I’m familiar with NetLibrary and Overdrive simply by working in a library. I’m so use to going to those resources that I forget about Project Gutenberg. NetLibrary and Overdrive are great but there are little quirks that can drive me nuts. I know iTunes runs their brand like it is their own person fiefdom, but why can we have some compatibility between the software. The iPod is the dominant format. We are losing a large segment of the patrons due to the fact they don’t have mp3 players. Who wants to sit at the computer for 8 hours and listen to a book?
The audio titles on Project Gutenberg on the other hand offer a download for the iTunes format. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet so I don’t know if it’s legit. Project Gutenberg is great for those students who waited to the last minute to finish their reading assignments and realized all of the copies are checkout. There might not be contemporary items in the database, but young adults are more accustom to reading material off a computer then older patrons.
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As the author of Aldo on Audiobooks, I get a lot of questions from people about the issue of downloadable audiobook formats that are compatible with the iPod. So many, indeed, that it is a FAQ.
My recommendation is always the same: CDs are compatible with virtually any listening device that people are likely to have: iPods, other MP3 players, and even old-fasioned stereos and boom boxes. So provide feedback, nicely, to your library that you think taxpayer dollars should be spent on audiobooks in a format that more people can enjoy, i.e., books on CD, rather than experiments with incompatible DRM-wrapped downloads.
Downloadable versions have the possibility of being a lot more convenient, but for now, the library-loan-style versions of downloadable formats are not really ready for prime time. Unless you are willing to pay, for versions from Audible.com or the iTunes Store, they're just too hard to make work for the majority of the listeners out there.
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