Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Free audiobooks for the blind: Does BARD have many audiobooks that Overdrive doesn't? (self.Blind)
submitted by lexicographile
Or does the fact that it operates through your local library mean the audiobook catalog is the same? For those unfamiliar, BARD is a service of the U.S. Library of Congress. $1
retrolental_morose 4 points 1y ago
I'm not an American, but in the UK, our de facto national library service (it's not government sponsored) has many recordings of its own. These are usually inferior to those from audible/Overdrive, which are produced generally speaking to a sighted market with a commercial mindset rather than with the charity model of disability underpinning access.
Nonetheless, I found some great reads through it when I was a child, and (perhaps because I heard them first) prefer some of the narrators they chose. Increasingly we are seeing parity with the commercial markets - a goodly chunk of their newer content is direct from publisher, using the same files Audible would sell or overdrive would loan.
Nonetheless, I found some great reads through it when I was a child, and (perhaps because I heard them first) prefer some of the narrators they chose. Increasingly we are seeing parity with the commercial markets - a goodly chunk of their newer content is direct from publisher, using the same files Audible would sell or overdrive would loan.
JackEsq 3 points 1y ago
Overdrive is based on your local library whereas BARD is the Library of Congress catalogue. Therefore BARD has many, many more audiobooks that are not necessarily available on Overdrive. This is especially true for children's books where Overdrive has very few BARD has just about everything my daughter wants to listen to.
tasareinspace 2 points 1y ago
Bard has a ton more. Is there a Specific book you’re looking for? I can check on bars to see if they have it
steevo 1 points 1y ago
Is it possible to share that audiobook with others? (example someone outside the US who is blind)?
CloudyBeep 1 points 1y ago
No. Each device you use to play BARD content needs an authorization key, and BARD audio books are in a proprietary audio file format.
Bsmith0799 1 points 1y ago
No. It is against the rules to do so, and as it is funded through the government I would say that is a bad idea to do.
CloudyBeep 1 points 1y ago
More importantly, people outside the U.S. would not be able to obtain authorization keys for their products, and because BARD uses a proprietary audio file format, there's no way of opening them in unsupported apps or converting them to another format.
Bsmith0799 2 points 1y ago
Okay yeah I don't know tech stuff well, so that too. My bad, sorry
rkingett 1 points 1y ago
BARD has more because Overdrive is based around your local library, whereas BARD is the national library of congress catalog so they have more audiobooks. They are obtaining more audiobooks directly from audiobook publishers so titles should be coming to BARD faster.
thatblindgirl 1 points 1y ago
I find it really difficult to search for audiobooks on bard. The search engine doesn’t seem to work very well.
[deleted] 1 points 1y ago
[deleted]
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