Week 11 Prompt
There is this semi-famous comedian on TikTok that does a bit
where he defends audiobooks. He says something to the effect of “From listening
to audiobooks, I know everything you (print readers) know, and I know for sure
how to pronounce the characters’ names”. I wish I could attribute this
properly, but I cannot find his video again.
The original appeal factors for print books are characterization,
frame, pacing, and storyline. These are also present in e-books and streaming
audiobooks. I have come to librarianship at a time, post-pandemic where e-books
and audiobooks are more popular than ever. I think e-book and streaming audiobook
formats add the additional appeal of presentation with the change in the medium,
but these formats may not be a perfect fit for every reader. I also want to
mention that audiobooks on tape and compact disk have long been available, so
this is not necessarily new.
There are a lot of positives to e-books and streaming
audiobooks, like those available from OverDrive/Libby and Hoopla. You do not
have to carry around a heavy book. You do not have to visit the library to
check one out. You can stream or download them on a device you already carry,
so no extra devices, like in the case of Playaways and books on tape. They
return on their own, so no late fines or fees ever. I have had this conversation
with many patrons over the years.
More recent audiobooks are more of a performance than just
basic reading. There are patrons that will check out an audiobook just for the narrator
who has been selected to read the book. Conversely, some audiobooks are avoided
because the soundtracks are not recorded well. How the narrator reads the book
contributes to the interpretation of the pace and tone based on the inflection
of the narrator’s voice and any included music.
I think that being able to change the font of the text of an
e-book is more accessible to readers for a variety of reasons from low vision
to dyslexia. I think being able to turn up the screen light behind text also
helps. I also think that audiobooks can help some readers pay attention to
reading more easily. For instance, my daughter has ADHD, and she does better
with audiobooks when she reads fiction.
The problem is that e-books can end up being a lot more
expensive to libraries than print books. “Libraries can buy print books in bulk
from any seller that they choose, and, thanks to a legal principle called the
first-sale doctrine, they have the right to lend those books to any number of
readers free of charge” (Gross, 2021). First-sale doctrine does not apply when
it comes to e-books, and libraries cannot get e-book directly from publishers. “Publishers
do not sell their e-books or audiobooks to libraries—they sell digital
distribution rights to third-party venders, such as OverDrive” (Gross, 2021).
Copyright can get tricky when it comes to e-books. Not only do
libraries have to buy licenses for e-books, sometimes those licenses come with
rules about how the e-books can be borrowed. “If the library owns one “copy” of
the digital format, it can only be lent out to one person at a time under the
model currently employed by most distributors” (Dunneback, 2011, p. 327). So,
while e-books have a great deal of benefits to the patron, they consume more
resources from the public or academic library lending them.
There are other potential problems for audiobooks compared
to print. The text is read with one certain inflection, so the text is less
open to interpretation. If there are many characters, it may be difficult or impossible
to switch between all their different personas/voices and tell them apart. Additionally,
Mediatore (2003) said “A book with newspaper article excerpts, diary entries, emails,
or letters might not make the transition to tape as well as a book with a
straightforward story line” (p. 320). This is just as true in other audiobook
formats.
Audiobooks may not be the best choice for a student trying
to focus on important nonfiction text that may need to be gone over again
several times to understand its meaning.
Resources
Dunneback, K. (2011). E-books and readers' advisory. Reference
and User Services Quarterly, 50(4), p. 325-329.
Gross, D. (2021). The surprisingly big business of e-books. The
New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/an-app-called-libby-and-the-surprisingly-big-business-of-library-e-books
Mediatore, K. (2003). Reading with your ears: Readers'
advisory and audio books. Reference and User Services Quarterly, 42(4),
p. 318-323.
Hi Jackie! Our library has Hoopla, and recently drew back the budget a bit. It used to be that patrons could get 6 monthly checkouts, but they took it down to 5. From what I understand, it's pretty expensive as it charges us (sometimes a couple of dollars) per checkout, but it allows any number of people to have the book. We also have Libby, which works more like a digital "copy" as you mentioned, and users have to place holds when the item is checked out to another person. On a side note, your quote from the comedian is hilarious and instantly reminds me of how when Harry Potter first was published, everybody pronounced "Hermione" as "Her-Mee-Own" until the film came out, and then we all said "...huh. So that's how that's pronounced." LOL
ReplyDeleteHi Callie,
DeleteI have heard about Hoopla circulation getting out of control causing libraries to choose to limit further the amount of titles that patrons can stream. My library even changes around the amounts occasionally. When we have money but need circulations, we up the limit. When we start running out of the book budget, we lower the limit. We get a lot of feedback from invested patron when we do any changes, and Hoopla doesn't like to change the limits as often as we ask.
Hi Jackie! I think you made excellent points about both audiobooks and eBooks. We recently had a woman complain that we do not have Hoopla and don't have enough audiobooks online. We explained to her that audiobooks and Hoopla were expensive, and we had to make the best decision in our budget for all readers, not just what she wanted in our library. The other library in town does have Hoopla, and I would love to say check out from them.
ReplyDeleteHi Jackie! I found the point that you brought up about audiobooks at the end to be very interesting. I had never thought about how the tone or inflection of the narrator could affect the listener's interpretation. That is an incredibly interesting point to bring up.
ReplyDeleteHi Jackie! I'm a huge fan of audiobooks, because I have a really short attention span some days and they help me focus a little bit better most of the time. But I really like the point you made about audiobooks being less open to interpretation because of the narrator's inflection. I had never thought about this, but it brings up another problematic point. What happens when the book sounds really great, it's an author you really like, but the narrator's voice sets you on edge? I've had an instance of this, and it, unfortunately, turned me off of the book entirely. What are your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteHi Kayla, I have experienced something similar. The sound quality was not good enough that I could spend 12 hours listening to the book. I do not mind just switching to another book, but I think someone who relies on audiobooks due to blindness, etc. maybe in an unfair situation. I think getting the author's voice correct is very important.
DeleteMike Baldwin. The comedian is Mike Baldwin.
ReplyDelete