If you’re at all like millions of other people in the United States, you may be gearing up for a weekend of travel. When I’m facing a long drive or hours navigating airports and long-term parking, I sometimes stop shuffling music or scanning radio stations and settle in for an audiobook. Here are a couple of options if you’re similarly inclined and looking for Thanksgiving weekend material:
Librivox, claiming the acoustical liberation of books in the public domain, provides free audiobooks. They have over one thousand completed titles, including works of classic literature, short stories, and poetry. You can listen online, subscribe to a podcast, or sign up to hear a chapter a day. Have some free time in the upcoming Thanksgiving break? Volunteer to read and record public domain books for Librivox.
If you’d rather mine the JHU Libraries, turn to the JHU Libraries Catalog. Choose “Nonmusical sound recordings” under Material Type on the advanced keyword search screen, as shown to the right. Or, browse a list of fiction sound recordings available, or see a more complete list including nonfiction. You’ll notice that for many in our collection, you’ll need a cassette player, so think about cultivating that old school charm in your upcoming road trip. Or, check out our smaller list of nonmusical compact discs. You can use the request feature in the catalog to request items from the Libraries Service Center, or read more about getting materials from our off-campus shelving facility.
hi elizabeth, thanks for the link! one little correction: librivox has more than one thousand titles (not one hundred).