As readers of this blog (all three of 'em?) will know, we want to update the equipment we use for making audio books for the blind and have been trying to find the most suitable then raise money to buy it. Our friend Joe has been helping Technonun research digital audio recorders and at (long) last they have agreed: the Zoom H4N is their recorder of choice to replace our outmoded and increasingly rackety cassette recorders. It is the only affordable digital recorder with a big enough screen and buttons for our "mature" volunteers to use comfortably, something that may be of interest to anyone with a similar problem.

Digitalnun is pleased about this choice as she already uses the H4N's baby brother, the HandyZoom, to record podcasts for our web site and is enthusiastic about the audio quality which can be obtained. She may not be quite so enthusiastic when she realises that to replace all the recording equipment used by our volunteer readers (i.e. the people who record the texts for us) is going to cost around £6,000, but never mind, Christmas is coming and one can always hope. Replacing the recorders will enable us to introduce phase 1 of our changeover to mp3 files and CDs and memory sticks. Introducing DAISY CDs for more complex books will take a while longer, not least because the kind of equipment needed is more expensive and the process involved more complicated, but at least we can expect to make a start in 2010.

Meanwhile Technonun is continuing to research OpenSource library software for the audio library. Perhaps someone reading this could make a suggestion about which would be most suitable? We have under 1,000 audio titles at present, but we need to keep track of who has what as well as maintaining a proper catalogue, preferably online as well as in St Cecilia's itself. We have two volunteers who are willing to do the keying-in for us and we don't want their enthusiasm to evaporate while we dither. We'd prefer a little more "zoom, zoom" all round, in fact.