Librivox, My Public Library, and Walking Trails

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andrewVI
Posts: 8
Joined: May 24th, 2016, 7:51 am

Post by andrewVI »

Hey folks,

I work in a public library, and I started on a project in about January of this year. The project matched audio stories to a few walking trails and nature center trail in my community. You take the length of the trail, take average walking speed, and match that to the length of the trail. Then you find as many stories get as close as possible to that length (I tried to keep my over/under at two minutes).

I just wanted to give a very sincere thank you to all the readers and volunteers, particularly those who have worked on the collection series. Because of your hard work, I've been able to organize four main trails around my community to have matching audio-stories for mystery, sci fi, ghost/horror, poetry, and a short story grab bag - with new stories updated weekly for six weeks.

Librivox and Gutenberg have been on our libraries website for a while, and I always recommend Librivox to our patrons that are looking for more digital content.

Anyway, I happy with the results of this ongoing project, and I wanted to let others know about it. If you are a librarian, consider taking a look at walking trails in your area to see if they might match enough story lengths from Librivox to make a program around it. Or if you are looking to convince your local library to initiate a project like this, let me know, and maybe I can help out your librarians that might have any questions. :)
Peter Why
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Joined: November 24th, 2005, 3:54 am
Location: Chigwell (North-East London, U.K.)

Post by Peter Why »

Andrew, do you have an online link to your collection of walks and stories? It would be interesting for us to see.

Peter
"I think, therefore I am, I think." Solomon Cohen, in Terry Pratchett's Dodger
andrewVI
Posts: 8
Joined: May 24th, 2016, 7:51 am

Post by andrewVI »

I sure do, thanks for asking! It's in week 2 right now, and I'll be putting up the full list for all the weeks once it's finished (just so it's easier for our patrons to navigate).

http://www.effinghamlibrary.org/books-for-walking/
lezer
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Joined: July 28th, 2007, 3:27 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by lezer »

Hi Andrew,
What a good thing to do! It looks like a fun & worthwhile project. Congratulations, and thanks for sharing this here.
Anna
JenniferFour
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Joined: December 11th, 2015, 5:04 pm
Location: New Mexico, USA

Post by JenniferFour »

What a clever idea! Love it!
Critical feedback is ALWAYS welcome - in the forum or via PM
kayray
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Location: Union City, California
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Post by kayray »

I love this idea so much! :clap:
Kara
http://kayray.org/
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"Mary wished to say something very sensible into her Zoom H2 Handy Recorder, but knew not how." -- Jane Austen (& Kara)
knotyouraveragejo
LibriVox Admin Team
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Joined: November 18th, 2006, 4:37 pm

Post by knotyouraveragejo »

I agree, a great idea!

If you ever want to expand your offerings to include some nonfiction, we have a lot of interesting selections to choose from. In particular, I would recommend chapters from some of the nature books by Muir, Burroughs and others. There are also a number of other books specifically describing birds, insects, plants or animals in the catalog as well.

Or perhaps this essay by Thoreau - https://librivox.org/walking-by-henry-david-thoreau/

And then there are the nonfiction and coffee break collections...with all sorts of interesting tidbits. :)
Jo
andrewVI
Posts: 8
Joined: May 24th, 2016, 7:51 am

Post by andrewVI »

The books describing flora and fauna might just be the ticket for at our nature center. Thanks, Jo, nonfiction hadn't even crossed my mind, and it does give me the idea for project expansion - I think I might try partnering with my community's historical society to produce a local history podcasts that match trail lengths as well.

:hmm: You've started the creative gears to clink around a little, thanks! :)
Sue Anderson
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Joined: July 24th, 2008, 11:48 am
Location: Midwest, USA

Post by Sue Anderson »

A marvelous idea! :D
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