Vol. 36, No. 4
December 2006

DIGITAL TALKING BOOK
PLAYER AND CARTRIDGE

The National Library Service has released a description and pictures of the digital player and media that will debut in 2008 as a replacement for the current cassette machine and tapes.  The basic player is about 6 x 9 x 2 inches, weighing just over two pounds.  The body of the player is dark charcoal grey and features buttons in red, green, yellow and white, color-coded by function and in high contrast to the body of the player.  One of the nice features is a ‘sleep’ button that will turn the machine off thirty minutes after it is pushed.  You can take your book to bed with you, press the sleep button, and know that it will turn itself off after half an hour!  All of the buttons have audio announcements of their function and in some cases, such as the fast forward and rewind buttons, the machine will announce how far forward or backward the user is moving.  For day to day listening the user will be able to speed up or slow down the narration without changing the pitch.

The book itself will be a cartridge that is just about the size of a cassette with more space for print and Braille labels.  The cartridge is beveled on both ends and designed so that it will fit into the player in only one way.  The shipping container is a bit wider and longer than the current green cassette box, but is only half as thick.

A picture of the player, cartridge and shipping container can be seen at http://www.loc.gov/nls/businessplan/playerdescription.html.