comment from a listener

Post by **hugh** » April 10th, 2006, 10:12 am

true i don't usually post the ones that say, "I can't download" or "the files were different volumes" etc... tho to be honest i don't get many of those. but anyway, here's another nice one:

Just wanted to say I LOVE your site and think it is a GREAT thing you guys are doing- As someone on a computer all day and a book enthusiast I no longer have to bring my audio books back and forth from the car to my office- I can listen all day to your books as I choose and RAVE about your site to all the avid readers I know-- Keep up the GREAT work and THANK YOU from me and many who enjoy the site!!!!!
Kelley B.

Aldark · Post by **Aldark** » April 10th, 2006, 10:46 am

Awesome.

Hugh I hope you pat yourself on the back a lot. You deserve it.

I was telling my brother about LibriVox and his wife gets "credit" towards employee awards when they voluteer for something that can be considered a "public service" so he's going to see if she thinks LibriVox would qualify.

Pretty neat look at it.

lonelynocturnal · Post by **lonelynocturnal** » April 10th, 2006, 3:37 pm

Hm; there's a thought. I have to get 140 hours of community service to graduate. Do you think Librivox would count?
Ah, but I don't know how I'd verify it.

Post by **hugh** » April 10th, 2006, 4:19 pm

problem: we don't have official status yet, so we don't exist in the eyes of the law, so we can't verify "legally" the volunteering someone might have done.

but if an email from a member of the LibriVox Executive Committee Verifying and Attesting to the Good Faith Completion of Service towards the Benefit of Humankind is wanted, well, I'm sure someone would sign it for you!

westwinds12 · Post by **westwinds12** » May 2nd, 2006, 2:17 pm

I don't know if you keep statistics on how many times a given piece
is downloaded - It might be interesting to understand your usage.

Anyway,
I listened to A Little Princess - read by Kara Shallenberg and enjoyed it very much..!!!

Your efforts are appreciated.
Thank you

kri · Post by **kri** » May 2nd, 2006, 3:24 pm

westwinds12 wrote:I don't know if you keep statistics on how many times a given piece
is downloaded - It might be interesting to understand your usage.

Anyway,
I listened to A Little Princess - read by Kara Shallenberg and enjoyed it very much..!!!

Your efforts are appreciated.
Thank you

The catalog page for each piece links to its Internet Archive page. The Internet Archive page says "Downloaded ## times". That's a rough gauge of the usage. Otherwise I don't think we have any data on that.

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » May 2nd, 2006, 3:39 pm

Actually, our Internet Archive "homepage" has some stats on the most downloaded items: http://www.archive.org/details/librivoxaudio

But to see how many times one specific project has been downloaded, just follow kri's instructions.

Stephan · Post by **Stephan** » May 2nd, 2006, 5:23 pm

Why is it, that Kara always get the special kudos?
(*ahem* Deserved, no question!!!)
But, you know, we could make you the maskot. Hehehe.

@ Westwind. Add to the archive.org downloads the BitTorrent transfers. - several hundrets for each book torrented. Some are in the thousands.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » May 2nd, 2006, 5:35 pm

Our number-one top download according to archive is Annie's Pride and Prejudice! That's soooo cool :)

kri · Post by **kri** » May 2nd, 2006, 6:54 pm

kayray wrote:Our number-one top download according to archive is Annie's Pride and Prejudice! That's soooo cool

Well, it is quite an awesome recording

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » May 2nd, 2006, 7:14 pm

kri wrote:
kayray wrote:Our number-one top download according to archive is Annie's Pride and Prejudice! That's soooo cool
Well, it is quite an awesome recording

Aww, shucks. I didn't make a big deal out of the new archive.org homepage before because I didn't want it to seem like I was bragging about being most downloaded but since the question came up I figured I'd point out the cool features on that page.

Hey Stephan, is there anyplace where we can see the most torrented files? I'm curious to see if the numbers are similar or if different things are more popular via bit torrent than via archive.org download.

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » May 2nd, 2006, 7:17 pm

Also, I think the "batting average" is probably a better reflection of popularity. I think Anne of Green Gables is right at the top of batting average but since it is pretty new it won't have as many downloads yet as the older projects.

I also suspect a lot of my P&P downloads are due to the fact that on my website I have a link to the zip file.

GordMackenzie · Post by **GordMackenzie** » May 3rd, 2006, 10:05 am

LibraryLady wrote:[

Hey Stephan, is there anyplace where we can see the most torrented files? I'm curious to see if the numbers are similar or if different things are more popular via bit torrent than via archive.org download.

I posted some stats in another thread from "the Pirate Bay" which is one of the most popular bit torrent sites.

http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2151

Here's an updated list:

Audiobook - Alices Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll [Libr 2243
Audiobook - Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson [Librivox] 2089
Audiobook - Treasure Island - Robert.Louis.Stevenson [Librivox] 1944
Audiobook Short - Aesops Fables 1-25 - Aesop [Librivox] 1725
Audiobook Short - Communist Manifesto - K.Marx F.Engels [Librivo 1553
Audiobook - Call of the Wild - Jack London [Librivox] 1522
Audiobook - Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky [Lib 1503
Audiobook - Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen [Librivox] 1322
Audiobook - The secret Agent - Joseph Conrad [Librivox] 1232
Audiobook - A mysteries Affair at Styles - Agatha Cristie [Libri 1014
Audiobook - A Journey to the Interior of the Earth - Jules Verne 999
Audiobook - A Cristmas Carol - Charles Dickens [Librivox] 910
Audiobook - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court - Mark Tw 874
Audiobook Short - Kommunistische Manifest - K.Marx F.Engels [Ger 840
AUDIOBOOK Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley [Libr 831
Audiobook - The Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad [Librivox] 812
Audiobook - The Road to Oz - Frank Baum [Librivox] 624
Audiobook - Die schwarze Galeere - Wilhelm Raabe [Librivox] 566
Audiobook - The Pilgrims Progress - John Bunyan [Librivox] 480
Audiobook - Psmith in the City - P.G.Wodehouse [Librivox] 392

Remember that these are the number of users that have downloaded the torrent in question ... there may be more than one torrent out in the wild for a given book (like with Treasure Island) and there may be torrents that are existing and active, but that are not listed here.

Also, just because someone downloaded the torrent doesn't mean that they kept the files...

(btw, I wouldn't trust the archive.org numbers... I think this only reflects people that navigate to their page... not those that download directly from the link... as the majority of users would do...)

Stephan · Post by **Stephan** » May 3rd, 2006, 3:11 pm

Thank you, Gord.
I will be so excited when i torrent "~my" War of the Worlds.

Very interesting:
I will do the group-read and rebeccas solo-read at the same date. One will be having just a 5 minute headstart. We will see a side by side comparison of what is more appreciated with this popular book.
Also i will put them in the newsfeed at the same time and we will see which one will get the most clicks.
Solo or Group-Read - what do people like. We?ll get an estimate.

(BTW, Psmith for instance has 2671 additional transfers on www.legaltorrents.com)

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » May 3rd, 2006, 7:37 pm

GordMackenzie wrote:(btw, I wouldn't trust the archive.org numbers... I think this only reflects people that navigate to their page... not those that download directly from the link... as the majority of users would do...)

Actually, I think it does count downloads and not just hits since the batting average is calculated by the number of actual downloads divided by the number of hits to the page.

Thanks for the torrent stats Gord and Stephan!