Someone here asked about how to find free audiobooks. I was just about to answer that there are thousands of free audiobooks in my online library. Then I tried to look up whether the services that are available here are available in the UK and couldn’t find much. The London UK library had 3 audiobooks with that service - Overdrive.
That got me to wondering. What are your libraries like, particularly the online portions of them. At my local library, I can get audiobooks, ebooks, TV shows, movies and comics from services like Kanopy, Overdrive and Hoopla.
Maybe you have similar online library services. What are they? What do they carry?
My BH’s mother is blind and can finish an audio book in a day so demand is quite high.Our local library is not big but we can access books from all over Victoria through them.There are other services but she only wants the books.At the moment due to the Covid restrictions they deliver them too.
Your profile says you’re from Australia. I noticed that there’s an Overdrive for Western Australia libraries. The selection isn’t huge, but there’s 2,833 audiobooks that can be downloaded and accessed instantly online if you have a library card from that library.
Western Australia also has a service called BorrowBox that I’ve never heard of. But according to the site, they have 10,279 audiobooks to borrow online. https://slwa.borrowbox.com/eaudiobooks/all
I am a member of Wollongong library which has physical branches all over the LGA but currently they are all closed because of lockdown. Thank goodness they also have an on line section where I can download books for my eReader. I must admit I get rid of the DRM first. They do do audiobooks but I rarely download them.
They also take requests for books they don’t currently hold which is quite a good service but they seem to have many thousands of books.
Some popular books have a waiting list so you just put your name down and when the book becomes available they email you so you can download it.
I use Overdrive (Suffolk, UK) but my sister in Essex has to use BorrowBox. It was invaluable during lockdown. I don’t bother with audio versions, as I prefer sitting down with the physical or ebook.
Found so many ‘new’ authors, and their list of titles, I have been kept happy. Now libraries are back open I can continue to look for or reserve those I haven’t yet read.
If I were to go to bed with an audio I would fall asleep and miss a lot. If the dog has been walked, I can go to bed any time after 9, and read for ages. My favourite time of the day.
Our local library is useless these days. They removed most of the audio books downstairs and you have to order it and they will get it. I told the librarian that was no good as I need to read the back cover to see what it’s about, just the titles are no good. I left 4 years ago because of it.
Now I simply download from “audiobookbay” to my torrent files, if I want to keep the book to listen to again I put it onto an external drive. Otherwise I delete it again.
All free BTW.
