NC LIVE now offers access to 1,300 eAudiobooks from NetLibrary

DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 9 February 2006—NetLibrary, a division of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., and a leading platform for full-text digital content in libraries worldwide, will provide eAudiobooks to the nearly 200 libraries that comprise the NC LIVE consortium in North Carolina.

NC LIVE (North Carolina Libraries for Virtual Education) has signed a three-year agreement to provide access to more than 1,300 eAudiobook titles from NetLibrary and Recorded Books, the world's premier publisher of spoken word audio.  Available titles will include perennial best sellers from authors such as Stephen King, Dan Brown, Patricia Cornwell and Alexander McCall Smith; easy-to-understand language lessons for beginners, intermediate level speakers and English as a Second Language students covering 39 languages; Newbery and Caldecott award winners for children and young adults; and timeless literary classics from writers such as James Joyce, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo and more. 

"One of our goals in selecting materials for the NC LIVE collection was to add some new types of resources, such as audio and images, while expanding the breadth of content that we offer," said David Paynter, Chair, Resources Advisory Committee, NC LIVE and Director, New Hanover County Public Library in Wilmington, North Carolina.  "Audiobooks have been a very popular product in our libraries, and when NC LIVE had the opportunity to license eAudiobooks through NetLibrary, this seemed an excellent way to significantly enhance that service to our users." 

NC LIVE offers North Carolina's 8.5 million residents online access to a variety of information resources, including more than 24,000 eBook titles.  NC LIVE is available free of charge to library users, students and educators from public libraries, community colleges, the state's university system, and independent college and university libraries.  NC LIVE has provided NetLibrary eBooks to library users since 2002 and launched their eAudiobook collection in January 2006.

Library users will be able to search for, preview, download and listen to eAudiobooks through the NetLibrary platform via the Internet.  Library users can download up to 10 high-quality, portable eAudiobooks, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  eAudiobooks can be played on any desktop, laptop or portable device supporting Microsoft Windows Media Player v9 and above, Musicmatch Jukebox v8.2 and above, or Nullsoft Winamp v5 and above.  Library users can also transfer titles to a wide range of portable devices, including portable music players, portable media centers, Pocket PCs and even select smartphone devices. 

All titles are narrated by experienced, professional actors and produced in state-of-the-art studios to ensure library users have access to the highest quality eContent possible.  When downloading eAudiobooks, users can select from radio-quality or CD-quality files.  Radio-quality provides faster download speeds and is ideal for users with dial-up connections.  CD-quality offers high-fidelity playback for users with high-speed Internet access.

Users can gain access to the platform in a variety of ways, including OCLC WorldCat, OCLC Open WorldCat, NC LIVE portal, NC LIVE member library OPACs and directly from the NetLibrary platform.  eAudiobooks are automatically checked back in when the checkout period expires. 

A complete list of NetLibrary eAudiobook titles is available at:  http://www.oclc.org/audiobooks/.

About Recorded Books, LLC
Recorded Books, LLC, a division of Haights Cross Communications, was founded in 1979 and is the world's largest independent publisher of unabridged audio books.  Recorded Books provides unabridged books on cassette and CD for consumer markets, libraries and schools.  For more information, visit www.recordedbooks.com.

Since 1979, Recorded Books has been the world's premier publisher and distributor of spoken word audio in the United States and the United Kingdom. Perennial best-sellers have made Recorded Books a stalwart on the Publisher's Weekly Audio Best-Seller List.  Recorded Books has also produced over 1,500 children's audio books and has actively promoted these titles in the school and library markets.

About OCLC
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit organization that has provided computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent and preservation services to 54,000 libraries in 109 countries and territories.  For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, NetLibrary <www.netlibrary.com> is a division of OCLC.  NetLibrary provides content and technical delivery solutions to institutional libraries, corporations and government agencies that facilitate the purchase, management and distribution of research, reference, digital learning, and general interest content via Web-based technologies.  NetLibrary's eContent solution is the most broadly adopted in the market, making the content of more than 400 publishers and eContent providers available through more than 13,000 libraries worldwide.

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