| The Webwords website aims to assist visually impaired library visitors in choosing an audio book. The pilot project was launched at Maidenhead Library in July 2003 and this website enables users to test the system. Ultimately it is proposed that audio samples will be directly accessed by hyperlink from library authority catalogues and users will be able to listen to a short sample of a book to assess not only the text but also the quality and style of the narration.
Subtitled "Listen before you choose" this site invites users to search for a short sample of an audio book by title, author, narrator, publisher or ISBN by typing one or more words in a box. The site currently boasts over 500 samples taken from nine leading audio publishers. Typing "ring" in the title search immediately offered a recording of The Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien, narrated by Ian Holm for BBC Audiobooks. Searching for "Dickens" under authors generated three samples: Oliver Twist; Hard Times and A Tale Of Two Cities, all narrated by Martin Jarvis. Webwords is a People's Network Excellence Fund project funded by the National Lottery’s New Opportunities Fund, with design advice from Berkshire County Blind Society, Dolphin Computer Access and the Royal National Institute for the Blind among other agencies. A technical section gives information to library services on linking webwords to their own catalogue entries in order that their stock can be sampled using the central webwords site.
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