I found a display of these in Borders yesterday. They’re self-contained digital audio books from a company named Playaway. At $39.95 they seemd a bit pricy considering you can’t do anything but play them. According to the company you can “enjoy digital sound from a lightweight player with eight simple buttons. Wear it around your neck or stick it in your pocket. From novels to biographies, languages to business best sellers, Playaway comes already loaded with your favorite content.” Are there any libraries circ’ing these or at least thinking about it? (There are a few more photos available by clicking on the image to the right.)
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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