playaway

playaway

Remember the days when cars didn’t have CD players in them? Listening to an audiobook on cassette was frustrating. The ability to push a fast forward button and skip from track to track was nonexistent. It took forever to find the chapter you were last listening to. You pressed fast forward and listened to it whir and hoped that you were a good guesser. You went too far ahead and then had to hit the rewind button. You had to go forward and backward until you found the right spot. God forbid the tape got stuck and all that brown stuff came out. What a mess.

Then along came the audiobook on compact disc (CD). These were much better, but still had their issues. Longer books had ten or more CDs in one bulky box; the backs of the CDs were vulnerable and easily scratched, causing the CD to skip just when the book was really getting good. And as if concentrating on the road and the voice of the narrator was not multitasking enough, the CD came to an end, and you were left with anticipation as you struggled to drive, remove the current CD, and insert a new one.

The audiobook is a technology that has been evolving since the 1930s. The first audiobook was called a talking book, and it was used primarily by the blind. The audiobook on cassette became popular in the 1960s and the compact discs followed in the 1980s (Burke 2009). In 2005, a new audiobook technology emerged: the Playaway. A Playaway is a self-contained audiobook on an MP3 like player. It comes preloaded with an entire book and can store up to 80 hours of audio. It is smaller than a deck of cards and only weighs 2 ounces (Pope 2009). It comes with a lanyard (so you can wear it around your neck) but you can also plug it into your car if you have the right adapter. It has some really cool features that other formats of audiobooks do not. All of the command buttons are right there on the face of the unit: play, pause, stop, fast forward, and rewind. You can even speed up or slow down the voice of the reader, and when you turn it off it bookmarks where you left off!

So, who uses Playaways anyways? They’re not just for the elderly or vision impaired. Playaway.com channels their audiobook to libraries and lending institutions; K-12 school libraries and classrooms; military troops, units, and base libraries; hospitals, senior living, and treatment centers. Basically, everyone can use a Playaway, which is what makes them so great. 50 year old Cindy loves listening to Dan Brown’s Davinci Code while she gardens, because it’s small enough to fit into her pocket. 16 year old Bryan listens to Walter Dean Myer’s Fallen Angels while he drives, as a nice escape from all the visual reading his high school teachers make him do for class. 9 year old Veronica listens to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events in the car while her mom drives her to school. All it takes is 2 AAA batteries, some ear buds, a desire to read, and you’re ready to play away!

Bibliography:

Burke, J. (2009). Neal-Schuman library technology companion: A basic guide for library staff. New York: Neal-Schuman.

Pope, K., Peters, T., Bell, L., & Bastian, J. (2009, March). Find a Way to Offer Playaway: A New Kind of Audiobook. Searcher, 17(3), 50-51.

Biblio-Tech! by Annie & Elly