Audio Collections: Remote Collections: Remote Audio Collections

Most people think of listening to music on the Internet, but there are many other kinds of remote audio materials. Explore digital audiobooks and other sound recordings.

• Digital Audiobooks
• Audio-Rich Electronic Books
• Digital Sound Recordings

Digital Audiobooks

Books-on-tape and CD have been popular for many years. Now it's possible to download books, magazines and other auditory materials directly onto your computer or hand-held device. If you use iTunes, you can purchase and download books through the store.

For audiobooks there are both free and fee-based services. One of the best known services for audiobooks, magazines, radio programs, podcasts, speeches and is Audible.com. Others are also listed below.

• Audible Books on Your iPod from O'Reilly MacDev Center
• Audiobooks for Free - Free and fee-based audio books
• Audio Books Online
• Audio Media Superstore
• Christian Classics - Public domain MP3 audio books
• Free Classic AudioBooks
• LibriVox - Volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net
• Learn Out Loud
• OverDrive
• Simply Audiobooks - Purchase and/or download a free audio book every month
• TellTale Weekly / Spoken Alexandria - Creative Commons audio books

Audio-Rich

In the same category as audiobooks are stories and other web-based materials containing audio narration. For example, you can find online picture books with accompanying audio. Many of these require the Flash plugin.

• Alphabet Action from Learning Planet - Audio and picture book
• Audio Books & Poetry from the Internet Archive - Listen to a favorite book or poem read aloud!
• Fable Radio - Real Audio stories (pictures books can be played at the same time); music and other programs too.
• Gutenberg: The Audio Books Project - Makes e-Books available for some of the same literature available in plain text.
  • Online Book Catalog at Project Gutenberg
• Interactive Activities from Scholastic - Check for others at website
  • Building Language for Literacy
  • Clifford Interactive Stories
• Moonlight Road - Ghost stories and strange folktales of the American South
• Mother Goose on the Web from Internet Public Library (IPL) KidsSpace
• Ollie's Jar by Carol Moore
• Robert Munsch's Books - MP3s
• Sesame Street Stories
• Storybooks (Flash) at Lil Fingers
• Storyplace from Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County - Mix of games and stories in English and Spanish
  

Read the off-site article: Peters, Tom, Bell, Lori, Sussman, Diana Brawley, and Ruda, Sharon (2005). An Overview of Digital Audio Books for Libraries(Access requires Login). Computers in Libraries; 25(7), 6-64. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Do you think people are using digital audiobooks rather than CDs? Why or why not? What are the advantages and disadvantage to this format?

Dr.J's Jags & Jabs
You may have once counted electronic / e-Books out as a significant technology. A few years back, people were predicting their death. E-Books have been on a roller-coaster ride lately; they've made a comeback. For more information, skim or read the following articles:

10 Biggest Challenges eBooks Face (Dec 2009).
With Amazon selling 48 e-Books for ever 100 physical books, one can envision a future where ebooks sell more than printed books. This article looks a different perspectives of e-Books.

Rich, Motoko (Oct 2009). Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending. New York Times

Toolen, Fran (Oct 2009). The Day It All Changed. Follow the Reader (Blogsite)
Followed by this response:
Johnson, Doug (Oct 2009). Library as Warehouse RIP. The Blue Skunk Blog

Larson, Lotta C. (2010). Digital Readers: The Next Chapter in E-Book Reading and Response (Access requires login). The Reading Teacher; 64(1), 15-22. Education Full Text, WilsonWeb

Digital

From bird songs to author interviews, the web contains a wide variety of sound recordings. Some materials can be found info audio collections. For example, some websites contain audio files on topics such as noises, movie trailers, or animal sounds.

Many of the audio files are not part of audio collections, but within content area websites. For example, the POTUS website from the Internet Public Library contains information on the US Presidents as well as audio and video clips.

Search Tools. Although you may be successful with traditional search engines, there are other tools designed specifically for locating audio materials. Listed are a few of these tools:

• Fagan Finder: Audio and Music Search Engines - Collection of Internet search tools
• FindSounds from Comparisonics Corporation
• MIDI Explorer - Search Engine
• Podscope - Search for audio and video podcasts according to the words spoken during them
  

Digital . Explore directories.

• Audio Archive from the Internet Archive
• Community Audio from the Internet Archive
• Freesound Project - Collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds
• Music and Audio from Google
• NPR’s Sound Library Directory
• Soundboard - Catalog of audio soundbites and an audio-sharing community
• Sound Transit - Search the database for specific sounds by member artists
• Speech Find: Sample Speeches from U.S. Presidents - Spoken document retrieval system from the Center for Robust Speech Systems, University of Texas at Dallas
• Spirituality & Religion from the Internet Archive
  

Digital Audio Clips. The following examples contain a wide variety of audio clips.

• Free Sound Effects - MP3 format from The Recordist
• Movie Sounds Page - Audio clips from favorite movies in WAV and MP3 formats
• Wav Central - wav format and other audio files
• Wav Source - wav format

Looking for free sound clips to use in a multimedia production. Want something that can be publicly shared? Visit the Freesound Project, a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. As CC says: Share, reuse, and remix - - Legally. Freesound contains only sound clips, not songs. This is what sets Freesound apart from other audio libraries like ccMixter. Read the What is Freesound page to learn more! Also find sound clips at:

Category Sound at Wikimedia Commons, a database of over a million media files (images, sound and video) to which anyone can contribute.

Explore the wav files above. Select one that might be useful in a document or presentation. Download the file and insert it into Microsoft Word or PowerPoint.

Digital Audio Collections

Many of the best resources are found in digital audio collections. Explore some examples below.

Historical & Interviews

• Sound Collections at the Library Of Congress
  • American Memory Sound Recording Collections
  • American Memory Collection Finder
  • Recorded Sound Reference Center
  • Voices from the Dust Bowl
• Audio Library at History Buff - Small collection of audio resources for historical events.
• Archival Sound Recordings at The British Library
• Goldband Records - Historical recordings
• Lost and Found Sounds from National Public Radio - Home recordings
• Museum of Musical Instruments
• Music History 102 from The Internet Public Library - RealAudio
• News & Public Affairs from the Internet Archive
• Pentagon Papers: Secrets Lies and Audiotapes (The Nixon Tapes and Supreme Court Tape) from the National Security Archive - RealAudio
• Save our Sounds - America's Recorded Sound Heritage Project
• Sound Portraits – Web-based, short audio documentaries and informational articles with audio.
• Swinging through Time: The Graystone Museum and the Story of Detroit Jazz from The Internet Public Library - Go to the listening room
• Voices of the Colorado Plateau - Multimedia museum featuring oral histories

Language

• Audio & Video from the Academy of American Poets
• World Languages (Scroll down through the "Garbage")
  • Foreign Languages for Travelers
  • Say Hello to the World from The Internet Public Library
• Rhetorical Figures in Sound at American Rhertoric
• Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University Libraries

Nature

• Animal Sounds
  • Animals of Kenya - RealAudio
  • Animal Recordings from The Macaulay Library
  • Animal Sounds Library from Sea World
  • Frog and Toad Photographs and Calls
  • Wildlife Sounds - British Library
• Birds
  • Birds – Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas – MP3 sounds
  • Links to Birdsong Sites
  • Macauley Archive of Animal Sounds and Video at Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Nature
  • Listening to Nature - Explore the natural sounds of California
  • Listen to Nature from The British Library
  • Nature Songs by Doug Von Gausig - Outstanding collection
  • NatureSound Studio by Lang Elliott
  • Sound Gallery from Telinga Microphones
  • Sound Safaris from Wild Sanctuary - wav files
• Animals Sounds Links Pages
  • Guide to Animal Sounds on the Net

Radio Archives

• Discover Utah Wildlife by Mark Hadley - Archive of the weekly radio show programs.
• OTR Sound Snippets from Old-Time Radio - Real audio
• Radio Programs at the Internet Archive
• Talking History from University at Albany, State University of New York
• Wiregrass Ways Radio Archives from South Georgia Folklife Collection

Science

• Are We Alone? Science Radio for Thinking Species from SETI Institute
• Listening Library from Texas Parks and Wildlife's Passport to Texas - Travel, nature, & history of Texas
• Science Friday Archives - Archives of the NPR program

Speeches and Interviews

• Meet the Writers from Barnes and Noble
• History and Politics Out Loud
• Online Media Collections - UC Berkeley (Lectures and events)
• Oral Histories - National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Masters at Smithsonian Institution
• Speeches from History Channel - Some with Real Audio
• Vincent Voice Library from Michigan State University Libraries - Spoken word recordings, dating back to 1888.

Select one of the audio collections. Evaluate the collection and presentation of the collection. Discuss who might be interested in this collection. How might it be used in an educational or entertainment setting? What would you do to make it more effective?

 

 

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