Media News
-- School Library Journal, 3/1/2009
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, written and narrated by Alexie Sherman and produced by Recorded Books, won the 2009 Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production, given jointly by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), divisions of the American Library Association (ALA), to the producers of the best audiobooks for children and/or young adults available in the United States. Honor titles include Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady written by L. A. Meyers and narrated by Katherine Kellgren (Listen & Live Audio); Paul Christopher Curtis’s Elijah of Buxton, performed by Mirron Willis (Listening Library); I’m Dirty by Kate and Mim McMullan, narrated by Steve Buscemi (Weston Woods); Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale written and narrated by Carmen Agra Deedy (Peachtree); and Terry Pratchett’s Nation, voiced by Stephen Briggs (Harper Children’s Audio).
The 2009 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children’s Video has been awarded to Paul R. Gagne and Melissa Reilly of Weston Woods Studios, producers of March On! The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World, written by Christine King Farris and illustrated by London Ladd. Lynn Whitfield narrates this inspiring iconographic production which focuses on the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
NetLibrary Media Center, a new desktop application that allows library patrons to “search, manage, transfer and listen to downloadable eAudiobooks,” has been released by OCLC, a nonprofit library service and research organization (oclc.org). Using this free software application, users connect to NetLibrary and can download eAudiobooks to a computer or to a portable listening device. According to Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development, “Users can see at a glance the eAudiobooks that are available to them through their local library or consortia.” Among the publishers partnering with NetLibrary are BBC Audiobooks, Listening Library, Live Oak Media, Recorded Books, and others. For an online demonstration of Media Center, visit www5.oclc.org/down loads/tutorials/netli brary/mediacenter/demo.htm.
