Checking Out Library Audio Books Online

The audio version of historical novel “Master and Commander” lists for $49.95 in its unabridged form. But last week Bob Hammond of Manhattan Beach downloaded it off the Internet for free.

Hammond is no hacker or identity thief. He simply has a library card.

Public libraries have long offered audio books on cassette tapes and CDs that can be checked out, but now they can be downloaded directly to home computers.

On the download roster at the Los Angeles Public Library, for example, are actor Don Cheadle reading Walter Mosley’s “Fear Itself,” humorist David Sedaris reading his own short stories and actor Patrick Stewart narrating C.S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle.” There are hundreds more novels, classics, biographies and business books.

Indeed, the library has nearly 1,300 online titles, each of which can be electronically checked out and downloaded to a computer by a cardholder -- all without stepping into a library branch.

“I was like a kid,” said Hammond, 57, “browsing through all the things I could get.”

If ever there was a use of technology for the public good, this is it. It’s astonishingly refreshing to find something high-tech not aimed at further saturating us with pop media, elongating the workday or making sure we can be reached 24/7.

The service is easy to use and available to almost anyone in Los Angeles or Orange counties who has access to a personal computer (with the sad exception of Apple users -- the downloads are not Macintosh-compatible).

The downloads can be transferred to some portable players, not including -- and here’s another glitch -- Apple Computer Inc.’s ubiquitous iPod. (But read on -- there is a way for iPod users to listen to some of the downloads.)

To get an online book you simply go to the website of a participating library and browse through the offerings. Many of the sites even make available sample audio excerpts from the selections.

Audio takes much more time to download than text. It took 16 minutes and 30 seconds to get Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” on a broadband connection, for example. But that’s not bad, considering the audio book is nearly 19 hours long.

Once downloaded, these can typically be listened to on and off for three weeks. Then it electronically self-destructs, “Mission: Impossible” style, except without the smoke, mechanical destruction or a visit from Tom Cruise.

This type of online borrowing may be a new frontier for most libraries, but it’s modeled after the way libraries function normally.

The major suppliers of online audio books, Overdrive Inc. and Recorded Books, distribute titles from prominent publishers, including Time Warner, HarperCollins and Brilliance Audio.

Some publishers don’t make all their offerings available for library download, however, which is partly why you may not find many bestsellers immediately.

Also, several major publishers have stayed out of the library download field. But in a sign that the field is expanding, one of the holdouts -- Random House -- is about to dive in. According to a company executive, its audio division will announce this month that it will make some titles available for download.

In typical digital fashion, when a library purchases an online-download title, no physical object is involved. The library is actually purchasing a license to loan out the audio book. That license can be checked out to one patron at a time. Just like a book.

For example, say you want to listen to “Brother Ray,” the autobiography of Ray Charles. The Los Angeles Public Library has a license for that.

Once checked out, it’s yours to listen to for three weeks, during which time no one else can download it. Then the digital file on your computer disables itself, and the title shows up as available on the library’s website.

For some popular titles, libraries buy multiple licenses to allow more than one copy to be checked out at a time. For example, the Los Angeles city library system has four licenses for romance novelist Nora Roberts’ “Black Rose.”

And there are older titles -- including “Master and Commander” and numerous classics such as Dickens novels -- for which publishers permit unlimited downloadable copies. So no one has to wait for Hammond’s three weeks to be up to download the seafaring novel.

There is a legitimate way to keep some of these audio books as long you want. Some of the downloads can be burned onto CDs, minus the self-destruct coding. Not only can they be listened to forever, they also can be uploaded to almost any portable player, including the iPod.

This flies in the face of aggressive copyright protection on the part of music and film producers. Indeed, Time Warner does not allow its online audio books to be burned onto CDs and Random House will have the same policy.

But other publishers aren’t too worried. Eileen Hutton, a vice president at Brilliance Audio, has no objections.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for someone to listen to our products,” she said. “Sometimes they can’t get through it in the time allowed.”

A consumer could burn multiple CD copies to hand out or even sell, but “the same thing could happen with a CD checked out in the usual way from a library,” Hutton said. But she added that if copies of library downloads start showing up on EBay, the company might rethink its position.

Books are just the beginning for libraries moving into online borrowing. The Los Angeles library offers a small selection of music CDs, mostly classical, and even a few videos for downloading.

But for now, getting books is enough for “Master and Commander” listener Hammond. He had just begun on this literary audio journey narrated by British actor Simon Vance and was liking it.

“He reads the way you would want your dad to read you a story,” he said, “taking on different voices for the characters.

“I am really looking forward to this.”

David Colker can be reached at technopolis@latimes.com. Previous columns can be found at latimes.com/technopolis.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Tell me a story

County libraries in Southern California offer its patrons online audio books that can be downloaded for free.

* Los Angeles County: www.colapublib.org

* Orange County: www.ocpl.org

* Riverside County: www.riverside.lib.ca.us/riverside

* San Bernardino County: www.sbcounty.gov/library

* San Diego County: www.sdcl.org

* Ventura County: www.vencolibrary.org

Many city and district libraries also offer audio books to cardholders. They include Downey, Glendale, Los Angeles, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, Oceanside, Palos Verdes, Pasadena, Santa Fe Springs, Santa Monica, South Pasadena, Thousand Oaks and Upland.

Most Popular Downloads

As of June 12, these are the most downloaded audio books from the Los Angeles Public Library, www.lapl.org, which has the largest local collection:

Fiction

* “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

* “1984” by George Orwell

* “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand

* “Paradise Lost” by John Milton

* “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy

* “Sideways” by Rex Pickett

* “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes

* “Carry On, Jeeves” by P.G. Wodehouse

* “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy

* “The Odyssey” by Homer

Nonfiction:

* “25 Things to Say to the Interviewer to Get the Job You Want” by Dexter Hawk

* “How to Grow a Backbone” by Susan Marshall

* “Work Less, Make More” by Jennifer White

* “Guerrilla Negotiating” by Jay Levinson

* “Classical Music 101” by Fred Plotkin

* “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins

* “Forbes Greatest Investing Stories” by Richard Phalon

* “Improvisation Inc.” by Robert Lowe

* “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis

* “Stein on Writing” by Sol Stein

Sources: Times research, Los Angeles Public Library

Los Angeles Times