for FREE. In addition to all our free content, we also include a growing collection of premium audiobookd for your enjoyment.

Producer: Cross Forward Consulting, LLC

NOTES: Cross Forward Consulting contributed to the LibriVox funding drive in February 2010.

iTunes Download Link

Audiobooks Premium ($0.99)

Description: Join the more than 2,200,000 people who have used Audiobooks to listen to over 3,535 classic audiobooks for FREE. In addition to all our free content, we also include a growing collection of premium audiobooks for your enjoyment.

Producer: Cross Forward Consulting, LLC

NOTES: Not sure the difference between the paid and free versions. Cross Forward Consulting contributed to the LibriVox funding drive in February 2010.

iTunes Download Link

Free Audiobooks – 4,728 classic audiobooks for less than a cup of coffee ($1.99)

Description: Ah to describe an app in two words… Free Audiobooks is just that- Free Audiobooks! We’ve crafted handpicked collections to make browsing a snap, and commissioned hundreds of custom covers to bring you Cover Mode. This is the world of public domain audiobooks like never before.

NOTES: none.

Producer: Spreadsong, Inc.

iTunes Download Link

Audiobooks – 2,947 classics for free (Free)

Description: Audiobooks by Classicly gives you 2,947 classic audiobooks, for free. No ifs and buts about it- we package up 2,947 audiobooks and make them available to download and listen to anytime, anywhere. No nickel and diming, no extra fees- you get the entire collection for less than a cup of coffee.

Producer: Spreadsong, Inc.

NOTES: None.

iTunes Download Link

]]> http://librivox.org/2011/11/09/iphone-apps-for-librivox/feed/ 9 Sorry – the forum is down – and back up! http://librivox.org/2011/07/05/sorry-the-forum-is-down/ http://librivox.org/2011/07/05/sorry-the-forum-is-down/#comments Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:12:15 +0000 LibriVoxer http://librivox.org/?p=18128 From 08:40 GMT July 5th: Regrettably, it appears that the secure server where the forum lives is currently down again.

We will get it functioning again as soon as possible, and apologise for the inconvenience.

The catalogue server and downloads are unaffected.

EDITED TO ADD: Apologies for the latest outage, which was caused by a problem related to changing DNS providers. It is now back up, and the problem should soon resolve for everyone if it hasn’t done so already.

Ruth

]]> http://librivox.org/2011/07/05/sorry-the-forum-is-down/feed/ 8 Interview with Steve Hargadon about LibriVox http://librivox.org/2011/05/15/interview-with-steve-hargadon-about-librivox/ http://librivox.org/2011/05/15/interview-with-steve-hargadon-about-librivox/#comments Sun, 15 May 2011 16:20:00 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/2011/05/15/interview-with-steve-hargadon-about-librivox/ Here’s an hour-long discussion, with interaction from the audience, about LibriVox, with me & Steve Hargadon, for his Future of Education series.

Audio: http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/hughmcguire.mp3

]]> http://librivox.org/2011/05/15/interview-with-steve-hargadon-about-librivox/feed/ 3 Interview on Publishing Talks http://librivox.org/2011/05/04/interview-on-publishing-talks/ http://librivox.org/2011/05/04/interview-on-publishing-talks/#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 01:52:44 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/2011/05/04/interview-on-publishing-talks/ David Wilk invited me to his Publishing Talks Podcast, to about LibriVox, iambik, libraries, PressBooks, and general future of publishing stuff.

Here is the link.

And here is the audio [mp3].

]]> http://librivox.org/2011/05/04/interview-on-publishing-talks/feed/ 2 Open Knowledge Foundation on LibriVox http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/open-knowledge-foundation-on-librivox/ http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/open-knowledge-foundation-on-librivox/#comments Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:29:06 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/open-knowledge-foundation-on-librivox/ There’s an interview with me up at the Open Knowledge Foundation blog about LibriVox and the Public Domain.

]]> http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/open-knowledge-foundation-on-librivox/feed/ 0 Chapterme.com http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/chapterme-com/ http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/chapterme-com/#comments Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:34:04 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/chapter-me/ Says Chapterme.com:

This site is meant to help you discover books and authors by listening to random chapters. Then, your tastes will be compared with those of other listeners in order to choose other chapters.
The recordings are created by the fabulous LibriVox.org site. At any time you can go to the book page on LibriVox.org and listen to the whole book. From there, you can navigate to Project Gutenberg if you want to get the text.

]]> http://librivox.org/2010/10/10/chapterme-com/feed/ 2 LibriVox on SFF Audio Podcast http://librivox.org/2010/09/13/librivon-on-sff-audio-podcast/ http://librivox.org/2010/09/13/librivon-on-sff-audio-podcast/#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:26:57 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/2010/09/13/librivon-on-sff-audio-podcast/ Hot off the press: Jesse and Scott of SFF Audio invited me onto their podcast for a chat. We talk about audiobooks, LibriVox, open collaborative projects, the web and various other things. Here is the link:

http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=23539

]]> http://librivox.org/2010/09/13/librivon-on-sff-audio-podcast/feed/ 1 Final Draft: Audio Interviews http://librivox.org/2010/04/19/final-draft-audio-interviews/ http://librivox.org/2010/04/19/final-draft-audio-interviews/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:24:00 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/2010/04/19/final-draft-audio-interviews/ There was some LibriVoxiness on Australian Radio recently … the “Final Draft” show on Radio 2SER FM, Sydney. It’s up on the web:

This week, we’re stepping outside the confines of the printed page and devoting our entire show to the phenomenon of audiobooks. First, we speak to Hugh McGuire, the founder of Librivox, a volunteer-run website that provides readers free recordings of books in the public domain. Then we take a close look at Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro, which broke new ground when it was released as an audiobook earlier this year. And finally we speak to the Chair of the Australian Braille Authority, Bruce Maguire, about how the growing popularity of audiobooks and speech technology may pose a threat to Braille literacy.

Hugh McGuire, founder of Librivox.org; Linda Ferguson and Timothy Ferguson, Librivox volunteers – interviewed by Paul Kildea

Nick Cave, The Death of Bunny Munro, Text Publishing – reviewed by Rochelle Fernandez
Bruce Maguire, Australian Braille Authority – interviewed by Ella O’Keefe

Download audio file (2010-04-12T02_00_34-07_00.mp3)

[Link]

]]> http://librivox.org/2010/04/19/final-draft-audio-interviews/feed/ 5 BookList’s Audiobooker on LibriVox http://librivox.org/2009/08/12/booklists-audiobooker-on-librivox/ http://librivox.org/2009/08/12/booklists-audiobooker-on-librivox/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:48:37 +0000 hugh http://librivox.org/2009/08/12/booklists-audiobooker-on-librivox/ There is an interview up over at BookList’s Audiobooker Blog, with Mary Burkey:

The home of 2,557 audiobooks in 26 languages – all FREE. Hugh McGuire launched the volunteer-effort audiobook publishing model LibriVox on August 10th, 2005. Hugh is this week’s Inside the Audiobook Studio guest, ready to share the background on this amazing project. Want more information on LibriVox? Subscribe to the Community Podcast here. Have you always wanted to be an audiobook narrator – or perhaps want to challenge students to develop their oral performance skills? Are you an aspiring audio editor and need some practice? Try your talents by becoming a LibriVox volunteer! Want to learn how to slow down the LibriVox audiobooks? Searching for a list of recommended best FREE LibriVox titles? You’ll find answers to all things LibriVox on the LibriVox Wiki. [more...]

]]> http://librivox.org/2009/08/12/booklists-audiobooker-on-librivox/feed/ 12