December 2020 News Roundup

WILL LIVE NARRATORS GO EXTINCT?

Google recognizes that many frontlist and backlist titles will never be converted to a proper audiobook and they have developed a beta system that will employ AI and auto generated narrators. This will basically provide indie authors and all sorts of publishing companies to make audio editions automatically. [Source: 9to5Google]

DECLARING BOOKS "ESSENTIAL" DURING A PANDEMIC

Belgium, Germany and Austria have kept bookshops open, while in France, writers have clubbed together to pay fines levied on shops that have refused to close. In Chicago, a pre-pandemic experiment in cancelling all library fines paid unexpectedly high dividends in returned books and increased borrowing. [Source: TheGuardian]

THE NEUROSCIENCE OF AUDIOBOOKS

Human beings have been spinning tales and passing them down to later generations orally since long before the first words were put to paper. The stories that our early ancestors told one another had a very important evolutionary role and played a major part in the creation and sustenance of the societal structures of today. [Source: BookRiot]