The audio version of historical novel "Master and Commander" lists for $49.95 in its unabridged form. But last week Bob Hammond of Manhattan Beach downloaded it off the Internet for free.
Hammond is no hacker or identity thief. He simply has a library card.
Public libraries have long offered audio books on cassette tapes and CDs that can be checked out, but now they can be downloaded directly to home computers.
On the download roster at the Los Angeles Public Library, for example, are actor Don Cheadle reading Walter Mosley's "Fear Itself," humorist David Sedaris reading his own short stories and actor Patrick Stewart narrating C.S. Lewis' "The Last Battle." There are hundreds more novels, classics, biographies and business books.
Indeed, the library has nearly 1,300 online titles, each of which can be electronically checked out and downloaded to a computer by a cardholder -- all without stepping into a library branch.
"I was like a kid," said Hammond, 57, "browsing through all the things I could get."
If ever there was a use of technology for the public good, this is it. It's astonishingly refreshing to find something high-tech not aimed at further saturating us with pop media, elongating the workday or making sure we can be reached 24/7.
The service is easy to use and available to almost anyone in Los Angeles or Orange counties who has access to a personal computer (with the sad exception of Apple users -- the downloads are not Macintosh-compatible).
The downloads can be transferred to some portable players, not including -- and here's another glitch -- Apple Computer Inc.'s ubiquitous iPod. (But read on -- there is a way for iPod users to listen to some of the downloads.)
To get an online book you simply go to the website of a participating library and browse through the offerings. Many of the sites even make available sample audio excerpts from the selections.
Audio takes much more time to download than text. It took 16 minutes and 30 seconds to get Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" on a broadband connection, for example. But that's not bad, considering the audio book is nearly 19 hours long.
Once downloaded, these can typically be listened to on and off for three weeks. Then it electronically self-destructs, "Mission: Impossible" style, except without the smoke, mechanical destruction or a visit from Tom Cruise.
