I don’t have time to read, but I can listen

I have the good fortune to live far from the maddening crowd.

However, I then need to drive pretty far to get to my job. While I am on my long drive I want that time to be productive and the radio only gets me so far. I have a long backlog of technical and job-related books and papers to read but don’t have time during the day. There are podcasts of all sorts, but I go through these too quickly for them to fill all that time.

My wish is the availability of technical books as recorded speech. They don’t have to be read by fabulous readers; a computer would do just fine. I am currently reading three different technical books when I have a spare minute. How about if I could get these books in a format that could be uploaded to my IPod? Then I would have a greater choice of how I spend my time in the car.

I know the technology is readily available and somewhat ubiquitous. My latest version of Acrobat (8.0) has the capability to read anything I highlight. Publishers could easily create these files for customers. How about a system where if I buy the book I can also get a sound file of the text from a publisher? All they would need to do is run a voice synthesis engine across the text of the book and make the resulting file available to anyone who can prove they own the book! I know there are issues to be resolved, but it would not be difficult.

The implementation of this service would get my attention and I would be more apt to buy books from publishers offering this service than from publishers that don’t. C’mon O’Reilly, how about it?

John Sturman, Senior Consultant, Documentation Strategies, Inc.