downloadable audiobooks

This was my first time trying out downloading audiobooks from NetLibrary through the library's website. I did attend the training on this procedure offered a few months ago, so it all seemed pretty familiar to me. At the moment, the process is a little clunky and limited. i hope we'll see the library community as a whole putting pressure on the audiobooks vendors to improve the ways the interface works as well as the license terms.

In the meantime, I created a NetLibrary account, which was not too difficult. I enjoyed browsing the collection by subject and sorting the results by "Newest First." Another nice feature is the ability to change the language of the interface (to Spanish, for example).

I did find that once I was in "Browse" mode, it was difficult to find my way back to "Search."
Other limitations:

• can't check book back in when finished, must wait for the checkout to expire
• not currently available for Mac/iPod, which is what I use personally
• downloads take a really long time (depending on your connection). This, of course, is relative. It actually takes longer than a few hours to get your book if you need to go the library physically and pick it up, or wait for another borrower to return it, or buy it from a bookstore, or order a physical copy online. But, I didn't have several hours to wait for the "CD quality" download so I chose "Radio Quality." It sounds fine.

It wasn't too difficult to download the file and put it on my computer's desktop. When I came back to play it, I did have to acquire the media usage rights by logging in through NetLibrary. It wasn't difficult to acquire the license to play it, but there are several steps you have to go through. I understand why the vendors and copyright holders have the technology set up this way, but it definitely makes access more difficult for users (like our library patrons)--users who have acquired the file lawfully. So, those are some more barriers to using this resource.

Now I have the file for 21 days on one computer, but since my portable device is an iPod, I'm stuck with listening on that computer. I'd like to try out the process of transferring the file to a portable device, but that will have to wait.

Overall, I think this is a promising start, and I hope the difficulties will get resolved over time as consumers (users, libraries) voice their needs.