Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight")

I looked at the homepage for the Project Gutenberg and realised that I had known about this and forgotten it. It is a great initiative. It is interesting in the light of the tension for libraries to try to be a repository of literary works, as well as fulfill all of the other aims of libraries(all on a limited budget).

I was immediately aware that the audio books I saw listed seemed to all be male authors, except for Beatrix Potter. When I actually did a search the ebooks I found lots of Jane Austen, but still an enormous amount of male authors. I was interested to see the asian ebook project, as well things like the buddhist ebook group.

Talking books at the library are already very popular, I can see these continuing on in the same vein. It provides another option. The physical talking books aren't very sturdy, tapes break and MP3s and CDs get scratched. It may be an effective way to reduce the costs for libraries of keeping up with the spoilage rates.

I noticed Mark Twain's 'On the decay of the art of lying' and I am very interested to listen to that. I can't believe in the modern age with all of the spin doctoring that there is any danger of it dying out!!