Lost in (AV format) transition...

I am of a particular age that I really got vigorous use out of certain "books on tape", especially in the late 1990s up through the early 2000s, specifically the time period where I was actively considering becoming a librarian and finally made the move to go to library school.  Listening to nonfiction audiobooks, especially those of the Blackstone Audio collection, but also the courses on offer from The Teaching Company, were a very large part of my "Life of the Mind" of those years.  They kept me intellectually fresh and invigorated after I briefly departed academia in 1997 upon the completion of my "terminal" first Master's degree in German Studies.  I still read normal nonfiction books as well, of course.  I also kept alive a "Life of the Mind" through the comic-book format "(X) for Beginners" (published in NYC) and the UK produced "Introducing..(X)" series.  These are works I wish I'd had at my disposal during my first slog through graduate school.  I also wish I'd read David Harvey's The condition of postmodernity.  It was already in print by then but I knew nothing of it;  I knew that of all PoMo theorists I liked Fredric Jameson the best, insofar as I liked his Marxian leanings; But Harvey is more directly connected to the Marxist tradition and more readable generally than Jameson, I think.

But that aside, I also very much enjoyed more popular nonfiction titles in audiobook format, such as unabridged Blackstone audio productions of works by Arnold J. Toynbee, the famous British historian, as read by celebrated voice-actor narrator David Case.  Case was one of a kind and narrated many of my favorite audiobooks of that era.  I also enjoyed Edith Hamilton's The Roman Way and The Greek Way...very general historical/sociological overview examinations of the Classical world.  I also deeply enjoyed Neil Postman's works read by Jeff Riggenbach--also under the Blackstone Audio imprint.  I own most of Postman's major works in book form of course, but the audiobook format left a deep impression on me indeed, especially as these works were HUGE influences on me before, during, and after library school.

While the printed forms of these works of course remain in many academic libraries, this audio content will most likely be lost to recorded history as the cassette format continues to vanish and disappear from most library collections.  And unlike popular fiction titles, they are unlikely to be reproduced in CD format as there's just no profitability in it for publishers...even for digitization of the existing audio rather than re-recording the content with new voice talents.  It is my impression that most academic libraries do not collect audiobooks in any significant numbers, nor did they collect that many audio-cassettes either.  No, the audio-cassette based nonfiction "Book on tape" was almost always the exclusive purview of Public libraries, and Public libraries are not generally in the archival business and thus these "obsolete" formats are thoroughly weeded without a single tear being shed, to make space for updated formats...CD, DVD, MP3, Blu-Ray...and that is as it should be, for the most part.

But part of me can't help but feel a sense of loss for the material that falls into this unfortunate gap...which were a lavish publishing risk even in the time they were initially reproduced, relying heavily on library acquisitions sales more so than direct marketing to consumers, or propped up by large sales figures from more popular fiction titles offered....and that have next to zero chance of being converted to a more advanced format into the future.  They will simply vanish and all that will remain are the printed word versions.  At least there are those copies, for which we should be grateful.  Perhaps I'm simply being ridiculously nostalgic for a format that meant so much to me personally, in my own intellectual growth.  That is most likely the case.  I've held out for as long as I have because I had one of the last car models of the early 2000s that still came with a tape deck as the standard feature, and only this year have begun looking to replace it with a newer version that will finally have a dashboard CD player as the standard (and also MP3 hookups if I can swing it)...something countless thousands of other library patrons have been already enjoying for years and years.  My cassette player in my vehicle is on its last legs, it is hyper-sensitive to road conditions, spitting out the cassette on all but the smoothest of drive surfaces.  It's temperamental now and quite difficult to get it to play a full book on tape properly anymore, cassette after cassette.

I do look forward to getting an onboard CD player in my next vehicle...and there is still plenty of quality audiobook content out there for me to enjoy.  But some of the original experiences I had with earlier audiobook titles are an experience future generations of readers will simply never know...and that's a shame of sorts.  They will have to work harder and seek out the printed material, if so inclined. 

One thing I do lament about online audiobooks and ebooks is the currently shoddy state of bibliographic access for these special formats material, which are often housed separately online, away from the actual OPAC.  There is often a dearth of subject access---often one only gets a single dumb google-esque keyword searchbox and if one is lucky the ability to narrow one's search by some additional parameters later.  It's highly frustrating to a librarian like me who knows better, but is probably just accepted without complaint by the average patron who is unaware of the power of the OPAC to begin with, much less understands what it means to have a system without that power.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about Libraryland these days.  More later as the inspiration strikes.