New technology being offered to fans of audio book

The library also plans to buy at least 300 more Playaways this year.

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12:09 AM Monday, February 6, 2012

By Denise Wilson

Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — The Middletown Public Library System has a new gadget on its shelves called a “Playaway.”

The all-in-one device is a prerecorded audio book that stores 80 hours of high definition content on each unit, which operates on a single AAA battery. It is about half the size of a deck of cards and weighs about 2 ounces.

“They’re the wave of the future for audio books,” said Cari Hillman, the public relations manager for the library system, who said the device is easy to operate and is now available at the three branches in Trenton, Middletown and West Chester Twp.

“You don’t have to get online to download anything and you don’t have to mess with changing out CDs and cassettes. It’s its own little unit and contains one book. It’s super easy to work. There’s an obvious play button, you can skip chapters and it runs on one battery,” she said.

“It’s so cool because people can use them to work out, you can have them instead of your MP3 player and you can get your book in while you’re at the gym, and people can listen to them in your car. It’s really a cool way to be able to catch up on your reading if you have a long commute.”

The device, which also gives listeners the ability to alter the speed of a narrator, has an automatic bookmark feature that remembers where the listener left off and a universal headphone jack that works with almost any type of headphone or mobility accessory.

Right now, Hillman said the library system has more than 500 Playaways and plans to eventually have more than 2,400 individual Playaways throughout the system.

Anita Carroll, library director, said the library plans to purchase another 300 to 500 this year.

“When I last looked about 75 percent were checked out. They’re pretty popular,” she said.

Playaways are in more than 25,000 public libraries and schools across the country, according to the Playaway website, www.playaway.com.

Locally, library patrons can check out the devices for 21 days. Selections include books for children, bestselling adult fiction, classics and young adults.

“We have a number of audio downloads through our website as well. Really, now we are a 24-hour library,” Hillman said.

However, even in today’s technology-savvy society, Hillman said far and away, the most commonly checked-out item is the traditional book.

All together, the Middletown and West Chester Twp. branches last year circulated more than a million items — books, CDs, video recordings, CD-ROMs, Playaways, magazines, newspapers, databases and digital downloads.

“We checked out 1,228,469 items at West Chester in 2011. Here in Middletown, we weren’t far behind,” she said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 483-5219 or denise.wilson@coxinc.com.

By the numbers

Total Middletown Public Library System materials circulated through December 2011:

340,304 books (including adult, juvenile and paperback)

30,084 sound recordings (CD and cassette)

43,716 video recordings (DVD and VHS)

3,462 CD-ROMS (includes video games)

526 Playaways

550 different titles of magazines available

40 different titles of newspapers available

Source: Middletown Public Library System