Travelling is yet another thing many families do during the holiday season and there is nothing more annoying than the radio fading in and out as your travel any great distance. Or worse, finding the 'right' station that will please everyone in the car! A neat thing to try for those long drives is listening to an audio book. One of the wonderful newer services we offer is downloadable audio books. The icon for this service is located at the bottom left of your screen. Or, if you are in the catalogue you'll see a button on the right side of your screen that says "Online audiobooks". Go ahead and click on that to enter into the world of audio books. This service is so easy to use, and user friendly (in my opinion). Even I can do it and I'm not super computer savvy!

First you will need to set up your free account by clicking on the login button. You will need to have your library card handy, and it must be up-to-date ie. not expired. Exploring this site is fun and simple. There is a great section dedicated solely to Children's books. Scroll down a bit on your screen and click on "Children". Click here and explore! I personally, look for the titles that have the little flame symbol on them because this means you can burn that title on to a CD. This way I can just pop it into my car's CD player, easy as pie. For those titles that do not have the little flame symbol on them,  you may download onto your computer and from there transfer them to an MP3 player. This is an extra step, but I know many cars have the special plug for MP3 players built right in. Oh, and downloading is SUPER easy... the button is right there to click onto and away it goes!

There is a great Frequently Asked Questions section that will answer most of your queries like "What do I need on my computer to download audiobooks?" and so on. Most importantly, you need to know that you can borrow 5 audio books at a time and you NEVER have to worry about returning them on time. After 14 days they simply check themselves in. No overdue fees to worry about. Isn't that great?

Another easy option you have is to check out the library 's collection of children's books on CD. These are audio book CDs that you can borrow for 3 weeks with your library card, and no downloading necessary! Come on in and see what we've got on our shelves.

This year, when you're driving to visit friends and relatives with your family in tow, try out an audio book and stay well-read. Happy Holidays!