RBdigital

The University Library subscribes to RBdigital, eAudio books from Recorded Books, which allows unlimited simultaneous users for each title. I tried the app out for the past few weeks, and I enjoyed using it. There are 5714 eAudio books from which a user can browse from, and the selections are pretty good, with many genres to chose from. I was lucky to find the newest Expanse novel on there, Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey. You can download the app on both Apple and Android phones/devices and on Amazon Kindle. Having the app at your fingertips on your phone is a really easy way to have access to audio books, and that it can be on both Apple and Android phones was a huge plus for me. At the time that I was trying the application out I was in between those two phones and using a tablet. The only big downside to this app was that the devices never synced together; I usually only got so far in one device by the time I moved on to the next, and the places where I left out where not automatically saved. I had to put a bookmark to save my place, which logically makes sense but I was expecting the application to just do that without any interference from me (sort of like Netflix or Hulu).
The layout of the platform is bordered by red with a background of black, which is a nice way for the covers of the books to be really seen and noticed. While browsing, the digital bookshelves allow you to see the covers of the books, along with the title, author and availability in plain text underneath them. You can search books by keyword, title, author or narrator while doing an easy search. There’s also an advanced search option that has genre, availability, or audience as search options (there will be dropdown menus for all of them with options to select from). You get to check out the books for three weeks, and as long as no one is checking that some ebook out, you can check it out again after those three weeks are over if you need more time. 
While listening to your books, at the bottom of your screen you will have 4 selections: the playback speed, chapter list, bookmarks and sleep timer. You have playback speed options from 0.5x to 2.0x, with 0.25x increments. Clicking on the chapter list tells you how long each chapter is, and allows you to move from chapter to chapter. The bookmarks lets you view and save multiple bookmarks. The sleep timer has the options of 15, 30, 45, 60 and 90 minutes before the app stops playing. 
Overall, I had a good experience using the app, and you should give at a try too. You’ll need to create an individual account to check out books. For more information on how to use this, you can use the following resource page: http://guides.library.illinois.edu/eAudio
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