Auditory Options

It is sound—rather than sight, smell, or touch—that most often awakens us from our slumbers. Sounds are even rousing the web, that splendid yet annoying visual kaleidoscope. Digital audio content, such as digital music and digital talking books, has already joined many library collections. But librarians, explorers of emerging frontiers, are using audible content to enhance online library services, changing what libraries can do and whom they can serve.

It is possible to add audio messages, background music, and other audio components to your library's web site. In most instances that welcome message from the library director will sound more welcoming when heard than read. Some online library services, such as the Colorado Talking Book Library, have audio welcome messages that launch when the homepage loads on the user's browser. Such messages should be kept brief, to avoid annoying repeat visitors. Repetitive audio content annoys much faster than repetitive images; compare Google's recurring homepage with AOL's "you've got mail."

Other web sites, such as that of the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center (MITBC), offer links to audio content. The brief audible messages include general overviews of services and staff introductions in their own voices. Background music can liven up an online voice message, but choose the music carefully so that your web site doesn't echo a cheesy promotional video. Another good reason for giving users an option: for print-impaired readers using screen reading software such as JAWS and WindowEyes, an autoplay audio message will result in a cacophonous duet between the screen reader voice and the autoplay audio.

To record audio segments for your web site, you can purchase an inexpensive, portable MP3 recorder player about the size of a PDA. Simply record a sound clip and then upload it onto the server. Or you can have your audio components professionally recorded, which usually will sound much better than a locally created audio file.

Virtual reference services also benefit from audible components. Remember that virtual reference software is basically call center software repurposed to serve the goals and needs of library reference services. Companies were offering web-based voice service long before virtual reference was a gleam in a librarian's eye. In the realm of virtual reference, online text chat can be supplemented with actual online conversation. In the near future we may be able to relegate our emoticons to their proper province, tattoo artistry.

Several advanced virtual reference systems, such as QuestionPoint with Enhanced Communications from OCLC and OnDemand from Convey Systems (basically the same software platform), already offer voice-over-IP (VoIP) functionality. The result is a multimedia communication session. Often the librarian is simultaneously using VoIP, text chatting, cobrowsing, and application sharing to help the user. Users can respond via text chatting and VoIP, assuming they have a microphone at their end.

InfoEyes, a pilot project involving 12 libraries in nine states and the District of Columbia to provide VoIP-enabled virtual reference services for the print-impaired, is testing the feasibility of several voice-enabled software systems, such as QuestionPoint Enhanced and iVocalize. The InfoEyes project is coordinated by the Illinois State Library Talking Book and Braille Service, with software, e-content, training, and technical support from OCLC. Even standard chat software, such as Yahoo Instant Messenger, contains an audio component and could be used in a pinch—a budget pinch—to provide an audio-enhanced online reference service. As long as the librarian and user can text chat, talk, and cobrowse, the bare necessities of virtual reference are met.

Early responses from InfoEyes patrons indicate that they like hearing a librarian's voice, even if they can only text chat in response. Some web-audio software, such as iVocalize, requires the user to press a key in order to talk—in the manner of the old CB radio. Others, such as QuestionPoint Enhanced, offer a continuous two-way audio connection. Once the librarian has made the audio connection, the microphone by default is always on. Other nonverbal sounds, such as typing, can be distracting to patrons, so librarians involved in InfoEyes quickly learn to express with spoken words what they are doing with the keyboard and mouse.

Because most people speak faster and more fluently than they type (with fewer typos, too), an audio component can energize online discussion groups. Many audible online discussion groups already exist; Meeting of the Minds is a book discussion group for the print-impaired, and eBookWorm focuses on e-book topics. Both monthly programs are sponsored by the MITBC.

iVocalize enables simultaneous text chatting, cobrowsing, and audible discussions. A text chat message can go from one member to the entire group or from one member to another. Two features enhance discussions. First, to speak, a person must hold down the control key on the keyboard. That cuts down on all sorts of unwanted background noises. Second, the software is designed so that only one person can speak at once. Rebutters must wait in a muted, visible queue before speaking their peace. During heated discussions, the pressing of control keys can look a little like Jeopardy or Family Feud.

Libraries can use the web to present local audio content and deliver it globally. For example, last year the MITBC organized a series of local events in Eureka, IL, to commemorate the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Small group discussions were held at Eureka College and a local assisted living community to capture the experiences and thoughts of local residents to both 9/11 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The audio portions of the events were recorded, edited by Sound Farm Productions, and organized in a cluster of MP3 files that formed the first issue of Audiozine, a web-based audio magazine (from the Talking Book Center and TAP Information Services).

At the Calgary Public Library, AB, the Talking Tales service offers a good example of how audio content can turn a traditional in-library service into an Internet-based, audible-enhanced service. Talking Tales combine animated "pages" with a narrator's voice and background music to make an engaging online story time for children. A story can be paused, restarted, and begun again with a click. The persistent menu page enables the parent or child to ask the storyteller a question, provides tips to parents about encouraging reading in children, and announces forthcoming talking tales.

These new network-based library services also will affect how library organizations and the profession communicate and perform work. Audible online meetings have some advantages over in-person meetings. There's no need to worry about having a bad hair day, plus no need for an elaborate policy concerning food and drink at meetings. The extensive moderator options for establishing and maintaining control over the group discussion and group process, which iVocalize affectionately labels "mute, boot, and banish," may make it fun to facilitate meetings again.

An iVocalize room capable of holding 20 persons leases for $80 per month at Talking Communities. The server software also may be leased monthly or purchased outright for local hosting. Once the library invests in a $10 PC microphone, all the other costs (computer and network connection) have already been made. The software is easy to use, flexible, and presents few problems.

Webinar-based meetings can be better than conference calls because of the simultaneous ability to converse (remember, one at a time), text chat, and cobrowse, including presentations. The option to record exactly what was said could help avoid future disputes within organizations ("I didn't say that." "Oh, yes, you did, and here is the audio archive of our iVocalize meeting to prove it."). Occasionally someone gets bumped off the server, but they quickly reconnect. With the costs of travel and regular telephony escalating, libraries, consortia, and professional associations should be examining the alternatives.

It's not completely harmonious to integrate audio components into your current online library systems and services. When it comes to multimodal communication involving VoIP, text chat, and cobrowsing, a transmission delay in one mode—usually VoIP—can disrupt the overall quality of the interaction.

Accessing audible online library services places additional burdens on users. To hear audio files users need Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, or another media player for MP3 files and other file types. Many new computers come preloaded with one or more of these media players.

Some audio-enhanced software programs require that users download plug-ins, or have open ports, which can create work and security concerns for your IT staff. Another issue is the sheer size of sound files. A one-hour sound file is huge. Streaming audio is one way to avoid large audio files. Audiozine and Kidsworthy, the audio children's magazine from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, break the audio content into smaller chunks.

These are surmountable obstacles. Good and great things can be accomplished for all library users through the further integration of audio components into online library services, but we need to proceed carefully and deliberately. It did not take long for the visual nature of the web to spin out of control into pop-up ads, pictures, and abhorrent color schemes. It all blew those placid Gopher hierarchies off the screen in no time.

Perhaps the audible components of the web will quickly become equally discordant and shrill. Keyboards, like TV remotes, are sprouting mute buttons. Nevertheless, audio can humanize a web site and offer new opportunities for service. When it comes to web-based audio components for online library services, the future has just begun.