When most people thing MP3 player, they think music. Believe it or not, there are other things out there you can listen to on them. Here are a few examples of how to fill your iPod/Zune/MP3 Player with something a little more stimulating than the latest pop hit from Snoop Dogg.
The Internet Archive: Audio Archive
Okay, you can still get your music fix here, but there is much more available. You can download classic radio programs like The Shadow, Lights Out, and Burns & Allen. Here is a list of some of the non-music content they offer..
Audio Books & Poetry (3,603 items): Listen to free audio books and poetry recordings! This library of audio books and poetry features digital recordings and MP3’s from the Naropa Poetics Audio Archive, LibriVox, Project Gutenberg,…
Computers & Technology (509 items): Computers, technology, and science are the topics featured here. Listen to weekly interviews with leading scientists and technologists in the Berkeley Groks collection; or explore issues related to…
News & Public Affairs (6,003 items): Alternative independent radio news programming is featured here. In addition to a host of intriguing radio news shows, this collection features the Presidential Recordings collection of historical…
Non-English Audio (556 items): Non-English language collections contributed to the Open Source Audio collection are featured here.
Podcasts (1,835 items): Diehard podcasters are featured here! These podcast collections were all created from user contributions to the Open Source Audio collection. A great resource for podcasters: the Creative Commons…
Radio Programs (2,253 items): If you’re looking for advice about raising your child, conversations about personal change, a forum for transgender issues, or want to listen to an Old Time Radio show: the Radio Programs collection…
You can find other materials for your listening pleasure here as well.
Podiobooks.com
Like books on tape, you can fill your player with some books. Podiobooks currently has over 5440 episodes available for download in over 260 titles covering most genres. Most of the authors are unkowns, but you do find some you will know. It’s a great source of hours of entertainment.
AudioBooksForFree.com
This site contains a fair collection put into the catagories of fiction, non-fiction, and children’s. You can get most of these for free, but in low quality (8 kbps) format. For better sound, you’ll have to pay $5-8.
These are just a few of the places you can find free audio-books and podcasts. For more, check out this search .
HC Kessler
And important note about those free audio books, some of the readers, while well intentioned, should have had someone other than their 3 year old listen to how they read books. Some readers are great, on par with paid readers, but others are very poor or use sub par recording equipment. Nothing ruins a reading faster than microphone pops.
True, that. But, hey, if it’s free…..