If you dread hearing “How much longer?” or “Counting cows is boring!” check out your local library for things to check out for your Christmas roadtrips. DCPL has tons of interesting, entertaining and educational DVDs, audiobooks and CDs to engage you and your children on the way to grandmother’s house or wherever you’re headed this holiday season.

Try out any or all of the Harry Potter books read by the vastly talented Jim Dale. Or get a life and listen to someone’s biography or autobiography. Watch a holiday classic like It’s A Wonderful Life or Home Alone.

All it takes is a scan of your library card and you can entertain yourself and your passengers for miles. Who knows you might be so engrossed in your story that you won’t want to stop for anything but gas. If not you can always go back to counting state license plates.

Recently, award winning author Neil Gaiman hosted a segment on the National Public Radio program Morning Edition during which he talked about the past and future of the audiobook format. Among the subjects he addressed were whether authors should narrate their own audiobooks (appropriate for some, while others “should never be allowed in front of a microphone”), the various challenges of the recording process (including audiobook performers whose “loud stomach noises” are equal in volume to their voices), and the difference between audiobooks and traditional books.

The segment also includes brief interviews with author David Sedaris and audiobook performer Martin Jarvis. If you are interested in hearing more than the excerpts included in the piece, you can head over to Neil’s blog to listen to the full length interviews.

Of the four audiobooks authored by Gaiman available in the DCPL catalog, he has acted as his own narrator half of the time; both were books produced for younger readers (Coraline and The Graveyard Book). If you, like Neil, enjoy the sound of your own voice, you might enjoy doing some volunteer work for LibriVox, a website which provides free audiobooks from the public domain. Volunteers simply record themselves reading chapters of eligible books and then those recordings are uploaded and released online as free audiobooks (you can search their catalog of available titles here).

One final note: Gaiman will be in town speaking and then signing books at Agnes Scott College’s Presser Hall on December 14th. As the tickets were free, and of limited quantity, it is unlikely there are any available at this point, but I felt it worth mentioning nonetheless. Click here for more info.

We are less than a week away from Thanksgiving Day so I thought I would count down 10 things I am thankful for about my library.

10. The Twitter feed that gives me interesting quotes, facts and heads up on library events.

9. The variety of programs that I can attend. (I personally like the musical programs, the new movie series and that the teens are developing some of their own programs.)

8. The DCPL Facebook page (I feel more connected to my community and love seeing some of the dialogue.)

7. The downloadable eAudiobooks some of which can be found in MP3 format. (Check out NetLibrary using GALILEO).  eAudiobooks are only available from outside the library buildings.

6. The number of electronic resources that are available to me for free as a member of the Library. (Check out the Reference Database page.)

5. The e-mail pre-notification that I get when my material is almost due.

4. The variety of movies that are available on DVD.

3. The hold request system. It is great to think of a book, go to the computer, place a request and have the item sent to my current branch. (It usually takes very little time if the item is in. My home library-not this county- takes usually several weeks even with the book on the shelf.)

2.  The wi-fi that is becoming available to more branches. (It works perfectly with my iPod touch and I can surf on my lunch hour.)

1. The variety of books available for my reading pleasure. If the library does not have it, I can suggest that they consider buying a copy for the system or I can use the Interlibrary Loan service to borrow the book from another library system.

What are you thankful about your library? Would you rank my top ten list differently?

We usually recommend a book to someone because we like the story or the setting or because it’s funny, etc. The other night a patron recommended an audiobook to me because the reader was really good.  Ed Sala’s reading of James Lee Burke’s White Doves at Morning was so compelling that this gentleman had come to the library to find more. The Library includes the name of audiobook readers in the catalog, making it easy to search for a favorite performer:

From the catalog page, select Sound/Video. From the first search box, select Audiobook Word(s) from the menu. In the second search box, enter the performer’s name.

AudioFile, a magazine devoted to audiobooks, has a Golden Voices list if you’re interested in finding more recommended readers or you might like one of Stephen King’s 10 favorite audiobooks.  I personally recommend Flo Gibson’s reading of Persuasion by Jane Austen.  On the page, Austen is amusing to me; but read aloud she is truly funny, with a wicked sense of humor and great timing.  Have you got a favorite audiobook reader?

Getting ready for my road trip. Checking my list… gas, tires inflated, extra money, what am I missing? Hey, I don’t have anything to listen to while I cruise. To my rescue again is my local library.

The Library has audiobooks on compact discs and they have some that you can download.  You can see a list of new audiobook titles on CD using the Library’s RSS feed. Click on the feed for audiobooks. You can read the list online or you can subscribe to the feed and read it through your RSS reader.

The Library’s downloadable audiobooks have gotten friendlier to iPod users and those of us with basic MP3 players.  You can access eAudiobooks through Netlibrary by using our homepage.  The eAudiobook link  can be found under the eLibrary tab. Netlibray has WPA file Audiobooks that will work with some MP3 players and then MP3 file Audiobooks that will work with MP3 players and iPods.

Once you get into Netlibrary, you will need to set up an account for yourself. It asks that you create a user name and password. I usually recommend using your library card number and pin number since you just used this information to gain access to Netlibrary. (I try to keep things as simple as possible.) You can browse the titles in Netlibrary or you can search for particular titles.  To find those MP3 titles, you can sort by format. This is rather handy if you have a basic MP3 player or an iPod.

Not sure how to download eAudiobooks? We have an FAQ page that might be helpful. You will need to have Windows Media Player or iTunes loaded onto your computer in order to transfer the file to your MP3 player or iPod.  If you are still having problems downloading an audiobook, feel free to call us or use our Email a Librarian service. Make sure you select need help finding information and one of our Reference Librarians will get back to you via e-mail.  Now I’m off to download some audiobooks for the trip!

Did you know there is a yearly awards ceremony for audiobooks? While you won’t find Sean Penn or Cameron Diaz at the Audies, you will find many audiobook recommendations from fiction to biography. The award was first established in 1996 to honor excellence in production and performance, as well as in the actual writing. Categories range from Audiobook Adapted from Another Medium to Multi-voiced Performance.

Here are some winners from the 2008 Audies (links go to DCPL’s audiobook in the catalog):

• Literary Fiction: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson as read by Will Patton
• Mystery: The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke as read by Will Patton
• Mystery and Suspense: Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill as read by Stephen Lang
• Romance: Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips as read by Anna Fields
• Classic: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson as read by Alfred Molina
• Non-fiction: Roots by Alex Haley as read by Avery Brooks
• Children (8-11): Clementine by Sara Pennypacker as read by Jessica Almasy
• Children (12+): Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer as read by Katherine Kellgren
• Inspirational/Spiritual: Inspired By… The Bible Experience: Old Testament as read by a cast of over 400 performers
• Humor: I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert as read/shouted by the author
• Solo Narration (Male): Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling as read by Jim Dale

We have many more audiobooks available through the NetLibrary eAudiobooks service, where you can download audiobooks onto your home computer.

Other relevant links:

• The Audies official website
• Bookreporter website has a list of past winners and nominees

Love the Library’s eAudiobook service but have an iPod?  Unfortunately, there are currently no vendors offering downloadable audiobooks to libraries using Apple’s digital rights management format, but there are a few free options available for you on the Internet.

LibriVox is a volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.  LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then “release” the audio files back onto the net.

Classic Poetry Aloud provides podcasts of, well, classic poetry.  If it’s Shakespeare, Pope, Keats, and Shelley you’re looking for, this is the place.

Podiobooks Listeners to Podiobooks.com can choose to receive the episodes of their books via an RSS feed or by listening to episodes by directly downloading episodes from the site.  The site is free, but donations are accepted to compensate authors, who permit their works to be available on the site.

openculture is a site that collects podcasts, videos, and online courses that are freely available on the web, and claims to “sift through all the media, highlight the good and jettison the bad, and centralize it in one place.”  The link provided here takes you directly to their audiobook collection.

I remember many years ago, my grandmother had this funky looking tape player that played books on cassette.  She would get tapes in the mail, and when she was finished listening to them, she would send them back.  A few days later, more tapes would come.  Many years later, when I started working at the Library, I realized that she must have been signed up for service with what is now called GLASS–the Georgia Library for Accessible Services.  A lot of patrons I talk to have never heard of GLASS and the wonderful (and free!) materials and services they provide, so I’d like to share a few of them with you.

GLASS works with Georgia’s Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and local libraries across the state to provide access to a free national library program from the National Library Service for the Blind & Physically Handicapped (NLS) to eligible persons with a visual or physical disability.  All materials and the playback equipment  are mailed to borrowers and are postage-free to return.  Available materials include books and magazines in Braille and on audio. 

According to Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS), service is available to:

An application for service is available here.  A certifying authority needs to sign the application; this person can be a doctor, nurse, therapist, social worker, or a professional librarian in some situations.

For more information on available materials and links to the online catalog, please visit the Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS) web page.  You may also contact GLASS directly at 404-756-4619 or by email at glass@georgialibraries.org. 

For homebound patrons who are able to read printed material but are unable to visit the Library, DeKalb County Public Library offers a service called Mailbox Books.   This service is provided free of charge to patrons who are unable to visit the library.  Patrons requesting this service must fill out and submit an application certifying that they are homebound.  To apply, call the Mailbox Books Librarian at 404-370-3070 x2280.

If you, like me, feel that time in your car is basically time wasted, you will be interested to hear that the library carries college level courses on audio CD.  DeKalb County Public Library carries two series, the Modern Scholar series and the Great Courses series.  Both series employ the talents of well-respected college professors to teach subjects like music, art, history, religion, and science.  The ones I have listened to have been very interesting and only one or two that I’ve come across sound like that dry, boring history teacher we all had at some point in our school career.  There are two series:

Modern Scholar

Great Courses

Check ‘em out!

Like many Metro Atlanta residents, I am a commuter.  My drive from home to work and back totals about an hour and a half, and that’s on good days.  This long commute, while it takes away from time I could be spending with my family, has allowed me the opportunity to explore some books that I probably wouldn’t take the time to read if I weren’t able to listen to them.  I found the Harry Potter series this way and made my way through the compendious Lord of the Rings trilogy (unabridged).  Some people consider this “cheating” somehow, but I tend to see it as enjoying the lost art of good storytelling, and getting to enjoy books I otherwise wouldn’t get a chance to read.

My interest was piqued when I first heard of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell a couple of years ago.  As I browsed our audio book section recently, I came across a copy on CD and checked it out.  At 26 discs, I knew this would be a big time commitment, but what more do I have to do when I’m edging up I-285?  The story, like the Lord of the Rings, is paced and very descriptive, of people, places, and histories.  Susanna Clarke’s prose and subject matter is reminiscent of Jane Austen’s dry wit and focus on English upper class concerns.

Clarke’s early-nineteenth-century England has a long history of magic.  “Theoretical” magicians, or scholars of English magic, read and discuss and form societies of magicians.  But magic left England hundreds of years before with the departure of the renowned but mysterious Raven King.  Soon, a society of Yorkshire magicians discover that Mr. Norrell, a reclusive and fussy old bachelor in Yorkshire, possesses an extraordinary library of important books of magic, and the magicians bargain away their right to study magic to see an example of Mr. Norrell’s practical magic.  Mr. Norrell’s astonishing demonstration begins the return of English magic, and soon, Mr. Norrell and his charming and adventurous pupil Jonathan Strange are known around the country as the only practicing magicians in England.  They embark, together and then separately, to bring about the return of magic to England, and do so in fascinating and world-changing ways.

Simon Prebble’s reading is superb as he narrates the very long tale and subtly adds dimension to the story’s characters in his voicing of them.  He also adds interest to the copious footnotes throughout the story, that I’m sure I would have glossed over if I were reading the print edition of the book.  Overall, this compelling and mesmerizing tale is very much worth the time commitment involved.