We host all our audio files with the wonderful archive.org. The last couple of days, we’ve been getting numerous reports of LirbiVox books being unavailable, unfindable, or undownloadable. We are looking into it with archive.org – but don’t panic! We’ve had similar issues in the past, and after some hiccups, we expect things will get back to normal. Eventually. Stay tuned … and watch this space for news.

All the best,
Hugh.

http://www.archive.org/details/librivox_cd_covers

We have a couple of useful generic covers suitable for any book, as well as covers designed specifically for such works as

• Beowulf
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Huckleberry Finn
• Grimms’ Fairy Tales
• Pride and Prejudice
• The Communist Manifesto

…and many more for you to download. Our audio books make great gifts, especially with a beautiful artistic cover!

• The wonderful 2006 Christmas Carol Collection
• 2006 Christmas Short Works Collection
• A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
• Old Christmas Carol, by Washington Irving
• ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (A Visit From St. Nicholas), by Clement C. Moore

Have a wonderful year in 2007!

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum

Wonderful.

This was something we had talked about many months ago with Gutenberg, but it’s taken a while to happen, and was a real surprise when we were told, “it has been done.”

Thanks to Gutenberg for all the work they have done that allows us to do what they do; thanks to Greg Newby for supporting LibriVox; and thanks to Josh Hutchinson for doing the back-end work.

LibriVox is not a political organization. We are based on some basic fndamental principles (see here), but other than that we steer clear of politics. We don’t want politics to distract from our simple objective: to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio on the internet.

However, Net Neutrality is a political issue with huge implications for everything LibriVox does. The bare bones idea of Net Neutrality is that ISPs cannot give preference to sites that pay them money, and block those that don’t. That means that under current rules of the internet, LibriVox and Disney are given the same rights and privildeges.

There is a movement afoot to change that, so that big companies could pay for preferential treatment on the network, to the detriment of stes like LibriVox. This might make, for instance, trying to get to the LibriVox site, or download our files harder and slower. In an extreme case, LibriVox might get blocked completely in favour of corporate “competition.”

Because Net Neutrality is of fundamental importance to LibriVox, we have joined the Save the Internet Coalition and we urge all LibriVox listeners and volunteers to inform themselves on the issue and act as they see fit.

• Joy Chan read Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress
• Steve Andersen brought Twain to life with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
• And we released LibriVox Short Poetry Collection I, selected by LibriVox volunteers.

We’ve got another one in the catalog queue (hint: it’s Finnish!)

Well, the result was 85 new volunteers this week, and a hectic, busy time trying to manage the forum. So welcome to all the new LibriVoxers, and thanks to the veteran volunteers (Kara) and the new volunteers (Betsie, Annie, and Gesine) who helped us weather the storm, and made many helpful changes online.

Anyway, the upshot is we now have 283 volunteers signed up on the forum, about 70 long works in production, about 15 complete full-length books, and 15 shorter works done (including poetry).

Oh if you don’t know what flickr is, here’s what they have to say.

This is a good way to cut your teeth if you haven’t recorded anything yet, and want to try. It’s also an illustration of something we at LibriVox find fascinating — the different ways people can read the same text.

The poem is short, and very good, so why not visit the forum and inspire yourself with, “The Voice of the Ancient Bard.”