How Often are Librivox Books Listened To?

[TedL]

Yes, I did think that the Librivox.org website, the collection at IA, and the YouTube channel were Librivox efforts. Here's the text from the "About" page at the YouTube Channel:


About
Welcome to the official LibriVox YouTube channel!

LibriVox Audiobooks gives you YouTube's best library of complete audio books of works that has entered the public domain.

LibriVox objective is :
"To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet".
For more information please visit https://librivox.org/pages/about-librivox/.

All audio books has chapter selection in the video description for easier resume of listening. All books are categorized into playlists by the books author and its genres. Please browse around to find the books you enjoy and don't forget to subscribe to get a notification when new audio books becomes available.

If you want to support the channel please visit LibriVox (https://librivox.org/) that is the source of all the audio books published in the public domain. To donate to LibriVox, please visit https://librivox.org/pages/donate-to-librivox/.
Links
LibriVox Homepage

So you're saying they have no connection to the Librivox organization?

[ej400]

You're not wrong about "our" mission, but maybe it depends on how you look at this. Librivox already gets some 600 volunteers a year. I've looked at our forums and info for volunteers, and it doesn't seem to me that Librivox focuses on trying to recruit volunteers with the skills and inclination to work on databases and programming and website development. I think that like most other organizations, we could have departments that specialize in issues like this. That would take this burden off the people who want to focus on audiobook production.

And as I've said before, I think most readers would appreciate knowing that Librivox management is doing all it can to ensure that their books are being put in front of as many readers as possible, for years after they are published. Speaking as a reader, that matters to me.

I appreciate and value your consideration here, Ted. You've provided some key points, and this conversation has been something I've looked forward to reading into.

Personally, I appreciate what the admins do already. I'm thankful for how supportive and open they are, and for the work they do. Someone has to be dedicated to it, and that itself is more than just respectable. The guidance they've provided and the "let's work together" mindset keeps me going here. Now, speaking on creating departments regarding specializations in recruitment for programmers, that sounds like something a company, or organization as you said, would do. This is a free public domain audiobook, on your free time volunteer-based community. I feel that what's being suggested requires a change of approach, and I think, once again differing from the point of LV: to create FREE audiobooks, read by volunteers. Yes, we need the back server to be maintained, but I feel it already is perfectly well maintained. We could be infringing upon that golden rule if LV looks towards programming and website dev etc. Obviously, it would need to be a volunteer to program and do these extra steps here, and LV is focused on those audiobooks, rather than this. Secondly, they would definitely be needing to speak with administrative staff towards understanding clearly what the LV mission is. But again, my question is, how necessary would all this be? I believe the saying is "if it's broke, don't fix it." This applies to myself when I'm not expecting my recordings to reach the top charts of audiobook network, and whenever I'll search for a specific audiobook to listen to, the librivox.org search bar hasn't failed me. I can check the genre's as well, and without fail, find what I'm looking for. Creating better keywords, I'll admit, is something I think BC's could become a little better with, and possibly, we adapt a system for that, but I'm creating an opinion myself here that says this is working, and unfortunately the keywords may just be one of those things that happen, like rainy days. We can't fix the weather systems, but we could try build ourselves a small shelter

So you're saying they have no connection to the Librivox organization?

The YouTube isn't LV created. It's ran by a single user from LV, BengtW.

FWIW
Elijah

[TriciaG]

it doesn't seem to me that Librivox focuses on trying to recruit volunteers with the skills and inclination to work on databases and programming and website development. I think that like most other organizations, we could have departments that specialize in issues like this. That would take this burden off the people who want to focus on audiobook production.

Again, everyone is a volunteer, and our "organization" is about as loosely-knit as it can be and still be considered "organized". If some of those volunteers want to form a "department" for recruiting, they can! If someone wants to head up a tech development team, they can - as long as they know what they're doing and understand our messy volunteer system around here. We've got one guy (volunteer, with a young child or two and a full-time job) that approves and integrates new coding, so please don't overwhelm him with code changes.

[TheBanjo]

our "organization" is about as loosely-knit as it can be and still be considered "organized".

Ha! Brillliant!

We've got one guy (volunteer, with a young child or two and a full-time job) that approves and integrates new coding, so please don't overwhelm him with code changes.

Important to know this. It's a significant — indeed, probably determinative — constraint.

If I was in this shoes of this "one guy", I reckon the last thing I'd be wanting would be having to co-ordinate with, or babysit, other volunteers playing around in the system at the same time. That could get awfully messy awfully fast without very good change control measures in place AND a guarantee that any additional developers would understand how to follow such change control procedures.

This thread began under the heading "How often are Librivox books listened to?" and quickly morphed into a proposal manually to provide better key phrases for the audiobooks catalog at librivox.org in the hope that this might allow Librivox audiobooks not often accessed to find a wider audience. We now know, however, that Internet Archive, where are audiobooks are hosted, provides both high quality key phrasing of our audiobooks, based directly on Library of Congress categorisations, and also provides excellent facilties for searching for Librivox audiobooks using thse key phrases. In short, there is already a perfectly viable solution in place for the "problem" that this thread originally proposed needed to be solved. That solution just happens to be available at the site where our audiobooks are hosted, rather than at the site that is our home for production purposes. I see little point in replicating the invention of this particular wheel at librivox.org.

[TriciaG]

I was under the impression that Archive may LOC-term its own uploads, but it doesn't mess with those uploaded by others. I got that from that response Ted got from IA, talking about their keywords.

[TheBanjo]

I was under the impression that Archive may LOC-term its own uploads, but it doesn't mess with those uploaded by others. I got that from that response Ted got from IA, talking about their keywords.

Oh, you’re quite right! Significant mistake on my part! Ooops!

[TedL]

I was under the impression that Archive may LOC-term its own uploads, but it doesn't mess with those uploaded by others. I got that from that response Ted got from IA, talking about their keywords.

Thanks. Yes. Have a look at their two collections. Books to Borrow has the LoC keywords, (with links, which we haven't discussed much), although often not for their oldest books. Their Librivox collection has nothing other than what Librivox gave them.

Now that I think of it, if IA is using LOC records to automatically fill in keywords, then the fact that their older books often don't have keywords could mean that's true of books at LOC as well.

And by the way ... I now have some reason to believe that the traffic report on IA's Librivox "About" page may be completely wrong; i.e. way too high. I asked them this morning to verify that it was correct, but there has been no response and no change yet. So I'm guessing we won't get confirmation until next week.

[TedL]

As we struggle with ways to add standardized search terms to the Librivox collection, here's an easily-implemented idea I think would help. Please try the instructions and give feedback.

On the Librivox front page (https://librivox.org/) put "Subject Search Help", with a link to a new page your site manager would make, also named "Subject Search Help".

Copy these instructions to the page:

Go to Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection [put this link under it: https://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio?tab=collection&sort=-date]

1. In the Search field above the first row of books, type or paste: "collection:(librivoxaudio) AND"

2. After "AND", add a space and then your search term or search phrase. Put quotation marks at the beginning and end of it (a one-word term or short phrase gets more results).
For example: collection:(librivoxaudio) AND "humorous stories"

3. Under the search line are the choices, "Search metadata" and "Search text contents". Try both.

4. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try.

[TheBanjo]

Please try the instructions and give feedback.

On the Librivox front page (https://librivox.org/) put "Subject Search Help", with a link to a new page your site manager would make, also named "Subject Search Help".

Copy these instructions to the page:

Go to Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection [put this link under it: https://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio?tab=collection&sort=-date]

1. In the Search field above the first row of books, type or paste: "collection:(librivoxaudio) AND"

2. After "AND", add a space and then your search term or search phrase. Put quotation marks at the beginning and end of it (a one-word term or short phrase gets more results).
For example: collection:(librivoxaudio) AND "humorous stories"

3. Under the search line are the choices, "Search metadata" and "Search text contents". Try both.

4. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try.

Tried this just now.

I think your basic idea is a good one, and should be (relatively) easy to implement.

I wonder if the instruction at step 1 is redundant. Any search conducted at the page you've directed users to will be a search only of the librivoxaudio collection. I found I could skip this step and just enter "humorous stories", as in your example. (I think it's a good example to use, too, by the way.)

Two other points.

First, your first real instruction here begins "Go to the Internet Archive...". As that is an instruction, it should be numbered.

Second, I'd make the words "Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection" hyperlinked (to the destination you've shown). There's no need to show the actual URL on the page. That just creates extra clutter. And then write the hyperlink so that it opens another browser tab, leaving the tab with your instructions still open.

[TedL]

Please try the instructions and give feedback.

On the Librivox front page (https://librivox.org/) put "Subject Search Help", with a link to a new page your site manager would make, also named "Subject Search Help".

Copy these instructions to the page:

Go to Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection [put this link under it: https://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio?tab=collection&sort=-date]

1. In the Search field above the first row of books, type or paste: "collection:(librivoxaudio) AND"

2. After "AND", add a space and then your search term or search phrase. Put quotation marks at the beginning and end of it (a one-word term or short phrase gets more results).
For example: collection:(librivoxaudio) AND "humorous stories"

3. Under the search line are the choices, "Search metadata" and "Search text contents". Try both.

4. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try.

Tried this just now.

I think your basic idea is a good one, and should be (relatively) easy to implement.

I wonder if the instruction at step 1 is redundant. Any search conducted at the page you've directed users to will be a search only of the librivoxaudio collection. I found I could skip this step and just enter "humorous stories", as in your example. (I think it's a good example to use, too, by the way.)

Two other points.

First, your first real instruction here begins "Go to the Internet Archive...". As that is an instruction, it should be numbered.

Second, I'd make the words "Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection" hyperlinked (to the destination you've shown). There's no need to show the actual URL on the page. That just creates extra clutter. And then write the hyperlink so that it opens another browser tab, leaving the tab with your instructions still open.

This is bizarre. Every time I have tried a search in the librivox collection, it searched the entire 4 million book collection and gave hundreds or thousands of results. Adding "collection:(librivoxaudio) AND" fixed that. But now, like you, when I do a search in that field, I get results only from the Librivox collection. How did it change? Yes, I agree that adding this now is redundant.

I'm fine with numbering "Go to the Internet Archive".

Making ""Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection" hyperlinked is what I intended, so Ok. And yes to the 2nd tab.

[redrun]

This post is regarding code changes, in general. Next post will be about that most recent proposal of a page with a set of instructions on it. That is at least a bit more easily done.

Armed with this spreadsheet, I imagine it would be relatively simple for Librivox programmers to...

Congratulations, you've just signed up! You're probably at least as qualified as me, welcome to the department!

Honestly, though: we may not have a Department of Proof Listening, but we at least have some instructions in a wiki, and a set of expectations from the community.
I can't write instructions for programming (can only do a little myself), and what I know is that folks expect things to keep working above all else, and I respect that.

I came up with a "relatively simple" code suggestion myself more than a year ago, and am still not to the point where I'd actually propose that change in the repository. It could at best result in a small improvement for a small number of people, and I've found I could help a little more by testing the few other code changes we get as they come in, or figuring out just what some of the wish-list items should look like if a qualified programmer picked them up.

Any sizeable change should be tested by more than just a few people. I'd love to have our neglected staging server up and going, but until then, even testing involves starting up a development environment yourself! But even with a staging server, having other folks test is one more demand on their time, so it has to be done sparingly. I also can't guarantee that any code, no matter how much work is put into it, will be what exactly what we want even if it is ever properly tested.



So no, I'm not recruiting a Department of Tech Development. I wouldn't hire someone to work under those conditions, I couldn't in good conscience ask someone to volunteer their time on this.

For anyone who reads this and says, "great, how to I get started?":
A) What is wrong with you?
B) I'll see you on GitHub. No, I don't know what's wrong with me either.
C) Start with a dev environment in a virtual machine, take snapshots and play around to break things and see how they work. It's easier to revert than it is to set things up in the first place. Ask clarifying questions before you work on wish-list items, because hearing "we don't know" will prove that you should ask even more basic questions.
D) If you don't know how to set up a virtual machine with Ubuntu, but you are bound and determined, I can point you to an article that is completely different from the way I do it now, but is probably easier for a first-timer.

[redrun]

For that instruction page: Something like this, then?

1. Go to Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection

2. In the Search box, enter your search term or search phrase. To search for the words in a phrase in order, enclose it in quotation marks.
For example: "humorous stories"

3. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try.

(( Metadata includes the description, LibriVox audio books don't have text contents to search, so I left out that step. ))


Actually, rather than a separate page linked from the front page, this might be better as just a link or two on our Advanced Search page.
People who have not found what they want with Google or with a simple search (edit: updated link to demonstrate), will be using the advanced search. Anyone failing to find what they were looking for there, will not be looking at the home page.

Perhaps:

Can't find what you're looking for? Click here to search our catalog using Internet Archive's more advanced search, sort and filter options.

Not sure if Archive have a better instruction page themselves somewhere, but most folks are going to click the first link and totally ignore the second.


Since the advanced search page is not one of the Wordpress parts of the site, making this change will involve a Pull Request against the relevant file on GitHub.

But since there's no actual logic code, no changes that affect the rest of the site, and not much to worry about as far as "will this show up properly for everyone else", someone could propose it without setting up the whole development environment I mentioned. I'd just say: please at least test it at least with your browser's dev tools, and make sure it looks OK. We do have some existing CSS classes you could apply to the HTML elements you add, if they don't look right by default. I'll be spending more of my time to check it out, before we ask our volunteer sysadmin to apply it when he gets time, so just be considerate.

(And in case it wasn't abundantly clear, we do not have a site manager. )

[TedL]

For that instruction page: Something like this, then?

1. Go to Internet Archive Librivox Free Audiobook Collection

2. In the Search box, enter your search term or search phrase. To search for the words in a phrase in order, enclose it in quotation marks.
For example: "humorous stories"

3. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try.

(( Metadata includes the description, LibriVox audio books don't have text contents to search, so I left out that step. ))


Actually, rather than a separate page linked from the front page, this might be better as just a link or two on our Advanced Search page.
People who have not found what they want with Google or with a simple search, will be using the advanced search. Anyone failing to find what they were looking for there, will not be looking at the home page.

Perhaps:

Can't find what you're looking for? Click here to search our catalog using Internet Archive's more advanced search, sort and filter options.

Not sure if Archive have a better instruction page themselves somewhere, but most folks are going to click the first link and totally ignore the second.


Since the advanced search page is not one of the Wordpress parts of the site, making this change will involve a Pull Request against the relevant file on GitHub.

But since there's no actual logic code, no changes that affect the rest of the site, and not much to worry about as far as "will this show up properly for everyone else", someone could propose it without setting up the whole development environment I mentioned. I'd just say: please at least test it at least with your browser's dev tools, and make sure it looks OK. We do have some existing CSS classes you could apply to the HTML, if it doesn't look right by default. I'll be spending more of my time to check it out, before we ask our volunteer sysadmin to apply it when he gets time, so just be considerate.

I agree with 1, 2, 3.

What happened to "5. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try."?

Regarding Metasearch; I'm not sure what exactly is being searched, but you get different results with "Search Metadata" and "Search Text Contents". Search results even look different, with a portion of the summary showing up in "Search text contents".

You lost me on most of the rest of your post. That's OK - I'm no developer, as I'm sure you know.

I would not put this on the "Advanced Search" page. Most users won't go to anything called "advanced search", and this definitely doesn't qualify as "advanced" anything. I'd put it right up front on the front page. Then track, through Search Console, how many people visit the directions and use them. If it doesn't get a lot of traffic, I will be surprised.

Internet Archive's advanced search page in my opinion is fairly discouraging. It needs an overhaul.

My suggested text isn't aimed at search pros. Its aimed at average people who just want to find an audiobook, and don't have a lot of search skills. I'm trying to keep it elementary.

[redrun]

What happened to "5. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try."?

That became number 3. You started with 5 and removed one as redundant; I removed another for the reason I gave, and that left us with 3.

I'm not sure most users are going to click for help with searching before they actually try a search, or even before trying an "advanced" search. When they don't find something simply by its title or author, that's the time to offer them more options.
I've also explained we don't have anyone tracking anything, and I'm not interested in doing so, myself.

I do agree that the page I linked isn't particularly helpful, whether to pros or beginners. If we were going to add a page of instructions for using their search, though... I suppose I'd want to have some of the more advanced stuff on it.


Now, I know you're not a web developer, but neither am I, I just play one on LV! (Shameless wordplay intended.)

Point being, some folks have expertise and get paid to take a set of "simple instructions for your web manager", and turn it into exactly the thing that the client actually wants.
I don't (have expertise, or get paid), and I may be the closest thing we have to that at the moment. I'm volunteering my time to argue with you about what a "better" search experience looks like, and what instructions to put on it, and then I have to actually go and figure out all that developer stuff, if I want that badly to make it happen.
This isn't to tell you that you shouldn't suggest changes, just that they are not near so simple for the people you are asking them of, as you seem to think.

[TedL]

What happened to "5. In the search results, you can open some books to get ideas for other relevant search terms to try."?

That became number 3. You started with 5 and removed one as redundant; I removed another for the reason I gave, and that left us with 3.

I'm not sure most users are going to click for help with searching before they actually try a search, or even before trying an "advanced" search. When they don't find something simply by its title or author, that's the time to offer them more options.
I've also explained we don't have anyone tracking anything, and I'm not interested in doing so, myself.

I do agree that the page I linked isn't particularly helpful, whether to pros or beginners. If we were going to add a page of instructions for using their search, though... I suppose I'd want to have some of the more advanced stuff on it.


Now, I know you're not a web developer, but neither am I, I just play one on LV! (Shameless wordplay intended.)

Point being, some folks have expertise and get paid to take a set of "simple instructions for your web manager", and turn it into exactly the thing that the client actually wants.
I don't (have expertise, or get paid), and I may be the closest thing we have to that at the moment. I'm volunteering my time to argue with you about what a "better" search experience looks like, and what instructions to put on it, and then I have to actually go and figure out all that developer stuff, if I want that badly to make it happen.
This isn't to tell you that you shouldn't suggest changes, just that they are not near so simple for the people you are asking them of, as you seem to think.

You're right about the #3 - I don't know how I missed it. Sorry.

This morning I put these instructions for searching for Librivox audiobooks onto my own Wordpress site. It was easy. It takes no coding whatsoever. I really don't know why it would not be just as easy to add them to the Librivox Wordpress site.