Volunteer from Czechia

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Annacerv
Posts: 5
Joined: April 20th, 2016, 7:28 am
Location: Brno, Czech Republic

Post by Annacerv »

Hello fellow readers! I am Czech, I love to read and even more I love to read aloud. Strangely enough, my family doesn't appreciate this hobby of mine, so I am searching for another opportunity.

My favourite books are mostly from the 18th-19th century, and I came across LibriVox on youtube looking for Jane Austen, L. M. Alcott and F. H. Burnett.

If you have space for some Czech literature, I will be happy to help. Can you please advise how to pick a book (besides copyright of course), and how to begin?

Thank you for accepting me here!
Anna
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22429
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

Hi Anna and welcome!

We definitely have space for Czech books! Right now, the catalog has only two entries for your language: The declaration of human rights and a short poem, so any third entry would be very welcome!

Unfortunately, it is often hard to find good texts in non-English languages. Essentially, what we need is a publication date BEFORE 1923 - preferable seen in an online text of the book. Everything else may get tricky, so we like to stay on the safe side.

Usually, people go to these places to find books to read:
http://www.gutenberg.org This is where most of our books come from, and whatever they have we consider "safe" for us. They have a handful of books in Czech here: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/cs

Other than that,
https://archive.org/
https://books.google.com/
https://www.hathitrust.org/

are a good starting point, although finding something useful may be more time consuming.

Anyway, before starting a big reading, you should do your 1-minute test, and then maybe read a poem or short story (in any language you speak) just to get your feet wet and to see if you really like recording stuff.

Good luck - have fun on here! :D
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Annacerv
Posts: 5
Joined: April 20th, 2016, 7:28 am
Location: Brno, Czech Republic

Post by Annacerv »

Thank you, Ava!

I didn't know Hathi Trust, that looks very good. And they have lots of Czech on there.

A good source for Czech is otherwise the site of National Library of Prague. They publish e-books for free download that are definitely safe. But I will keep in mind to handle titles before 1923.

I am going through all the instructions for volunteers and it is not clear to me if I can start recording just anything I choose (after the test of course), or get involved in an English collaboration project first. If I start with recording a Czech piece, how should I announce/register it in the forum? I am no book coordinator yet :)
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22429
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

I'm glad Hathitrust is useful to you! As long as you remember the publication date and that we prefer a scan where it is obvious, you should be fine.

As for your first recording: If you choose to make a Czech contribution, it depends on length.

If it is a short poem or a story less than 1 hour in length, it can go here:
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=60601
Just make your recording as good as you can, upload and post all the details.

If in English, you have all the choice from any of our projects: Just pick one and post your claim. We also have pieces of plays in the "Dramatic Works" forum, which are usually very short and also newbie-friendly, if you're interested in acting.

In any case, something short is what I would recommend.


If, however, you choose to go completely overboard with a recording of War and Peace in Czech (which I would not recommend for newbies for obvious reasons :wink:) you will have to set up a solo for yourself. How to do this can be found in a post in the "Launch Pad". You should wait with coordinating a group project of any size until you have a bit more experience of how things run on here.

Clear as mud, I suppose? :wink:
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Piotrek81
Posts: 4684
Joined: November 3rd, 2011, 2:02 pm
Location: Goat City, Poland

Post by Piotrek81 »

Hello neighbour from down south :)

As Availle said, the first step is to record the test and then it's advisable to start small. One option would be to contribute to the Multilingual Short Works Collection that Availle mentioned. Another possibility is Multilingual Shakespeare Monologues Collection.
Also, once you've decided to contribute to a project, remember to read the first post in a thread. It will have lots of important info on how to claim a section, what to put at the beginning and at the end of the file, etc.

Have fun :)
Want to hear some PREPARATION TIPS before you press "record"? Listen to THIS and THIS
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