A bit of LibriVox fundraising

Posted by Cori on February 27th, 2010 — Posted in About LibriVoxing

So, LibriVox has been running for over four years, on a budget of $0 … everyone at LibriVox is a volunteer, reading, listening and supporting audiobook production for free, because they think it’s fun in some way. Behind the scenes, all the costs have been taken care of by a few individuals, along with some generous donations from partners. We’ve made thousands of free audiobooks that have been downloaded by millions of people; our site gets 400,000 visitors every month. However, this success has a crappy downside — the costs have become too big to carry on managing in this way.

Hence, a big ol’ fundraising drive. There’s a specific target – $20,000; and in the first three days of the drive, we’ve raised about half of that! So, we still need a few more pennies in the pot. If you’re a satisfied LibriVox listener, please consider sending a little something to the Internet Archive, stating that it’s a “donation for LibriVox”. LibriVox is not an official entitity, doesn’t have a bank account or any kind of formal legal status … hence the Internet Archive (who host our files) managing the money side of this for us.

Donate button

Here’s how the money’s going to be spent:

  • to cover hosting costs for our website (about $5,000/year)*, which includes:
    • the main LibriVox website & blog;
    • the forum;
    • the wiki;
    • the catalog;
    • a whole lot of back-end software to host and process audio before it goes to the Internet Archive
    • but does NOT include hosting our finished audio files which is done by The Internet Archive at archive.org
  • to redesign the site and improve its accessibility
  • to make the LibriVox catalog easier for listeners to use
  • to make the management software easier for admins to use

We are sincerely hoping that $20K will keep everything running for three years at least, including some room to keep on growing!

* See the main donation page for more information on how this is being spent, and why this probably ISN’T something that we can get “much cheaper somewhere else”.

I have donated already, and if you haven’t, and would like to — just click through to the LibriVox page that explains the process. The most important thing is to note, somewhere, that it IS a donation for LibriVox! Not that the Internet Archive in itself is not a worthy cause, but that’s for another day.

Donate button

^^ CLICK ME ^^

P.S. Neither LibriVox, nor the Internet Archive, will store the emails of those donating: no spam threat there!

P.P.S. LibriVox’s Official Announcement, read by Ruth Golding:

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What Katy Did Next and language-learning at LibriVox

Posted by Cori on January 8th, 2010 — Posted in * My Recordings, About LibriVoxing, Fiction, LV Community Podcasts

My first release of the New Year – a chapter contributed to What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge. I nabbed the section on her visit to England, and although it made me a little cross in places (we Brits have NOT “forgotten” Jane Austen, and I’m not sure there’s ever been a time we had … ) it’s a fun read overall. Plus, her plan in visiting literary landmarks of London is a splendid idea.

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(24:26)

There’s also a new podcast out … I was sent an interesting contribution for the 2009-retrospective by Nicholas, which inspired me to do an entire show on the subject of actively developing resources for language-learning at LibriVox. It’s already a great place to find lots of recordings in many different languages, often by native speakers with varied accents, to help ‘train the ear’. However, we’ve also been working on Primers, Grammars and other intructional material, in several languages, to help people learn. The podcast includes an introduction to the subject, a perspective from Leni who’s recording a Portuguese primer, some samples from different books — and most splendidly, the slight downside of recording books over 100 years old … you’ll be learning how to ask your coachman how long the horses will need to rest, and how to request sealing wax and a light (for sending your postal cards!) Availle quotes from a German/English text, what a hoot!

Lest that put people off, Leni also mentioned this, and notes that most of the book she’s working on is as good today as it was when it was written — even in places you wouldn’t expect!

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(20:21)

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