Input please

scrappylibrarian · February 9th, 2006, 10:29 am

Hello,

I've been a fan and now think I have a way to participate but want your input/ideas/comments before I proceed.

I work in a school library, and we offer digital audiobooks (ipod shuffles, they work for us). I've been happy to be able to utilize some of your recordings for this purpose- thanks! But I'd also like to contribute, and I also have some books (out of copyright of course) that I'd like to speed up and/or start.

What I am working through in my head is buying a portable mp3 recorder, and recruiting students to read the books a chapter at a time.

Several things I'd like to solicit comment on:
- I don't really want to take on editing these recordings myself, due to time contraints. I see there's been recent talk about having people edit who maybe aren't reading - could this be a project for that?
- mp3 player - I've seen several comments on these on these boards - iriver and the sony hi-md are getting some recommendations - any other input in this regard would be fantastic.

Just any other thoughts in general that people have about a project like this would be welcome. I have read through quite a bit of these boards and so am aware of a lot of issues - but there are several schools that I know of in which students are doing audio recordings of books (though not legally), and we have quite a few super-kids here - so I think this will be great if I can work everything out.

Thanks

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » February 9th, 2006, 10:46 am

scrappylibrarian wrote: I work in a school library, and we offer digital audiobooks (ipod shuffles, they work for us). I've been happy to be able to utilize some of your recordings for this purpose- thanks! But I'd also like to contribute, and I also have some books (out of copyright of course) that I'd like to speed up and/or start.

What I am working through in my head is buying a portable mp3 recorder, and recruiting students to read the books a chapter at a time.

Several things I'd like to solicit comment on:
- I don't really want to take on editing these recordings myself, due to time contraints. I see there's been recent talk about having people edit who maybe aren't reading - could this be a project for that?

Oh, soooo cool that you want to get your students involved! WHEEE!!!

Yes, I think that this would be a great project for Editors Wanted... I'm not sure how many people are really out there wanting to help with editing, so it might not be a super fast process (especially since it's all volunteer), but it's definitely worth a try.

I also think that as soon as we have schools involved with creating these audiobooks, we will have another newsworthy topic to publisize... very exciting indeed.

I'd be happy to work with you on your projects with your kids... I have some tips for recording that will help the editors too... so, when you're ready, just let us know. =)

~ Betsie

kri · Post by **kri** » February 9th, 2006, 11:27 am

This is great! This was just the thing that I was hoping someone would do!

I personally have a hard time editing my own recordings, so doing others would be nearly impossible. Although, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing if we had a few backed up unfinished/unedited recordings waiting for volunteers to help with. It would be better than not having them at all!

Sofie · Post by **Sofie** » February 10th, 2006, 1:15 pm

not sure how practical it would be in your case, but one option I'm using for my original writings is the audioblogging feature of blogger.com. You just call a phone number with the "log-in" information and it'll record you and upload it to the designated blog as an MP3 that can then be downloaded. Unfortunately (at least in my case) the phone number is long distance, so it might not be practical unless the kids are doing it on weekends and have access to phones with free/included long distance? just a thought before buying equipment. My husband's a teacher so I know how hard it can be to get funds sometimes.

Sofie