LibriVox, a digital public-domain audiobook library

Description: LibriVox is a digital library of free public-domain audiobooks, offering a vast collection of literary works in various languages. Volunteers from around the world record audiobook versions of public domain texts, which are then made available for free on the LibriVox website and other platforms. Users can browse the catalogue by language or genre, search for specific titles or authors, and download audiobooks to listen to offline. As a crowdsourcing project, LibriVox relies on volunteer contributions for its content and operations, and its codebase is freely available for anyone to access, modify, and contribute to on platforms like GitHub. Users do not need to sign up or have an account to access and download audiobooks from LibriVox.

Evaluation: Librivox’s interface is intuitive and easy to use. It allows listening to recorded audiobooks and downloading them. The accent and delivery vary, as those who record themselves are volunteers. In some languages, especially English, many recordings are available, while other languages feature just a handful.

Cost: Free.

Respect for privacy Privacy evaluations indicate how a tool handles personal data collection, storage, and sharing, including GDPR compliance and security measures, among others. The ICT-REV team provides them for informational purposes, reflecting our best understanding at the time of review, but assumes no legal responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of these evaluations and encourages users to conduct their own assessments: High. LibriVox collects very limited user data through browser cookies employed to improve user experience. To set up an account, LibriVox asks only for a username, a password, and an e-mail. The platform sends some automatically generated e-mails but users can opt out of them. LibriVox states that it is protected by data-protection laws applicable in the country that hosts it, probably the United States, although the latter is not specified. LibriVox does not mention compliance with the GDPR. See more here.

Type Of Interaction: Group/pair work - outsiders, Individual work,

Skills: Listening,

Content: Website/other users supply,

Usability and tech notes ▼