page_title: Audiobook
section_title: Formats
hierarchical_section_title: Audiobook / Formats
caption_attribution_description: English: Audiobooks in a public library
context_page_description: An audiobook is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of a shorter version are an abridgement.
  Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the age of cassettes, compact discs, and downloadable audio, often of poetry and plays rather than books. It was not until the 1980s that the medium began to attract book retailers, and then book retailers started displaying audiobooks on bookshelves rather than in separate displays.
context_section_description: Audiobooks are distributed on any audio format available, but primarily these are records, cassette tapes, CDs, MP3 CDs, downloadable digital formats (e.g., MP3 (.mp3), Windows Media Audio (.wma), Advanced Audio Coding (.aac)), and solid state preloaded digital devices in which the audio content is preloaded and sold together with a hardware device.
  In 1955, a German inventor introduced the Sound Book cassette system based on the Tefifon format where instead of a magnetic tape the sound was recorded on a continuous loop of grooved vinylite ribbon similar to the old 8-track tape. Even though the original Tefifon upon which it was based ran at 19 CPS and could hold a maximum of 4 hours, one Sound Book could hold eight hours of recordings as it ran at half the speed or 9.5 CPS. However, just like the Tefifon, the format never became widespread in use.
  A small number of books are recorded for radio broadcast, usually in abridged form and sometimes serialized, notably National Public Radio's broadcast of Star Wars and several projects by the BBC. Audiobooks may come as fully dramatized versions of the printed book, sometimes calling upon a complete cast, music, and sound effects. Effectively audio dramas, these audiobooks are known as full cast audio books. BBC radio stations Radio 3, Radio 4, and Radio 4 Extra have broadcast such productions as the William Gibson novel Neuromancer.
  An audio first production is a spoken word audio work that is an original production but not based on a book. Examples include Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King, who released a Vinyl First audiobook called Dark Carousel in 2018. It came in a 2-LP vinyl set, or as a downloadable MP3, but with no published text. Another example includes Spin, The Audiobook Musical (2018), a musical rendition of Rumpelstiltskin narrated by Jim Dale, and featuring a cast of Broadway musical stars.
caption: An audiobook collection in a library. A mix of cassette tape and CD-ROM formats.
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