Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Thing #12: Moving Backwards to Make Progress (Books apps)

I tried two different apps for Thing #12: Audiobooks and Free Books.  Both of these have some nice personal uses, but because of the selection available I'm not sure that they are very applicable to my own professional life as a special collections librarian/archivist focused on MN History.

Audiobooks has a nice selection of older books, though the assertion that there are modern bestsellers in their collection is not really true.  There might be some, but the majority are more along the lines of "classics" or "so-obscure-I've-never-heard-of-it."  I enjoyed listening to the Raven and a few clips from novels.  However, I was also a little disappointed with the quality of narration in a few cases.  The sound was always nice and the people have pleasant voices, but a woman with a twang was reading Mansfield Park and her slightly-off pronunciations were driving me crazy.  It was just not quite right.  Also, I was thinking of listening to a book through this system while on a road trip, but since there isn't a way to listen off-line, that option is out.  I'm not gonna suck all my battery power and all my data for an audiobook.

Free Books has a really good selection of classics and I've downloaded several for future reading, both fiction and non-fiction.  They are easy to get and easy to download. And I like the categories for browsing, like a curated selection.  (The art is also quite good and I wish there was a way to order prints, etc. of some of them.)  In addition, using the e-book is intuitive and simple.  I'll definitely recommend this one to friends who are looking for a way to get free books for their mobile devices.  


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