News
12th June 2013
Essential Building Work
On the afternoon of Wednesday 12th June, we will be carrying out essential maintenance work on the Listening Books building. During this time the website and other Listening Books services may be temporarily inaccessible to users, though we will be aiming to keep all downtime to a minimum. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
1st May 2013
Listening Books shortlisted for Nominet Internet Award!
We were very excited to learn that our ‘Sound Learning through Educational Grids’ project has been shortlisted for a Nominet Internet Award in the ‘Online Skills and Training’ category. This project was conceived to offer an even more accessible educational audio streaming service to pupils than the one we traditionally offer. We have been granted permission by a selection of publishers to offer print-impaired pupils access to over 100 titles—especially recorded to support the National Curriculum—through their schools’ learning platform using ‘Shibboleth’ technology. This means that pupils or their teachers need only sign into their usual online learning resources centre in order to access these audiobooks, rather than having to first sign into the Listening Books site to download a licence as is the case with our traditional streaming model. By integrating this streaming service into schools' existing learning platforms, we have made it easier for pupils and teachers to source these vital learning tools. To date we have partnered with three educational grids across the country and further adapted the project as we went, helping us to reach a potential audience of over 30,000 children and young people who struggle to read the printed word.
Educational grids are organisations that oversee the Information and Communications Technology needs of many schools across their respective counties. As it was our objective to reach as many pupils in need of audiobooks due to print impairments, we decided to offer this service direct to educational grids in addition to signing up individual schools for membership.
Nominet, one of the world’s leading internet registry companies, devised the awards to celebrate the internet as a force for good. We truly believe in the importance of using the internet and all that it offers to continue to provide access to education to many more children and young people with print impairments through their educational grids. You can show your support for Listening Books by visiting http://www.miramar-clients.co.uk/internet-awards/, choosing the online skills and training category and selecting Listening Books as the entry you would like to support. We’d be very grateful.
26th March 2013
Our Downloadable Website
If you have been using our download service, you might be interested to know that the OverDrive site is due to undergo a few changes in the next couple of weeks. We are assured that the result will be a faster and more intuitive way for you to access audiobooks. You can find further details here. Please ignore the information relating to e-books and ‘OverDrive Read’ as these formats are not available via Listening Books. Once the site goes live, please don’t hesitate to contact us should you require further instructions or assistance with downloading audiobooks.
7th November 2012
Listening Books Christmas cards for sale designed by Raymond Briggs
Our Christmas cards are now for sale, priced at only £2.00 for a pack of 10. All profits come directly to Listening Books and will help us to continue to provide our service to as many people as possible. Please follow this link to download an order form. We would once again like to thank Raymond Briggs for his fantastic design and generosity.
31st October 2012
Our Downloadable Website
OverDrive are currently experiencing some problems with their service and this may mean that some members will have difficulty accessing their Downloadable account. OverDrive are working hard to rectify this situation as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
10th July 2012
How the Olympics may affect your Listening Books' service
The Olympic Games are due to take place in London between Friday 27th July and Sunday 12th August with the Paralympics set to follow between Wednesday 29th August and Sunday 9th September. To ensure members continue to experience the best possible service, in case of any postal disruptions throughout this time, we would like to offer you the choice of increasing the number of CDs you receive. If you would like to raise your audiobook allocation during this period, please contact our library team on library@listening-books.org.uk or phone them direct on 020 7234 0522.
The online services (streams and downloads) will continue to be available throughout the Olympic Games. Please contact us if you need a reminder of your username and password or require any instructions.
Listening Books will continue to be staffed and we will do all we can to ensure the smooth running of your service throughout the summer months.
19th June 2012
Phone line
Our phone line is currently unavailable. Unfortunately this is out of our control and we hope to be contactable on our usual phone numbers shortly. Please feel free to email us on info@listening-books.org.uk
4th May 2012
Essential Website Work
On Tuesday 8th May, from 1 - 3 AM, we will be carrying out essential maintenance work on this website. During this time the site may be temporarily inaccessible to some users, though we will be aiming to keep all downtime to a minimum. You can visit our download website directly http://listening-books.lib.overdrive.com/ as this will be live throughout.
25th April 2012
Hilton in the Community Foundation
We are pleased to announce that the Hilton in the Community Foundation has awarded us a grant of £15,000 so that we can expand our service into children’s hospices across the country. The money will allow us to provide mini libraries of 200 audiobooks to various children’s hospices across the UK. To read more about our books for hospices project, please follow this link. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our generous funders who have made and continue to make this project possible.
23rd April 2012
World Book Night Interviews
Tonight marks the second annual World Book Night which sees over one million copies of twenty-five specially chosen books being given away across the country. To celebrate we spoke to two of the authors on the list, Meg Rosoff and Joe Simpson about their involvement.
Photograph supplied by parliamentspeakers.com
You can listen to these interviews by clicking below:
Meg Rosoff
Joe Simpson
You can borrow 'Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson on MP3 CD, book number 7089, while 'How I Live Now' by Meg Rosoff is available to download now. The full list of 25 books is available here and you can borrow a number of the selected titles from us
11th April 2012
Opt-in message on our Downloadable website
To comply with forthcoming UK and European Union requirements regarding the use of cookies, OverDrive (our Download host), is placing an opt-in message regarding cookies on our Downloadable website. This new message will require members to opt-in to receive cookies to continue using all the features of the website. The message also provides directions on how to disable cookies should you choose not to accept the necessary cookies on your computer. For more information regarding cookies, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
22nd March 2012
Essential Maintenance Work
At 12.00pm on Monday 26th March, OverDrive, our download partners will be undertaking additional maintenance to OverDrive systems . The work will mean that there may be a brief interruption to download fulfillment during this maintenance work. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
31st January 2012
Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association supports Listening Books
We are thrilled to tell you that the PBFA have chosen Listening Books as their nominated charity. Founded in 1974, the Association was originally set up to hold book fairs to enable provincial booksellers to sell books in London. The PBFA now have around 530 members and organise about 90 fairs per year. They will be showing their support for Listening Books by displaying the charity’s promotional materials and collection boxes at a number of their fairs. You can visit their website http://www.pbfa.org/ to find out more about upcoming events.
19th January 2012
London Grid for Learning Partnership
We are delighted to announce that we have worked with London Grid for Learning to ensure that pupils across London who struggle to read are given access to a wealth of curriculum based audiobooks. Thanks to this exciting new partnership, over 2000 schools in London will now be able to access more than 100 audiobooks for education through the LGfL website via single sign on Shibboleth technology. For more information, please visit http://www.listening-books.org.uk/sso.aspx.
4th January 2012
Essential Maintenance Work
From 7.00am tomorrow, OverDrive, our download partners will be updating our Downloadable website to improve performance for members. The work will mean that members will be unable to access our Downloadable website from 7.00am tomorrow morning. The work will take between 30 minutes and 2 hours. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
30th November 2011
Member Interview
We were recently invited by member, Rupert Muldoon, to his brand new art exhibition. We took the opportunity to interview him about his experience of Listening Books. It was great to hear what he had to say about how the service has helped him. You can listen to the full interview here. If you would like to see Rupert's paintings, follow the link to his website.
8th November 2011
Listening Books Christmas cards for sale designed by Raymond Briggs
Our Christmas cards are now for sale and this year they are only £2.00 for a pack of 10. All profits come directly to Listening Books and will help us to continue to provide our service to as many people as possible. Please follow this link to download an order form. We would once again like to thank Raymond Briggs for his fantastic design and generosity.
25th October
Update needed for Apple iOS 5 users
For all our members who have updated or plan to update their Apple MP3 player to iOS 5, you will also need to update your OverDrive Media Console to continue to play our audiobooks. You can do this by following this link: http://overdrive.com/Software/omc/
21st September
Books for Hospices
We’re delighted to announce the official launch of our Books for Hospices project, supplying mini libraries of audiobooks to voluntary-run hospices. Through the generous donations of a number of charitable trusts and companies, the mini libraries are being delivered free of charge. The mini libraries consist of a huge range of fantastic audiobooks on MP3 CD by some of the biggest names in the publishing world, including Margaret Atwood, Bill Bryson, Dan Brown and Jacqueline Wilson. The project has proved a great success so far, with deliveries being made to 30 adult hospices in England. The service is now being extended to reach children’s hospices throughout the UK, ensuring the charity’s audiobooks bring comfort to as many adults and children as possible. Find out more by visiting http://www.listening-books.org.uk/hospice-project.aspx
7th September
Planned website maintenance
Due to essential planned maintenance work this website will be unavailable between 6pm and 7pm this evening (07/09/2011). During this time our Downloadable website will continue to be available and you can access it here: http://listening-books.lib.overdrive.com
23rd August
Listening Books bids a fond farewell to long serving member of staff, Sarah Hucklesby.
Sarah worked for Listening Books for 8 years and left this month to pursue a new career in occupational therapy. We all wish her well and would like to welcome our new member of staff, Jennifer Ades, who joins us as our membership & recruitment administrator.
15th August
Over 10,000 downloads since launch in 2010
Since its launch in May 2010, the Downloadable service has gone from strength to strength, with the number of audiobooks checked out by members surpassing the 10,000 mark.
Listening Books' top ten downloads chart demonstrates the fantastic mix of audiobooks available:
Listening Books' Top 10 Downloads August 2011:
1. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
2. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
3. The Black Tower by PD James
4. The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine
5. Boy by Roald Dahl
6. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
7. Face by Benjamin Zephaniah
8. GCSE English 'Of Mice and Men' by CGP Publications
9. The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkein
10. Archangel by Robert Harris
15th July
Great new titles to stream and download!
Many of you will have received an email this week advertising a small selection of the great new titles available to stream and download. We are constantly updating our catalogues with the best new titles such as 'Boy A' by Jonathan Trigell and 'The Postmistress' by Sarah Blake. If you would like to receive these updates from us, please email info@listening-books.org.uk and let us know.
17th
June 2011
Members' Forum questionnaire results
Thank you to all of the members who took part in the questionnaire on the quality of the service and member usage late last year. We had some fantastic responses to our new download collection and we are thrilled that our members are enjoying this service. To further raise awareness of this excellent service, we are adding adverts onto the end of our audiobooks sent out on CD. For those reluctant members who might benefit from extra help with downloading titles, we are creating still more comprehensive instructions and are also putting together a how-to-download video for our website.
When asked what would improve the Listening Books service, most members stated that they would like to see more titles in the library. We are pleased to announce that the number of titles we have in the library now exceeds 4,500 and this number is going up all the time. We continue to stock audiobooks to support the National Curriculum and do our best to secure any additional titles that are needed. Please get in touch if there is a title that we do not stock, whether for school or otherwise, though do bear in mind that we can only supply those books that the publishers grant us permission to lend and where we believe there would be reasonable demand.
A number of people suggested that we send out audio versions of our new booklists and we are pleased to say that we have already put this into practice.
The views of our members are invaluable and we are grateful for their feedback. The next questionnaire will be sent to a selection of forum members of differing ages, disabilities and geographical locations shortly and we look forward to bringing you the results in due course.
16th June 2011
Members' Forum changes
As many of you will know Listening Books runs a forum for members who wish to submit their views on various aspects of the service. To ensure that the forum is representative of our membership in terms of such things as age, disability and geographical location, we will only be sending our questionnaires to a selection of the members’ forum from now on. This selection will be rotated each time we send out a questionnaire to allow everyone to have an input. At the moment, we are actively seeking the following members to join the forum: individuals under the age of 25 with learning impairments (or their parents or guardians), individuals who solely use the internet streaming and download services, and organisations of any kind (including schools, nursing homes and colleges). Please telephone Fiona Hutcheson on 020 7407 9417 or email fhutcheson@listening-books.org.uk if any of these apply to you and you would like to join the forum.
6th April 2011
Friday favourites
Don't forget to join our Facebook group to keep up with our weekly staff recommendations. The current 'Friday favourite' is 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini. Click here to follow Listening Books on Facebook.
24th March 2011
Look out for exciting new changes to our member newsletter
Our member newsletter, Connect, and our booklists of new titles are undergoing some exciting changes. We are pleased to announce that all future issues will be produced solely in an audio format. The next issue of Connect will contain interviews with bestselling authors, Margaret Atwood and Sarah Waters, as well as a number of new features. Please note that members who have previously asked for a printed version of the newsletter will now only receive the audio versions as these are accessible to everyone with a computer or MP3 CD player. We look forward to bringing you our latest news and titles in the spring.
3rd March 2011
A celebration of books
Happy World Book Day everyone! Today marks a celebration of books and reading across the UK. This Saturday night World Book Night will take place for the first time. A staggering one million books will be given away by 20,000 passionate readers to other readers as well as people who may be reluctant to read or part of communities with less access to books. The books given away will be made up of 25 titles, carefully selected by an editorial committee. To see the full list of titles click here.
This week we were lucky enough to speak with bestselling author Sarah Waters whose novel, 'Fingersmith', has been chosen as one of the 25 titles. Click here to listen to what she has to say about World Book Night.
25th February 2011
Join Listening Books on Facebook
Keep up to date with Listening Books on Facebook. We will be sharing staff recommendations and charity news. Become a fan by liking the page and help spread the word!
23rd December 2010
Listening Books will be closed for the holiday period
The office will be closed from Christmas Eve and will re-open on the 4th January. We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our members a happy and peaceful break.
3rd December 2010
Postal disruption due to the weather
We'd like to apologise to any of our members who aren't receiving their audiobooks through the post. We rely on Royal Mail and their services to get the audiobooks to our members, and their deliveries have been disrupted due to the bad weather. Our online services are available 24 hours a day, so please call the library team on 0207 234 0522 for your username and password so you can continue to enjoy our audiobooks while the CDs are in transit.
17th November 2010
Listening Books Christmas cards for sale designed by Raymond Briggs
Our Christmas cards are now for sale and this year they are only £2.00 for a pack of 10. All profits come directly to Listening Books and will help us to continue to provide our service to as many people as possible. Please follow this link to download an order form. We would once again like to thank Raymond Briggs for his fantastic design and generosity.
27th October 2010
Brand new titles for your library!
We have recently added hundreds of new titles which are available to download from our Downloadable website. Members can simply visit the website to download audiobooks to an iPod or other portable device. We are also constantly adding new streams; members can log into the members' area of this site to stream such new titles as Arthur Miller's classic play 'A View from the Bridge'. Don't forget to keep checking back as we update our catalogue on a regular basis.
27th September 2010
Support Listening Books through Just Giving
Just Giving is a website where fundraisers organising or participating in events to raise money for a charity can set up their own fundraising page. We’ve received some great support over the last few months via Just Giving. Unicorn Tree Books kindly raised the fantastic sum of £480.63 by choosing us as their charity of the year. Upcoming events include Nick Bird running the Loch Ness Marathon in aid of Listening Books on 3rd October 2010 and David Lalor taking on the challenge of reading 52 books in one year! To find out more or to make a donation, please visit: www.justgiving.com/52books for David and www.justgiving.com/NickBirdLochNess for Nick.
Alternatively, if you would like to donate direct to Listening Books, please visit www.justgiving.com/listeningbooks/donate.
Listening Books simply could not continue to exist without the generous support of our sponsors, whether they be individuals, trusts or companies and we are grateful for all of the help we receive in allowing us to be a lifeline for the people who rely on our audiobooks.
If you are organising or participating in an event for charity and would like to raise money for Listening Books, you can set up your own page here
Do get in touch to let us know all about your event as we can provide you with case studies and photos for your page to help you raise money. We would also love to promote your event via our newsletter, website and Twitter page.
12th August 2010
Brainwaves Education hosts open day
Brainwaves Education, a Suffolk based dyslexia and literacy support centre, will be hosting an open day on Friday 5th November to support Dyslexia Awareness Week 2010. They have invited us along to demonstrate our service and explain the benefits that listening to audio can bring. We'd love to see you there. Follow this link to find out more.
19th July 2010
Change of streaming provider
We will shortly be changing the company who provide us with streaming licences. This means that members will be prompted to re-enter their username and password so that a new licence can be downloaded to their computer. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact our dedicated streaming support: cjones@listening-books.org.uk.
10th May 2010
Listening Books launch Downloadable!
Today we are launching a brand new service available FREE to all Listening Books members. We now have hundreds of audiobooks that can be downloaded to iPods, MP3 players and other portable devices. Click here to browse our fantastic new titles.
7th April 2010
Titles available to stream reaches 1000
We are happy to announce that members can now choose from over 1000 titles to stream straight to their computer. Use your username and password to log into the members' area and search our fantastic range of children's and adults' audiobooks.
29th January 2010
National Storytelling Week
Many of us will associate storytelling with childhood. As we grow older and learn to read for ourselves, the need to be told a story diminishes. However, there are a large number of adults and children for whom storytelling continues to be an active part of their everyday lives. This is because they struggle to read a book or to turn its pages due to an illness, disability or learning difficulty.
Many of our members tell us that they would be lost without the support of Listening Books. As one of our members, Polly Higgins, says:
“Being told stories is a very basic pleasure from childhood onward and I should encourage anyone who loves to listen - to be informed, amused, entertained, exalted and elevated by the spoken word - to join Listening Books!”
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, Listening Books will be offering 12 computer streaming licences for the price of 10 to anyone signing up for the service between Saturday 30th January and Saturday 6th February inclusive. That’s just £20 for access to over 900 audiobooks from 12 different PCs. To find out more about National Storytelling Week click here.
Archived news 2009
Downloads!
Listening Books members can download thousands of fantastic titles to an iPod or other portable player!
Streaming!
Members can listen to over a thousand audiobooks live and direct from this website through internet streaming.
General enquiries: 020 7407 9417 / info@listening-books.org.uk
020 7234 0522 / library@listening-books.org.uk
020 7403 1377
Registered charity number: 264221 Patron: Stephen Fry President: The Rt. Hon. Lady Warnock DBE
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© Listening Books unless otherwise stated.