New Features of Bookshare.org
Review by Joel Zimba, Special Projects Coordinator, MDTAP
If you are a regular user of the Bookshare.org website, you may have noticed another download option which has recently been added. Download in MP3 Audio (Beta) now appears at the bottom of every book listing. Rather than receiving a file containing the text of a book in digital format, the text is converted to audio files using text-to-speech on the server side. The result is a group of MP3 files zipped together and encrypted using your Bookshare password.
Here is how the process worked for me. When I clicked on the MP3 Download option, I was taken to a page which informed me my download was being prepared, and that an E-mail would be sent to me when my book was ready. I took my time, had some coffee, but still no download. Some time over the weekend, my E-mail finally arrived. I knew these MP3 files would be larger than a typical Bookshare transfer, so I decided to test it at home, rather than stressing our dubious office broadband.
This too was a slow process. The 455 MB download took nearly 3 hours to complete. That’s right, 455 MB. While this is something like 1000 times larger than the text files from which the archive was generated, it’s still not a huge file size. By comparison, video files can often make it into the tens of GB.
Why might someone go to all of this trouble to get a book in MP3 format? The best answer is ease of use. Once I actually had the zipped archive transferred to my computer, I easily imported the entire book into iTunes and transferred it to my iPhone. Rather than using specialized hardware, like the NLS Digital Book Player or the Read2Go iPhone app, I could listen to my book on nearly any standard MP3 audio player. For the purposes of testing, I simply used my computer running iTunes.
You’ll notice the word “beta” attached to the download link. This is a new service and will probably change over time. For example, I didn’t see an easy way to change the speed at which the text-to-speech engine reads the book. The playback was annoyingly slow to me. While many MP3 players allow you to speed up audio playback, the granularity may not always be as fine as what can be achieved with most specialized book readers.
The download method seems cumbersome for daily use. Perhaps automatically transferring the files to a user’s DropBox account will be an option in the future. Also, I can imagine a time when streaming content might be viable.
I am pleased to see Bookshare changing and growing. Have you noticed the “Reading History” link? I enjoyed glancing at the list of thousands of books I have read via Bookshare over the years. Happy Tenth Birthday Bookshare.
