Project information
| Status | Finalist |
| URL | Go to website |
| Category | Culture New media |
| Country | Canada |
| Operational areas | Urban, Rural |
| Target groups | Children, Youth, Women, Men, Seniors |
| Fixed connection | DSL, Cable |
| Wireless connection | WiFi |
| Access points | Business, Home, School, Library, Cafe |
| Interact | Desktop Computer, Cellphone, Laptop, PDA, portable mp3 players, microphone |
| Software License Types | Open Source |
Project location
Random images Challenge 2008
LibriVox.org
- Brief description
- LibriVox is an open, international volunteer project with the objective of making all public domain books available as free audio books; started in August 2005, we have a catalog of 749 works, in seventeen languages, and are adding 60 audiobooks per month to our catalog, making us one of the most prolific audiobook producers in the world.
- Vision, Objectives and Goals
- LibriVox Objective * To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet. Our Fundamental Principles * Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project * Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain * Librivox is powered by volunteers * Librivox maintains a loose and open structure * Librivox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe Our objective was to record 100 works in our first year. We achieved that, and after a year and a half, we are currently on course to have 800+ works completed by the end of year 2.
- How does ICT contribute to the organisational objectives
- LibriVox would be impossible without ICT. We are a totally virtual organization, with volunteers across the globe collaborating using simple ICT tools. Some of the technologies/software we use include: -the internet - for all project organization and dissemination -phpBB - free software internet bulletin board - where all project organization happens -wordpress - free software content management system to manage our news/information and catalog pages -moinmoin wiki - a wiki to collect info, how-tos etc about the project -a custom built cataloging/project management system -audacity - a free software audio recorder and editor -comupters - to record and listen -cheap USB microphones - the LibriVox "starter kit" !
- Transferability
- We feel that our model of doing things could be applied in many other areas, where much information must be collected and collated in a meaningful way. We have managed to mobilize a huge number of people to contribute to a complex task, and our experience could help many others interested in open projects of all kinds. Looking at our audio books specifically, we hope that many new and innovative uses will be found for the audio we have produced:
- Project summary
- Because LibriVox is an open project, it has grown organically into something complex but extremely efficient in getting done what we need to get done (that is, getting volunteers from around the world to record audiobooks). The work done by the project coordinators to collect audio files, check audio, check and make consistent meta data, upload, verify, and catalog a complete project is arduous and time consuming. But we have built up a system, based on experience and efficiency, that hides most of this from average readers for our project. Usually, the process works like this: 1. A book or shorter work is suggested in the Next Books forum. From there, two things can happen: a. It is taken up as a solo project and posted in the Going Solo forum b. It is made into a collaborative group project, with several readers reading parts of the text. In this case, someone volunteers to become a Book Coordinator, and posts in the Readers Wanted forum. 2. Once someone agrees to read the book, a. if it's a solo project, it remains in Going Solo, where the reader occasionally posts progress reports and receives encouragement from wannabe listeners, until the reading is recorded b. if it's a group project, the Book Coordinator liaises with volunteer readers, who 'claim' parts of the work and post the completed readings off to the Coordinator. Once all chapters have been claimed, the project is moved to the Readers Found forum. 3.When the recordings are done, a.the solo reader sends off the completed files to the meta coordinator b.the book coordinator sends the completed files to the meta coordinator 4. Once the meta coordinator has the recordings, they are posted on archive.org and on the LibriVox catalogue, where they are available to listeners.
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