New frontier: 1st foray into public library DRM

Along with being a lifelong bookworm, I've also become a devoted fan of spoken-word audio in all its forms: radio dramas, interview shows and comedy-variety shows; podcasts, course lecture recordings, and audiobooks of every sort. I started collecting audiobooks back when they came on cassettes (or more like when the cassette editions went on clearance as consumers migrated to CD.) I did buy a few in CD format, but these tended to be full priced and cost more than the original book. I don't see this as that unreasonable, as recording a full-length book is quite labor-intensive and I believe content providers deserve to be paid for that kind of labor.

Recently I found a whole new source of full-length audiobooks at no charge, made possible by a combination of older titles now out of copyright, plus a large network of dedicated volunteer readers. as they say at the start of each recording, "All librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, visit librivox.org " It's a great resource. I occasionally volunteer taking blind people out sailing; I always mention this site to them, and those not already plugged into it are generally quite excited to try it out.

So far I've completed the librivox audiobooks of Robinson Crusoe, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and most of Moby Dick. I've also started The Buccaneers of the Caribbean, and I think I've got another title downloaded and waiting. Spoken-word audio files need less space than comparable amounts of music - you can get them in lower bit-rate and still get the full clarity of the reader's voices. 

I've also been dipping my toes into the world of ebooks (of which I have a daunting backlog already..) I started out on my iPad with the Kindle app and the Kobo app from Chapters Indigo (Canada's largest brick-and-mortar chain bookstore, with a growing presence in both online ordering of dead-tree materials and their own ebook line, complete with an 6" eInk e-reader named Kobo.)

Lately I've worked out how to check out ebooks from the Toronto Public Library, and I'm about 2/3 the way through my first checked-out library ebook, Kim Stanley Robinson's Sixty Days and Counting (which I wish I could love as much as I did his Mars trilogy... but that's another post.)

While noodling around the library website's e-stuff section, I found they also have some audiobook titles that are suitably DRM'ed for online e-lending. I found the book for September's book club meeting was in their collection, though all the virtual copies were checked out. So I placed a hold. Yesterday I got an email from them that my choice was back in and on hold for me; they gave me four days to get my act together and download it.

Last night was out as we had race night at the sailing club (24 kts wind and short-handed with just five of our normal crew of seven, so it was a real workout!) So tonight I made a point to settle in and discover how to "check out" a DRM'ed audiobook on hold for me at the library.

Whew, what an exercise! They do post detailed instructions, which seem fine and suitably user-friendly. The thing is that I wanted to put the files on an iPod for portability (getting them on the iPad would likely have been a bit easier, but I don't want to lug the iPad for listening to this.)

So here's what I had to do, in brief:

a) borrow my wife's iPod Touch, as it can run apps; the DRM requires this so it can expire the audio files when your libary loan is up ( and (a2) recharge this iPod)

On the Windows PC:

b) visit the TPL site and log in with my library card # and pin

c) go to the eBooks section, and repeat the login (they don't quite achieve single-sign-on)

d) find the tab for Holds in the My Account page; yay, there's the audiobook I requested

e) place this item in my 'cart', then 'proceed to checkout'

f) download the DRM'ed content, formatted for Overdrive Media thingie

g) Open that download in Overdrive, and tell it to download the content - seven files

h) hook the iPod to the PC

i) close all the alerts from iTunes triggered by this (no, don't download yet another iTunes update; no, don't update the iOS on this iPod...

j) tell Overdrive to transfer the 7 files onto the iPod (no, not onto the SD card of photos that I left mounted; okay, I'll tell iTunes to "manually manage music on this player"; okay, I'll lower the bitrate iTunes uses for converting to AAC to save time)

k) go off and do my back exercises while Overdrive and iTunes collaborate on the big transfer

... I've just come back and found I left this as a 'draft' and never clicked on 'publish.' Now I'm unsure if there were more steps left to be done after step 'k' above, or not. I can report that the audiobook worked fine on my iPod, but that sailing and life in general conspired to keep me from finishing the audiobook. I ended up buying the eBook so I could finish this title in time for book club. (The library did have copies of the eBook for borrowing as well, but they were all checked out; the DRM requires they limit patrons to the number of e-copies they've paid for.)

Blogging to-do list

I have been lax about keeping up my blogging lately, and I need to get 'BTK' - back to the keyboard.

Here I'll start off with a laundry list of topics I want to cover in the next little while. I can turn these into links as I add entries for them.

• The new Canon Powershot SX-50 HS which is probably the best all-around camera I've ever owned. The  huge super-zoom goes from 24mm equivalent, great for indoors and for landscapes, to an eye-popping 1200mm equivalent zoom at the long end, with remarkably good image stabilization. This is a 50 times zoom ratio, and they've made it work. Oh and 1080p HD video tossed in. I'm looking forward to some better bird photos in my future.
• The Raspberry Pi - I placed my order for qty. 10 back in July and they just arrived at the start of the week. So far I've been tracking down require cables etc. I set one up with Raspbian on a 4gb SD card and so far it looks quite neat. I've been reading up on its thrifty power draw (~400mA@5V == ~2W) and what you need to set it up off-grid to run from battery.
• FLL == First Lego League, where I just did my first turn as an event judge this weekend.
• Stuff about birds and birding on the web
• My new real-time household power meter display and its uses (also Kill-a-Watt)
• games we're finding such as Timeline, etc.