SJRLC Connections

New 20% Discount offer: Playaway Audiobooks

New 20% Discount offer: Playaway Audiobooks

Not an MP3 or CD player and not software, Playaway is the self-contained audio equivalent of a book.  Half the size of a deck of cards, Playaway is packaged with earphones and a standard AAA battery to allow for immediate listening. 

Using clearly marked buttons, Playaway gives listeners the option of placing digital bookmarks and controlling the speed of a narrator’s voice, all while easily moving both forward and back through audio book selections that can range from six to twenty-four hours. 

Click here for complete details.

Joining the Audiobooks Consortium

Would you like to join the Audiobooks Consortium?
(www.sjrlc.org/audiobooks)

The South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative Digital Audiobooks Download Center went live on January 30, 2006. In 2007 the project expanded, delivering service to eighteen libraries. 

Since inception, we have circulated over 12,500 audiobooks from a collection of more than 1300 general interest titles (1447 copies) that we have purchased, and our annual subscription to 75 “always available” titles. We continue to add new titles and copies the collection on a monthly basis.

We’d love to have you join us! We are approaching our annual opportunity for current participating libraries to re-up and for new libraries to join the Digital Audiobooks Consortium.

Important dates

• October 1, 2007: Deadline for Letter of Agreement
• November 15, 2007: Deadline for receipt of Annual Fees at SJRLC office

Getting the specifics

• Letter of agreement: www.sjrlc.org/audiobooks/agreement
• Details on participation: See Audiobooks FAQ at www.sjrlc.org/audiobooks/projectfaq
• To see the collection from the end-user’s perspective : Go to http://sjrlc.lib.overdrive.com

Questions?

Call or email Peter Bromberg at 856 346-1222 or bromberg@sjrlc.org 

Podcasting Workshop Resources

A big thank you to Bob Rynkiewicz, Atlantic City Free Public Library's Assistant Director, for delivering a wonderful tech talk on Podcasting yesterday.

Bob has graciously agreed to share his powerpoint slides, which are available here in pdf format.

Here are some other resources, some of which we discussed, others are drawn from my personal bookmarks:

Recommended Tutorials

• Lansing Public Library: http://www.lansing.lib.il.us/podcast.htm  (Bob Recommends)
• 23 Things: http://tinyurl.com/2kvxjs
• How to Podcast: http://tinyurl.com/2fa9gk
• Forever Geek: http://tinyurl.com/mn8ad
• Network 211: http://www.network211.com/podcasting/
• Podcast Free America: http://tinyurl.com/2z9wdq

File Hosting options

• Creative Commons: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CcPublisher
• Odeo Studio: http://studio.odeo.com (will allow you to create audio, host all ready created audio, create channels, and generate RSS feeds for you---You may want to start here…
• Delicious PlayTagger: http://del.icio.us/help/playtagger  (creates a little mp3 player for your page.)  Kind of like this:  (click the blue button to play)
  
  • Michael Stephens says hello

Recording Software

• Audacity: Don't forget to download the lame.dll which allows you to convert to mp3 format
• RecordForAll: A nice bit of shareware.  Try it for free, buy it if you like it.

And don't forget to check out ACFPL's Podcasting page.