Audiobooks on cassette or CD have long given access to literature for sight-impaired or struggling readers. Now audiophiles are everywhere—learning on the go, frequently multitasking. People use portable player technologies to listen on the way to work or school, while cleaning house or waiting in line. My granddaughter listens to books in the car on the way to school, my son listens while he walks around the Golf, a local businessman distributes training manuals for employees to hear, a friend who is losing her sight listens to books now.

Audiobooks have a lot of fans. It's a two billion dollar industry in the United States and books are now available in many languages. This WebScout gives examples of different sources for audio books as well as a few suggestions to take advantage of reviews and author interviews.

Free Audio Book Portals
Project Gutenberg Audio eBooks http://www.gutenberg.org/audio/
Internet Archive Audio and Moving Images: http://www.archive.org/details/audio_bookspoetry
Free Classic AudioBooks http://www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com
Audiobooks.org http://www.audiobooks.org (some free, some for a price to download)

Specific Authors Online
Search for your favorite authors. Here is an example for Darwin: http://darwin-online.org.uk/audio_darwin.html

Audio Book Seller Portals
Audible.com (a project of Amazon.com for downloads)
http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/homepage/AnonHome.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes
Also via Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com using search terms such as Audio for CD, Audio Books for MP3 or iPod, Audio Book Cassettes, Books with Audio.
EBay http://buy.ebay.com/audio-books
Simply Audio Books http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/
Includes audiobooks, lectures, radio shows and a download club
MP3Books.com http://www.mp3books.com/shop/books.aspx
Includes business, biographies, classics and books in Spanish.
Books with Audio by Disney http://disneybooks.disney.go.com/formats/allbookswithaudio1.html
YoYo Books and Music in Spanish http://www.yoyousa.com/Scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=2
Author Interviews, Audio Book Reviews and Recommendations
National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/search.php?text=Books+audio
American Library Association Recommendations for Children's Notable Recordings
http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/childrensnotable/childrensnotable.htm
Book Readings for Schools http://www.teachingbooks.net/readings.cgi
OHIO University WOUB Online Poems, stories, plays, lectures and interviews for children and adults. http://wiredforbooks.org/

Information of Special Use to the Vision Impaired
Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/nls/
National Library for the Blind (UK)
http://www.nlb-online.org/
Learn Through Listening
http://www.rfbd.org/ (Recording for the Blind and Dyslectic by the Reader's Digest Foundation)
Blindness Related Sources on the Web and Beyond
http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/blind.html

A Bit about Technology
What is Mp3? It is an audio compression technology that reduces a sound data file by a factor of roughly ten, retaining most of the original fidelity and facilitating rapid transmission over the Internet. Files are played via media player software in the computer, such as iTunes or Windows Media Player, as well as in iPods or other small, portable players now on the market.
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
En español http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
Also see Apple's iPod in Education for lesson plans and ideas for learning on the go. http://www.apple.com/education/products/ipod/