Books on CD
We are currently in a transition period from recorded information on audiotape to recorded information on compact disk (CD). Compact disks will offer many features that will make the information easier to access.
Recorded information on CDs and in other electronic formats is becoming more widely available. As this availability increases, books on cassette tape will be phased out. RFB&D expects to offer books on CD exclusively in 2007. The National Library Service will begin offering digital recordings as downloadable files in 2007 and expects to have over 20,000 titles available by 2008. The NLS digital talking book players will not use compact discs (CDs) – they will use some type of memory cards such as compact flash cards about the size of a credit card. The cards will fit into the player and have labels in both braille and 36 point print. The exact format of the memory card has not been determined at the time of this writing but it will be some type of electronic file that can be accessed with either the NLS digital talking book player or on a computer with the appropriate software.
- Users will be able to navigate through the text by chapters, sections, pages, paragraphs, sentences, words, and even by characters to check spelling.
- At this time a limited number of titles are available, but in the next few years that will change. Books on CD will be accessible with dedicated players and through the use of specialized computer software.
Desktop, portable, and software digital talking book players
To view a short video about digital talking book players choose one of the following links:
Video on digital talking book players in Windows Media format
Video on digital talking book players in Real Player format
Transcript of digital talking book players video