The Right to Listen: A Not So Simple Matter of Audiobooks

This article, written on the intersection of public and technical services, proposes a conceptual and theoretical foundation of advocacy for integrating audiobooks into library collections and programs. Suggestions are made primarily with librarians in public libraries in mind, although it is hoped that academic and special librarians will also benefit from them; these suggestions build on the analysis of the rising popularity of audiobooks as an accessible medium and a medium of choice for leisure readers with and without disabilities. We look at the equal status for audiobooks and the wider acceptance of audiobooks through the combined lens of diversity and privilege. In our study, we survey extant literature (research-based, media, and social media publications); examine and synthesize it in a critical and innovative manner (e.g., by combining the social analysis of proliferating and diversified audiobooks with the notions of diversity and privilege); propose new ways of looking at the issues of advocacy and practice; and offer specific ideas for librarians to implement them. We argue that some anxieties and concerns about audiobooks and audio-reading, among others, can derive from different types of privileges held by professionals and social groups, which becomes particularly important when they are endowed with decision-making power; these privileges include the privilege of body ability; the privilege of lifestyle; the Western privilege; the privilege of literacy; privileging format over story; and the privilege of citizenship and language.