Digital contents

Hello,

I have been using Librivox - more or less extensive - for the past 3 years; I have listened to close to 100 recordings (99% English) of varying length, thus I'd like to add the following points for consideration:

1. The recordings are mostly done by amateurs (I'm using the word in its pure form here, not the pejorative one so widespread nowadays, id est, enthusiastic people who give it all they've got, yet often lack professional training, experience and equipment), thus the quality of the recordings fluctuates quite a lot.

2. Longer recordings are often executed by multiple people. It can be quite distracting and sometimes annoying to have a change of recording quality, tone and atmosphere every 6 to 12 minutes.

3. Not all recordings are executed by native speakers. I had the honour of listening to some very... "special" readings. Although, I can't deny that I really was enjoying myself during these performances, I can not - bona fide - deem them fit for child ears. Especially, when thinking about integrated listening comprehension exercises for older children that just began learning a new language.

Hm, this reads more negative than intended.

Make no mistake, Librivox is a wonderful project, which can provide hours filled with excitement, adventure, suspense and education.

I just wanted to express that a lot of care must be taken when tackling the selection process. And furthermore, that it might happen that a desired recording is available but that one of the above mentioned points renders it sadly unusable.

And if a desired recording should not be available, one can always lend Librivox a hand and record it oneself (if a public domain text for it exists, that is).

There is quite a lot more positive stuff to be said about Librivox, especially about the recording of plays, but one can find out more about that on Librivox.org.

regards

Remy

p.S.: I'm adding a jpeg showing the number of available recordings in the available languages.