Jessie Facts: LibriVox

 

A number of books that I list and have reviews for come from the website LibriVox.org. This is a website made up entirely of volunteers who work diligently to put out free audiobooks of works in the public domain.

Starting up in August of 2005, Hugh McGuire began a mission to see all Public Domain works offered in audio format, for free, to the world. With a massive community of volunteers and over 20,000 works currently available in their library, LibriVox is well on their way to seeing it done.

I first became aware of LibriVox through Brenda Dayne's knitting podcast Cast On in 2008. Hearing her own recordings and the joy she had working with the site, I decided to sign up and give it a go. After a couple of years, my life had become rather busy and other things took more of my time.

In 2013, something reminded me of the site and I returned. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember my login information, and my account was connected to my college email that no longer existed, so I had to start anew. This time I lasted until 2017 when a family tragedy took priority. 

In August of 2024 I made my triumphant return, now a mother, but with a job that didn't require much phone time and allowed listening to music and audiobooks. Rather than record chapters or roles, I now take the role of Book Coordinator and Proof Listener, helping with the organization and completion of projects on the quiet side of things. 

In October of 2024 I restarted the LibriVox Community Podcast on a monthly schedule, allowing me to get a bit of recording done, and updating the community on news and happenings.

So far in 2025 I've maintained the Podcast schedule, and have 36 active projects that I'm working on:

1 Solo Project that I am recording.

24 Projects that I am Dedicated Proof Listener for.

8 Projects that I am coordinating.

My list of future projects is a mile long, and I've had to put a strict boundary on myself because I'm basically at my limit for how many projects I can handle.

If you are someone who enjoys voice acting, loves books, or is just interested in seeing more public domain books available free in audio format, definitely check out the LibriVox Community.

Starting 2025 With a Clean Slate

 

I opened my Goodreads in December, looked at my TBR, took a deep breath.... and removed everything.

The last time I updated that list was in 2016, and to say I'm a different person now would be an understatement. While there were a number of books there that I do still want to read, many were on there for specific challenges from groups that are currently not active. 

So I decided to start 2025 with a clean slate.

Just looking at the list was making me feel overwhelmed. I'm going to use it as a place to keep the books I'll be soon reading, rather than a list of hopefuls, sometime in the future.

My plan for this year are to review all the books I read (excepting the many repeats of kid's books... one review per book is my limit). I'm pretty sure most of the grown up books I read will be through NetGalley as that is just the easiest way to access books for me right now. I'm finding I'm having difficulty with getting the books I want to read in the time I want to read them through the library. Many books I search either aren't in the catalogue or have months long waiting lists. That's not very conducive to buddy or challenge reads.

My goals this year are:

1. Read 12 grown up books this year. I think planning on 1 per month is reasonable, and I may even get more!

2. Read 1 new book to the kids each week. Considering their books take less than 10 minutes to go through normally, this is totally achievable. I'm mainly doing this so we don't get stuck in a rut of re-reading the same 5 favourite books over and over.

3. As stated above, review all books that I read, and as a subsection to that, start cross posting to social media. Any NetGalley books will obviously be reviewed there, however I want to get my reviews on here, as well as Goodreads. I have Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky, and it would be nice to get them going with reviews. I'm not looking to become a Bookfluencer or anything, just to honestly review stuff for the authors and people looking. Especially the kids books because there isn't as much out there as for those written for adults.

4. Be more active on my Goodreads groups. I'm part of Challenge Corner, NetGalley Readers, and NetGalley Buddy Reads and I just want to be more active and part of the community.

5. Continue to be active on Librivox. I host the podcast, proof listen, and book coordinate over there and I want to continue what I've started. The only issue with being a proof listener rather than listening to the finished story is that I quite often listen out of order, so I'm not sure I can count those books. I may include a Librivox post each month just to keep track of my activity and give it a little promo.

6. Play around with the NetGalley Reading Journal. I don't expect this to be something I actively update throughout the year, at least not on a book by book basis. I'd like to at least do the Month Summary pages though.

I think these are all reasonable goals for the year. The biggest challenge will be time, but I'm planning on taking that time after the kids are in bed now, even if it means hopping out to a coffee shop to get it done.

What goals or plans are you looking at for the year?