Open eBooks Archives • TechNotes Blog

Looking for your next book? Or are you an audiobook afficionado? You don’t need to wait for an Audible performance to listen to your favorite classics. The Project Gutenberg (PG) Open Audiobook Collection has made its debut, and now, you’ll find a wealth of audiobooks powered by Microsoft AI on various platforms! These AI audiobooks boast an audio version of public domain e-books. But before jumping into all the details, let’s step back a moment. Project Gutenberg has a 50 year history of volunteers digitizing texts.

What is Project Gutenberg (PG)?

Project Gutenberg offers free e-books. Their collection is over 70,000 strong, and includes the world’s great literature. It also includes books for which U.S. copyright has expired.

Stories of Grit by Archer Wallace in Project Gutenberg with a list of various e-book formats for download. — Screenshot by the Author: Project Gutenberg, **Stories of Grit by Archer Wallace**

You may have missed the word “free” before, so let’s clarify that these e-books are without cost to you, and you can read these on a variety of devices. That’s because their books are in common formats, such as ePub, Amazon Kindle, and HTML. That’s right, HTML is the language of the web, and you can read books via your web browser.

Some PG links to get your started:

The Project Gutenberg (PG) Open Audiobook Collection

The website characterizes the Microsoft and PG collaboration in this way:

Project Gutenberg and Microsoft have worked together. They have created create thousands of free and open audiobooks. They used new neural text-to-speech technology and the large open-access collection of e-books.

This project aims to make literature more accessible to (audio)book-lovers everywhere. It seeks to democratize access to high quality audiobooks.
(adapted from source)

The books are accessible via several audio sources, including:

You can browse the collection online, as well. Browsing the collection yields an alphabetical list of audiobooks.

The Internet Archive's listing of the Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection — Screenshot by the Author: Internet Archive, **Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection**

A quick note about audio quality and its reception among listeners. Of course, you will want to judge the storytelling ability of AI voice.

Audio Quality of Project Gutenberg Audiobooks

Since PG relies upon Microsoft AI reading of texts, it’s worth taking a moment to assess the audio. For example, compare these acoustical renderings of a favorite text of mine:

Audible: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
LibreVox: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
PGMI Open Audiobook Collection: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (AI generated)

Since Nick Offerman (e.g. Parks and Recreation, Last of Us) reads the Audible version, you’ll find the audio rich. Once you start listening to the sample Audible makes available, you may not want to stop. That aside, the AI version in the Open Audiobook Collection was quite good, smooth and full of youth. The story captivated me, and the AI reading did not get in the way. And, that is amazing given it’s Microsoft AI voice.

Bonus Tool: LibriVox Recordings (No AI Audiobooks Here)

Now that you know about Project Gutenberg, allow me to doff my hat to LibriVox .

LibriVox's Advanced Search by Genre/Subject Page showing the author browsing children's fiction on the LibriVox site. — Screenshot by the Author: LibriVox’s **Advanced Search by Genre/Subject** Page

Since August, 2005, LibroVox has offered free public domain audiobooks. LibriVox terms these readings of public domain texts “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.” Real people read the texts and quality varies per the reader. Some are quite richly read with a convincing timber and resonating authenticity.

Unlike Chirp or Audible books that you have to pay for, LibriVox’ library of content is available at no cost and includes texts from Project Gutenberg. The famous Internet Archive hosts the audio files.

LibriVox's summary, audiobook chapters, and available downloads of The Adventures of Peter Cottontail — Screenshot by the author: LibriVox, **The Adventures of Peter Cottontail**

Some LibriVox recordings to enchant your ears:

Call of the Wild and White Fang
Science fiction books in Spanish (other languages available)

Now that you’ve had a chance to learn more about Project Gutenberg, explore LibriVox. It’s time for the new!

AI-Powered, Open Audiobooks

Be sure to check out these AI-powered audiobooks in this Open Audiobook Collection by Project Gutenberg. And, explore the LibriVox recordings! Let us know what you think in the comments.

Featured Image Attribution: Screenshot by author: https://marhamilresearch4.blob.core.windows.net/gutenberg-public/Website/index.html

This post on free ebooks for students was updated with additional content on June 22, 2016.

The White House announced in February 2016 the launch of the Open eBooks App, a K-12 initiative that will provide thousands of free ebooks to all students in Title 1 and military base schools, along with all special education students. The free app will work on a wide variety of devices and allows users to access books that are normally not free. Ten major publishers, including Penguin Random House and National Geographic, provided the books. To create the app and to curate the eBook collection, the White House partnered with the Digital Public Library of America, First Book, and The New York Public Library, as well as digital books distributor Baker & Taylor and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

How Does the eBook Program Work?

Any adult who works in a Title I (or Title I eligible) school, or a program or library that serves at least 70% of children from in-need families, can sign up with First Book. (Please note: Registration is by individual campus and not by district.) Once registered, educators can request access codes for Open eBooks. Students may borrow up to 10 books at a time and replace each book with a new book as many times as they’d like. To get access to the app, they—or an adult working with them—can download the app and enter credentials provided by a person registered with First Book to enable access to the eBooks.

Teachers and students may browse for books by category or search by title in the app itself.

What Technology Platforms Are Supported?

The app is currently available on iOS and Android. Subsequent versions will be optimized to support as many open platforms as possible. There will be a web-optimized version coming later in the year. The partners are also exploring the option of making the app available on devices that require proprietary formats, like Nook and Kindle. Open eBooks uses the EPUB3 standard, but will expand to include PDFs by the end of the year. Built with Readium’s rendering engine, the Open eBooks App takes advantage of the accessibility features that are native to EPUB3 and so works for people who are print-disabled. It also supports the Open Dyslexic Font for those students with dyslexia.

What Is the Future of Open eBooks?

Over the next three years, the partners will expand the initiative by adding to the collection with new and expanded content from publishers and public domain titles; broadening the network of Title I schools and preschools that are engaged with promoting the resource; incorporating new features into improving the functionality of the app; and researching and sharing the effort’s impact and best practices. There are a growing number of Spanish-language titles available, and more non-English languages are planned for the future.

To sign up for Open eBooks and acquire the app, or to get more information, visit OpeneBooks.net.

Open eBooks

AI-Powered Open Audiobooks