Quick now. Where can you find Ulysses, The Odyssey, Night and Day, Notes From Underground, The Secret Agent, Metamorphosis, Little Women, Bleak House, The Red Badge of Courage, The Turn of The Screw, Northanger Abbey, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, The Divine Comedy (in English and in Italian), Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Gulliver’s Travels, Pride and Prejudice, Beowulf, Frankenstein, Lord Jim, Jane Eyre, Heart of Darkness, Dracula, Sense and Sensibility, and hundreds of other classic (and not so classic) books? And you don’t have a pay a cent for them?

The place is LibriVox.org, a humble and unpretentious little site where, and I quote directly, “volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and publish the audio files on the Internet. Our goal is to record all the books in the public domain.” And with more than 1,500 audio books in their catalogue (and counting), LibriVox takes its task very seriously indeed.

Unlike other audio book sites, LibriVox is the product of what’s called online peer production. In other words, no money changes hands—neither from the managers of the site to the volunteer readers nor from the people who download files to the managers. Launched out of Montreal in 2005 by open source advocate Hugh McGuire, LibriVox has gone on to create a niche market that runs parallel to the more common commercial audio book venues such as Audible.com and LearnOutLoud.com, part of an industry that commands more than $800 million in revenues.

But “niche market” might be the wrong term for this site. It is not interested in creating a market. Nor is it interested in making a profit. There are no ads on the site and it proudly boasts a budget of $0. In short, it doesn’t pretend to be a place where commercial products are offered. The entire project, which started apparently when McGuire searched for free audio books for a road trip, is built on a love of literature and a desire to get that literature out to others with similar inclinations. In fact, it is difficult to see how the “business plan” could be converted into a money-making machine.

The concept is dead simple. Volunteers at home record books in the public domain, one chapter at a time, mostly using free recording software. They then upload their efforts onto the site. The book chapters are compiled and held until a complete book is done; at which point the audio book is placed in the searchable catalogue and made available for downloading. You can download individual mp3 or ogg vorbis files chapter by chapter or as a zip file of the entire book. From there, you’re free to do as you wish with the files as there is no copyright.

Sounds like Sam Walton’s worst nightmare, doesn’t it? I mean, if everyone were to suddenly start to do this on a massive scale, every Wal-Mart and other big box store would collapse. Well, actually, the entire so-called free market system might collapse. We’d have to revert to sitting around the cyber-fire listening to cyber-shamans impart their no copyright and definitely public domain wisdom on us. Wishful thinking, beyond a doubt.

No Professional Criteria
Back to reality. There are no professional criteria for LibriVox and no recordings are rejected other than because of technical issues (as in: “I can’t hear this because the static is louder than the recitation of Gregor Samsa’s dilemma). Thus, the quality can fluctuate with accents and voices of all sorts and levels of proficiency (from ex-radio disc jockeys to would-be actresses to the mysterious reader who goes simply by the name of Miette and who did such a wonderful job in Ulysses).

However, as it states on the site: If you find that a particular recording isn’t to your liking, you can simply record it yourself and send it in. Besides, part of the fun lies in the amateurish feel of the recordings—and in some cases, you can actually hear plates being cleared from tables in the background. I remember one instance in Ulysses (which is done by a collective) of the entire group of readers breaking down in uncontrollable laughter of a suspiciously drunken nature! But that, and the interchanging of voices from one segment to the next, seemed to be strangely appropriate for Joyce’s polyphonous masterpiece.

In fact, listening to these audio books has become a favourite part of my day. I download the particular book onto my mp3 player and then head out for my daily constitutional. For an hour or so, as I walk briskly through the various ravine parks and trails that dot the Toronto cityscape, I can lose myself in the world of Sidhartha or Mr. Smallweed. I can follow Leopold on his journey through Dublin. I can cringe as Lord Jim replays his one act of cowardice over and over again. And I can feel the monster’s pain as he becomes more and more human in Frankenstein.

Nothing Like Reading
No doubt, there is no pleasure quite like reading. Quite like seeing those words on the page for the first time. And no effect quite like it when it comes to altering the brain and expanding it in preparation for the next collection of black ink on a white page. But we must also remember that the oral/aural tradition came first—and listening to those very same words has its own special powers. Somehow it seems more social, more like you’re sharing with someone else, even if that someone is only the person narrating the story. Besides, it’s not such a strain on these aging eyes.

And it feels appropriate to know that, for an hour or so, at least, you can stand outside the system of buying and selling. Even if only in such a tiny way. Even if it’s mostly an illusion, right? For, as someone had the nerve to point out to me, the machine that plays these free non-copyright files is itself a strident part of that consumer market. Oh well. Can’t be helped. In the meantime, I’ll just tune in to: “Stately plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”

(Photo Credit: Photo of Conrad, Woolf, and Joyce from Wikipedia.org)