Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

When I listen to an audible.com audiobook, I'll add the Audio CD edition where available. However, I've been curious about how to treat audiobooks that do not have a physical version, e.g. the book "Spin" by Robert Charles Wilson. I'd like to add an edition for the audible.com audiobook. Is MP3 CD the correct binding (even though there is no CD)? Should the edition be added without an ISBN (as audible does not provide one)? It seems like there isn't yet a set of "best practices" for audible.com content (although it could just be that I'm new) and I'd like to get some direction so I don't muck up the database. Thanks!

I don't know about the rest of the questions and I'm sure someone will answer soon but couldn't you just use the 'audiobook' choice in the dropdown menu? Instead of MP3 since that isn't right?

That's actually not one of the choices. There's Audio CD, Audio Cassette, and MP3, IIRC.

I think this is a prime example of why we left the "other" option, which will give you a free-form field. I suggest using "Audible.com" as the binding, unless someone has a better suggestion.

And yes, any book that lacks an ISBN should be added without one. Just be sure to add plenty of information, so another librarian doesn't accidentally delete it.

I agree, use "Audible.com" as the binding.

Thanks for the feedback! Are you all sure that I shouldn't use "audible.com" as the binding? It appears that it's not uppercase anywhere on their website. A little nitpicky I know... but it seems that everyone around here is zealous about accuracy.

If the option is consistency with our other binding options versus consistency with their website, I vote for door number 1. ;)

I appreciate this thread because I was trying to get an answer to this a while ago. And while this answers a lot of questions, I went back to check on a few that I entered, and some aren't strictly audible.com titles, but aren't available via CD either. They're simply online downloads, so I wonder if possibly there isn't a better catch all solution rather than having audible.com or iTunes.

Such as? Audio File, perhaps?

That would work for me, if no one has any objections. I think I left the Rachel Vincent titles I added in as straight "audio", but I will happily update them to whatever the agreed upon term is.

I've seen "Audio Download" in a few places as well - I think either that or "Audio File" would work fine.

I think "Audio Download" or "Audio File" would be good options, especially if we can get one of those added to the official list in the drop-down.

I'd love to see the staff add one of the above ideas as the "official" method for adding digital audio content, but I want to make sure that we don't confuse two issues here, i.e. binding and edition.

I think that "Audio Download" is an appropriate catch all binding (especially since the database is built from Amazon.com and that is what they call them). However, I think it would be appropriate to have different editions based on source, i.e. treating audible.com as one edition and non-audible.com as a different edition, much as we'd treat two printings of the same book.

Thoughts?

Wouldn't it work to put audible.com as the publisher? i.e., different editions of books are all listed as Hardcover or Paperback, and printings are differentiated by publisher & ISBN info. So any different editions could all have the "Audio Download" or "Audio File" binding, with editions distinguished the same way?

I also agree that having an official option on the drop-down list would be great for consistency's sake.

Is audible.com the publisher, though? I'm not terribly familiar with it, but browsing around their website shows a number of "publisher's descriptions" of books attributed to print publishing houses, which suggests that audible.com is more of a distributor than a publisher.

Hmm, good point Cait. I'm not familiar with the way audible.com works so I didn't think about them as being a distributor, but looking at the site you're right that they all have publishers already.

Audiobook is the most popular option in the database - is that acceptable?

Works for me, but I don't listen to 'em. Hopefully David and Dark Heart (and others who do) will register an opinion.

rivka wrote: "Works for me, but I don't listen to 'em."

I agree. I may occasionally listen to audiobooks or read e-books, but I pretty much exclusively shelve the books in paperback or hardback format.

I get audiobooks for my favorite paper books, so I can "reread" them in the car. ;)

But yes, I think "audiobook" would be a great catch all.

And some from audible are audible published, but certainly not all. Those that aren't often have CD versions out there, and I opt to add those to my library instead. I was just looking for an agreed upon solution where they only seem to be available as downloads.

I've decided to listen to audiobooks this summer when I bike to and from work, and I'm getting them all from public domain audiobook provider LibriVox. They offer the audiobooks as downloads, in either MP3 or Ogg format. Yesterday I added the Librivox Edition of Areopagitica, and at first I put the binding as "Audiobook", because it wasn't a physical CD, so this seemed sensible. Then I saw this topic, so I change it to "LibriVox Audio".

In the interests of being consistent, however, I think "Audiobook" is a far more appropriate binding. It applies to a larger category of books. People can still label books with physical CDs as "Audio CD" or "MP3 CD", much like some distinguish between "Paperback" and "Trade Paperback"; "Audiobook" will be a convenient default.

While "Audiobook" would be acceptable, based on the conversation above, I'm not sure it's descriptive enough. Most people I know refer any recording of a book, physical media or otherwise, as an audiobook, while, I think, we want to focus on digital content. Goodreads differentiates between the various versions of paperback, why not with digital content as well?

I liked "Audio Download" merely because that is how audible.com content is labeled by Amazon (which recently purchased audible). However, I'd be happy with whatever the group decides on this one... I just wanted figure out an "official" and agreed upon way to add and maintain this type of content.

Cait wrote: "Is audible.com the publisher, though? I'm not terribly familiar with it, but browsing around their website shows a number of "publisher's descriptions" of books attributed to print publishing hous..."

This is a real conundrum because Audible is NOT the publisher except in a few cases where they produce their own audio. I've been a member of Audible for close to a decade (love it) and they simply provide a mechanism of audio download for Recorded Books, Books on Tape, ISIS, Tantor, etc. If we go too far down this road we'll have to indicate what format (2-4 or AAX) next and I don't think we want to go there. I think the original producer, e.g. Recorded Books, would be listed along with a category for "digital" content.

David wrote: "While "Audiobook" would be acceptable, based on the conversation above, I'm not sure it's descriptive enough. Most people I know refer any recording of a book, physical media or otherwise, as an au..."
On the other hand, it's possible that a site could offer a particular edition of a book as both a download or as a shipped physical CD. In that case, neither "Audio CD" nor "Audio Download" accurately describes the edition in question.

I'm not against "Audio Download" though; you make a good point. But "Audiobook" might be a good default, and then librarians may feel free to specify that an edition is an "Audio Download" when it is available as such.

I think I'd like to see "Audio Download" as it is more specific to what I actually listen to. I very rarely get the CDs and it doesn't seem right to use a physical media category for a digital book. "MP3" doesn't really work for me either as the audible.com books aren't in MP3 format, only a few sites have books available for download in that format.

I would be more inclined to using a phrase that said something like "electronic audio" (I know its bad, my brain is incapable of thinking of words today, I'm a little sleep deprived).

This would describe things like audible (download's in audible's own format) as well as places like Books in Motion (mp3 files snail mailed to you on CD).

Anyway, I bring this up because some sources aren't always downloadable and I think an inclusive term would better fit our needs but still have distinction from audio CDs or audio tape.

I'm going to start using "Audiobook" as it is now listed in the drop down.

Brilliant! I will go and update titles I've added in.