Progress on AUR Things: Wikis and RSS

Ok - I now have a Wiki that I hope people will add majical/magical things to:
http://tinyurl.com/nxykw7

And I'm now signed up forJudith's blog and the Library FYI. I didn't know you could sign up for RSS feeds via Outlook so that is a nice revelation! I had previously done RSS feeds only via Bloglines and Yahoo - both easy as pumpkin pie. To eat, that is. Not make.

And in keeping with the name of this Blog:

Here's an RSS feed from Librivox, announcing the availability of new audiobooks in their collection: http://librivox.org/newcatalog/NewReleases.xml.
Librivox books are read by volunteers. More on Librivox here.

Introduction: Blogging on 23 Things

(This is a sample blog created within the Auraria Library in Colorado to practice using Blogger.)

Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds -flickr photo


I have a very unfair advantage for this 'thing' since the Bloggoddess Gayle has been helping me in the last few weeks establish a blog for the newsletter I'll send to faculty in August, describing services and resources.


I did find learning a little slow going. Some things are not intuitive (i.e. finding 'edit posts' under 'new post' is not something I would have immediately thought of.)


Blogs may be useful for libraries since allowing feedback is generally a good thing. Unless you have people with boring lives, as we sometimes do on IM reference, who send 'make-believe' questions. Of course, I deeply respect this practice.

I'll mention that I there does seem to be alot of help available 'out there' when you have a Blogger question. I couldn't find an answer in the Blogger help the other day so, using Google, I just put in 'Blogger' and my question and instantly found my answer.

Free Downloadable Audiobooks

So - just in case someone with a real interest in audiobooks finds this blog, here's some REAL information.

I adore listening to what used to be called Books on Tape. Of course, since those ancient times, when our knuckles brushed the ground as we adjusted our Sony Walkmans, books have evolved to CD and digital formats that you can download to your favorite digital player. iPods are most widely used though my Zen is fine and there are plenty of others.

Though I want the audiobook industry to survive and so encourage purchasing CD's and downloads, I must admit that the majority of my listening is done for free. Most public libraries offer growing lists of downloadable audiobooks.

Other free resources:

Gutenberg: The Audiobooks Project

Internet Archive. Collection ranges from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry recordings, to original music contributed by users. Includes non-English audio options.

Librivox. Provides free audiobooks from the public domain performed by volunteer readers.

The Spoken Alexandria Project from the Telltale Weekly

Best Places to Get Free Books: The Ultimate Guide - From Friedbeef's Tech - Both audiobooks and text only books. A mixture of great and marginal recommendations.

Some more are also listed on this guide created for Auraria Library, in the process of being updated.