AUDIOBOOKS
My own personal experiences with audiobooks can be put into
four separate categories: enjoyment, necessity, a solo road trip, and pure
torture. My first experiences of audiobooks were pure delights. Of Gremlins movie tie-in books
that Hardee’s gave out during the movie’s first run. (The audio for these can
be found on YouTube.) Many years later in high school, I had procrastinated in
reading The Old Man and the Sea until
the last day, so I went to the library and got the abridged audiobook. I
probably would have done better on the essay test had I not listened to the
audiobook. Jumping ahead several more years, I drove out of state to attend
training for work and brought along a David Sedaris book-on-CD narrated by the
author and his sister, Amy. I had already read the book, so it was a nice
companion for the trip. However, one thing eventually made me vow to never
listen to an audiobook in a car again - my mom. She insisted that she only had
about five more minutes left before it was over. It was 45+ minutes of wanting
to jump out of the car while some flowery-speaking woman talked on and on. Just
torture.
course, I’m talking about the read-along storybooks that came with a small, narrated record that chimed when it was time to turn the page. My favorite audiobook series has to be the
course, I’m talking about the read-along storybooks that came with a small, narrated record that chimed when it was time to turn the page. My favorite audiobook series has to be the
After our class readings, I noticed that my experiences lean
strongly into the appeal factors of audiobooks. For instance, in the Gremlins series, the narration set the
tone of the movie, which was at times light-hearted and other times dark. Light
background music and different voices for speaking characters also added to the
effect. With the David Sedaris audiobook, no one else but the author could
narrate his works because his writings are a deep reflection of his
personality. His tone and pacing are just natural. Plus, Amy Sedaris is a
master of different characters, and they play well off each other. Now The Old Man and the Sea had no appeal
factors for me. First of all, the story was not something I was interested in,
but the story moved so slowly as the narrator read in an over-serious way.
Maybe some splashing of water or shark noises in the background would have
helped. That experience along with my mom’s selection shows that the major
appeal factors of print books are still at the heart of audiobook appeal
factors. Two of the four I mentioned had an interest for me to begin with while
the other two probably would not have appealed to me with any narrator or
effects.
EBOOKS
I once was helping a woman at the circulation desk find some
titles that she had to read for her evening class. We were able to find most of
them while others she would have to wait for. I did a quick search in our
Overdrive catalog to see if there were any overlaps. When I suggested to her
that some of her titles were available there, she recoiled in disgust. She told
me that she liked the feel of the book as she lifted one up and down. She loved
the smell of books as she opened one up a waved her hand between the pages and
her nose as if she was smelling the aroma of pasta sauce. I really tried not to
laugh, but it was very mellow dramatic. EBooks had absolutely no appeal factor
to her and her tactile affection for a physical relationship with books.
I, on the other hand, prefer to read eBooks. I use the
Kindle app on my iPad, and many of its features appeal to me. My most favorite
is that it detects the reader’s reading speed and gives them an estimate of how
many minutes are left in a chapter or with a tap how much time is left for the
entire books. That’s great when you tell yourself that you’re going to get in
one more chapter when you should be going to bed. “It’s only a five-minute
chapter.” The app also allows the reader to highlight passages and make notes
for easy retrieval. Sometimes I’ll mark character introductions because I
sometimes forget who people are. Even if I didn’t, I can search for terms to go
back to something I missed. Highlighting lets you look up definitions to words
as well as bringing up possible Wikipedia pages for quick reference. Pages can
also be bookmarked so you can go back to something you felt was important. I
was once told by a patron that they didn’t like eBooks because they couldn’t
read the font, but readers can change the font and its size. They even
developed a font with dyslexic readers in mind to make reading easier. The only
physical books I purchase are ones that are of interest to me (certain authors,
series, etc.) as well as collectible (anything on my favorite TV shows, movies,
and collections.) There is room in my world for both physical and electronic
books.
Chase, this is a fantastic blog entry! I understand when you write that, "the major appeal factors of print books are still at the heart of audiobook appeal factors" because as a rare user of ebooks and audio books, I find that comforting, and it seems logical, as in, "I guess I knew that". But your section on ebooks and the many ways you can make the technology work for the user opened my eyes to even more advantages than the obvious font size options. It hs ever occurred to me to use those books to mark an ebook the way I'd use a traditional book, with underlining and sticky notes. You did a great job summarizes the benefits of ebooks that I was stubborn to ignore and fail to explore.
ReplyDelete