{"id":9567,"date":"2024-02-19T10:42:23","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T15:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voicecoaches.com\/?p=9567"},"modified":"2024-02-22T11:51:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T16:51:33","slug":"the-history-of-audiobooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voicecoaches.com\/the-history-of-audiobooks\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of Audiobooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/tukuz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/american-foundation-for-the-blind-afb-logo-vector.png\" alt=\"The logo for the &quot;American Foundation for the Blind&quot;\" width=\"394\" height=\"219\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, I found myself scrolling through heaps of titles on my beloved audible app, looking for my next listening experience. Would it be a murder mystery? Or how about a guilty pleasure beach read where the heroine loses love a million times before she finally finds it? Maybe a self-help book about setting boundaries with in-laws? So many choices! I suddenly thought to myself, \u201cWhat was the first audiobook ever made?\u201d I closed my audible app (after downloading a thriller) and opened, you guessed it, google.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, it turns out the first &#8220;audiobooks&#8221; emerged not from a way to take in storytelling in the digital age, but from an innovative effort to bring literature to those who could not access it through reading it off the page. All the way back in 1932 the American Foundation for the Blind was determined to make books available for all to enjoy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1932, the AFB launched the \u201cTalking Book Program\u201d in partnership with the Library of Congress. The program aimed to provide accessible reading materials for blind and visually impaired individuals. The first audiobooks were recorded onto long-playing records, which were a new technology at the tim<\/span>e.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/listeningbooks.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/public\/blog\/000\/000\/186\/730x0\/1606862507_9krgGi10fM_Timeline-Audiobook-History.png\" alt=\"And 1878 illustrated picture showing a family listening to some of earliest phonograph audiobooks\" width=\"479\" height=\"270\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, learning this, of course my next burning question was\u2026with the ability to record books, which were the first books to be chosen to record?! My fingers typed madly while I scanned the screen with bated breath. It turns out that the first selection to turn into audio waves included titles such as , ya know, that thing called the Bible, as well as Shakespearean plays, and popular novels of the time. \u201cMakes sense\u201d, I thought. Just like these days, the books that get turned into films are the ones with the most buzz and mass appeal, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the technology was a go, the next logical step was to bring in professional actors and voice artists to bring these stories to life. You might think the dryer material took a back seat to the golden allure of being entertained but one of the most iconic early audiobooks was the recording of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. It was made in 1934, and marked an important milestone in making historical and legal texts accessible to visually impaired individuals. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fast forward through time and audiobooks continued to evolve with advancements in technology, transitioning from vinyl records to cassette tapes (anyone remember pulling stuck tape out of a cassette player?) CDs, and eventually digital formats like Audible, my beloved app.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/nls\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/AmeliaDiaz5yrsold1993-1.jpg\" alt=\"a young blind girl listens to an audio book on cassette \" width=\"412\" height=\"212\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, audiobooks make storytelling not just accessible to everyone but also totally\u00a0 immersive for everyone.\u00a0 Not only that, they are a convenient way to learn something new on the dreaded commute, or keep one company on a 12 hour drive across states to visit a loved one or apply for a new job. Audiobooks have become traveling companions, our fellow road warriors. They harken us back to the days of being told stories around a campfire at camp or while being tucked into bed at night as children, \u201cOne more story Mom!\u201d That\u2019s what I yell at my audible account when a great audiobook ends, \u201cNoooo, another story please!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>We welcome you to join us for an introductory Voice Over class\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/voicecoaches.com\/workshops\/live-online-enroll\/\">HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, I found myself scrolling through heaps of titles on my beloved audible app, looking for my next listening experience. Would it be a murder mystery? Or how about a guilty pleasure beach read where the heroine loses love a million times before she finally finds it? Maybe a self-help book about setting boundaries with&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/voicecoaches.com\/the-history-of-audiobooks\/\">View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":9570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[90,88,89,91,87,92],"class_list":["post-9567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nlog","tag-accessibility","tag-afb","tag-american-foundation-for-the-blind","tag-audio-history","tag-audiobooks","tag-voice-over-history"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The History of Audiobooks - Voice Over Training | Complete Training, Demo Development &amp; Support<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/voicecoaches.com\/the-history-of-audiobooks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The History of Audiobooks - Voice Over Training | Complete Training, Demo Development &amp; Support\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recently, I found myself scrolling through heaps of titles on my beloved audible app, looking for my next listening experience. 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