ListenAlaska

Originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News, September 2008; written by Lisa Pearson.

We are constantly adding new books, videos, CDs and audiobooks to the public library collection, and while I would like to think that every title we add will be of value and interest to someone in the community, I rarely feel compelled to stop strangers on the street to tell them about our new additions. The recent changes to our ListenAlaska free downloadable audio service are so exciting, however, that I want everyone to know about them.

If you are unfamiliar with ListenAlaska, this is a free service that the Ketchikan Public Library offers to patrons, whereby anyone with a Ketchikan library card – and this includes all school district students and UAS students – can download audiobooks free of charge. Did I mention that this is free? These audiobooks can then be listened to using your PC or transferred to a portable device that is compatible with the WMA (Windows Media Audio) format. Many of the 2,900 titles that are available can also be burned onto CDs.

One of the major new changes with this service is that there are now over 400 mp3-format titles available. These new selections can be played on any mp3 player, including the ubiquitous iPod. So if you have been dying to use the ListenAlaska service but didn’t want to give up your $200 iPod, we now offer a wide range of fiction and nonfiction titles for your Apple-based enjoyment. We’ve even made browsing more efficient by allowing users to limit their search to mp3-format titles. Simply go to our website – www.firstcitylibraries.org/KPLhomepage - and click on the ListenAlaska logo. The search options on the left of the screen allow you to either browse through all mp3 audiobooks, or you can do an advanced search and limit your results to the iPod-compatible format.

You will notice another search option when you go to ListenAlaska: view all music. That’s right, in addition to the new audiobook format, we are also providing free music downloads. Unlike some of the file-sharing sites you may have heard about in the news, this copyright-friendly service will not bring federal agents to your door. Instead, you can enjoy listening to entire albums in a variety of genres free of charge and completely legally. The entry for each title includes a track list, a genre heading, the album length and an indication of whether or not it can be burned to CD. For most of the selections, you can also listen to an excerpt. You can choose from a variety of popular styles, including blues, jazz, country, rock, classical and opera, but you can also find electronica, choral music, soundtracks, new age and holiday music (including 3 different Halloween albums). So if you develop a sudden hankering to listen to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at 3:00 am, you can go to our website and download “4th of July Favorites” onto your PC.

There are over 670 different albums from a wide range of artists, many of whom I have never heard of. But that’s a good thing! As exciting as it is to discover a new author, it is equally thrilling to find a new musician whose work you enjoy. Finding new, up-and-coming artists can be a logistical and financial challenge, especially here in Ketchikan. What better way to discover a new sound or explore a new genre of music than by using our free download service? As someone who has purchased an entire CD based on one single, only to find that the rest of the album was terrible, I am looking forward to trying out new singers and songwriters without any financial obligation.

For those of you who are already devoted fans of ListenAlaska, I would like to mention a couple of technical considerations with our new formats. In order to use the mp3 files, you will need to upgrade your free Overdrive Media Console software to the latest 3.0 edition (this can be done without uninstalling your current software). The other item to keep in mind is that these new mp3 files are about twice as large as the traditional WMA-format and will therefore take twice as long to download, so you may want to give yourself a little extra time when collecting your selections. If you have any questions about using ListenAlaska, please call us at 225-3331, or stop by the library to pick up our handy step-by-step brochure on using this wonderful service.