Audiobooks are the most popular and fastest growing area of the publishing world and show no signs of slowing down.note 1 One of the reasons for audiobooks increasing popularity is that Americans lead busy lives, with less and less time for leisure activities, while simultaneously spending more and more time in their automobiles. According to the 2000 census the average daily commute (one way) is 24.3 minutes, with urban areas reporting increases of up to 28% since 1980. Each minute a day added to a commute translates to eight hours per person per year. note 2 Audiobooks are the perfect solution. You can listen to an audiobook while driving, or exercising, doing laundry, washing dishes - pretty much anytime you can think of. And audiobooks have gotten a lot better too. There are a lot more available then there used to be (Audible.com offers more than 30,000) and they are coming out sooner. Many bestsellers now release the audio simultaneously with the print. No longer do listeners have to wait months or even years to listen to their favorite books. And unabridged audio abounds. Unlike the early years of audiobooks, when most books were abridged onto two cassettes, now most audiobooks are available unabridged, the format of choice for most listeners.note 3
I love audiobooks, which is why I wanted to write this article. I don't think there is enough recognition of the importance of audiobooks to library patrons or in readers' advisory transactions.
When I graduated and got my first professional library job 45 miles away from home, I didn't mind the daily commute because I knew I could listen to audiobooks. I didn't have hard time finding good audiobooks-after all, I was a librarian, which meant I could use my ILL access to find and borrow anything I wanted, which is a lot more than most library patrons. Then I got a new car, without a tape player, but with a connection for an MP3 player. I did some research online, ordered an iPod, got a subscription to Audible.com and became an immediate and fervent convent of the iPod and digital audio.
I love not having to carry boxes of tapes with me, not having to find and swap tapes while driving and not having to wait until the tapes I wanted were returned to the library and then sent to me via ILL, which could take as much as a month or more for popular items. Now all I need to have with me is my iPod, which is smaller than a pack of cigarettes and currently holds 20 different titles, including two really long unabridged books, Drums of Autumn and Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell. I'm constantly on the lookout for good new audiobooks, because just like my "to read" pile, I like to have a nice selection of audiobooks ready to go. I don't have to decide what to listen to weeks in advance, and if I don't like it, I can try another book instead and not be committed to an audiobook until I can check out a new one. That's a great feeling.
Since I bought my iPod, I've purchased most of my audio through Audible.com and their monthly subscription plans. I have enough disposable income to spend the $21.95 a month to download two audio books of my choice from Audible.com and I've never regretted the money I've spent. But when my local library announced that it had started a new program to provide downloadable audio to their patrons I was thrilled. First, because sometimes two books a month isn't enough or Audible doesn't have the title I want. Second, I thought if the new program was good enough, I might be able to drop my subscription all together. With an extra $21.95 a month I could buy another hardcover book.
I was excited and went straight to the library's website. I spent nearly an hour checking out the library's new program from NetLibrary and OCLC. I looked for titles I wanted to listen to, checked the selection and set up my account. Then as I got ready to check out my first title, I started to read the fine print and discovered that without a lot to extra effort, nothing I downloaded could be put on my iPod. One of the reasons I had bought an iPod, not a Rio or a Creative or any one of the competing products was because iPods were the dominant playing device in the market. I assumed that like Audible.com, any site that provided downloadable audio would support iPods.
More than 80% of digital audio players on the market are iPodsnote 4, so why ever would a library buy and advertise a service that isn't available to 80% of their potential users? note 5 I don't have an answer to this question and I know it's probably one that libraries have struggled with in the last two years as the programs become more widespread. But I'm a librarian, which means I understand to some extent why libraries don't support my digital audio device of choice, but that doesn't mean I'm not irritated about it.
And if I'm irritated can't you just imagine what the rest of the younger library users with iPods feel like? They won't care that the company that supplies digital audio to public libraries uses digital rights management (DRM) software. They won't care that Apple doesn't support this software. All they will care about is whether or not they can use their iPod. And if they can't use their iPod at the library, they'll do just like I do and not bother to return to the library. Instead they'll buy subscriptions to Audible.com (which also offers a much better selection than most library programs) or they'll go direct to iTunes and buy the book or two that they wanted and download it from home or work or from school. Or, in the worst case scenario, they'll violate copyright laws, which are so easy to break in this digital age. Users can borrow audiobooks on CD from the library (if they are so inclined) and then spend the time to rip each CD onto a computer and then upload it to their iPod, which is time consuming, but free. Users with even fewer compunctions about breaking copyright laws can go online, find a still working file sharing site (there are plenty out there, and as we all know technology can be created a lot faster than the authorities can shut it down) and download the book of their choice.
Is this the kind of message we want to give the young adults who come to the public library? We don't bother to support the device that most of you choose to use, so go get what you want somewhere else; or if you borrow our materials, you'll need to violate copyright law in order to use it on your player.
Libraries need to act fast to remedy this situation, or they will drive away countless users and future library supporters. We already know that library use (especially of public libraries) tends to drop off in the teen and young adult years, and what we don't want to do is to encourage this any more than we already have. Teenagers and young adults in their twenties and thirties need to feel welcome in the libraries, and libraries need to do their best to get them back in the library. Otherwise, what kind of support base will libraries have in another 10, 15, 20 years when all their current Friends and volunteers have died and stopped donating time and money to the library? Do you think that a young adult driven away from the library in 2006 will become a dedicated library volunteer in 2026?
I mentioned earlier that I don't know what the solution is to this problem but I do have a few suggestions for librarians. Start by talking to reps from audio publishers. Go to their booths at Midwinter, send them an email, or talk them to if they come to your library. Tell them that your library must serve iPod listeners and you want them to make their content available, or the library will consider taking their business somewhere else. Most of the reps from the big audiobook companies know about this already, but the more they hear about it the more likely something will be done. Call/write/email/talk to every single person at OCLC/NetLibrary's digital audiobooks program - they serve the most libraries and they need to hear from librarians that they are unhappy. Call/write/email/talk to anyone at Apple that you can get in touch with. Don't leave it up to your patrons to complain to Apple. Let Apple know your library wants to make digital audiobooks available to iPod users. If enough librarians talk to Apple, maybe they will realize that selling to libraries could be a really big market for audiobooks. The iTunes music library has one of the larger collections of audiobooks on the internet, including exclusive rights to the hugely popular Harry Potter books. Let them know librarians want to buy this.
We'll be discussing these topics at the RSS/RUSA program at Annual 2007, "Future Friends: Marketing Reference and User Services to Generation X." Sponsored by RUSA/RSS Services to Adults Committee and Marketing and Public Relations Committee and Friends of the Library, USA. And look for a chapter on the research related to audiovisual readers advisory written by Jessica E. Moyer and Kaite Mediatore-Stover, which will appear in Readers' Advisory Research and Practice, edited by Jessica E. Moyer and published by ALA Editions in early 2008. Until then I would love to hear what you have to say about this dilemma. Send me an email at: jessicaemilymoyer@gmail.com and tell me what actions you took. The point is to take action, and take it now.
Endnotes
1For the best overview of the audio publishing industry and its recent growth see: Whitten, Robin. "Growth of the audio publishing industry." Publishing Research Quarterly, Fall 2002: 3-10. For more recent data see: "Audio publishing industry continues to grow; shows 4.7% increase in sales: Audiobook sales reach an estimated $871 million." Audio Publishers Association, Press release September 12, 2006. Available online at: http://www.audiopub.org/files/public/2006ConsumerSurveyCOMPLETEFINAL.pdf
2Whitten ibid p.3
3Mediatore, Kaite. "Reading With Your Ears: Readers' Advisory and Audio Books." Reference and User Services Quarterly, Vol. 42, no. 4, 2003: 318-232.
4Excluding mobile phones which play MP3 files. Due to the size of most audiobooks, it is nearly impossible for them to be downloaded to or played on a phone, most of which have very limited memories compared to other MP3 players.
5OCLC, through NetLibrary eAudiobooks provides the majority of downloadable audio programs to public libraries in the US. According to their website, "eAudiobooks does not support the use of the Apple iPod for playback. iPods use a file format (.aac) that does not support the Digital Rights Management protection required by NetLibrary eAudiobooks at this time." The "extensive list" of compatible players on the OCLC websites does not include any of the various iPods. From http://www.oclc.org/audiobooks/techspecs/devices.htm September 8, 2006.
Jessica Moyer
is a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Milne
Library, State University of New York, College at Oneonta. Her book
on readers' advisory research and practice is scheduled for
publication in early 2008 by ALA Editions.