Looking for audiobooks?

Are you looking for an audiobook?  Maybe you find them more convenient because you can listen to them on-the-go.  Maybe you prefer to learn by listening.  Or maybe you have a disability that means audiobooks are the best way for you to get the information you need.

The good news is that the library has lots of options for you. 

You can use Library Search to search for audiobooks on a particular topic.  Navigate to the library home page and just click on ‘Search’. 

On the next screen, you will see the ‘Advanced Search’ option. 

Once you’ve clicked on it, you can choose to enter a word, or number of words or an exact phrase to describe the subject area in which you are interested.  Under the ‘Additional limits’ heading, change the ‘Any Format’ dropdown box to ‘Audiobook’ and click the pink ‘Advanced Search’ button. 

You will get a list of books that can be accessed as audiobooks.  You will need to click on the ‘Available online…’ link and then follow the instructions to listen to it as an audiobook.  Different suppliers will have different instructions and might require you to download software. 

Some of our eBook suppliers do have a range of audiobooks that don’t always get picked up by using the ‘Advanced search’ option in Library Search. Safari O’Reilly is one of these. From the O’Reilly home page, choose ‘Start Learning’ from the top and pick ‘Books’ from the menu. 

You can then pick ‘Audiobooks’ from the menu on the left of the screen.  There are other filters in this menu that you can use to narrow down the list of audiobooks according to your interests. 

Of course, you can always use text-to-speech tools on pretty much any text.  These tools vary in quality and sometimes don’t work as well with PDF documents; you can look out for eBooks with html availability where these tools will work better. For more information about accessibility tools recommended by Cranfield IT Services, use this link to Assistive technologies 

Other eBook suppliers have inbuilt text-to-speech; VLEBooks is one of these.  In VLEBooks it is available through ‘Read Online’ which can be used from both desktop and mobile views.  Then click on the ‘audio’ button.

Podcasts are another great way of listening to topical discussions and information, and some of our databases offer these.  For example, in Sage Research Methods you can listen to top researchers in the social sciences talk about how they deal with methodological issues.  You can also listen to marketing experts dissecting market trends, by subscribing to Mintel podcasts. 

You may have heard of Libby, an app which lets you borrow fiction and non-fiction eBooks and audiobooks, it is available through many public libraries – and we have it here at Cranfield too!  Take a look at our blog post on Libby for more information. 

Please contact us if you have any questions about audiobooks, or other query about accessibility of Library resources.

Feature image from ski-life on Pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/photos/audiobook-tablet-touch-screen-read-3106986/