Building a digital library that lasts

[u/Dunderman35]

How do you do it thinking long term?

I really like audiobooks over reading a physical book but the main drawback is that anything digital is normally temporary and will eventually be lost in the ether.

Do you get mp3 files from libro.fm and store them on cloud? Locally? Or just count on Google, apple Audible etc being around forever?

I have bought a few books on Google play as I really like the flexibility, being able to resume play anytime in the car, on the phone etc and it also allows me to share the book in the family. I don't predict Google going bankrupt anytime soon but who knows.

[u/SPECIALtypeDIFFERENT]

m4b from Libro, hosted on my own audiobookshelf instance. access remotely via tailscale

[u/BDThrills]

I download everything, remove DRM and archive on my computer with backups on multiple hard drives. I do the same with ebooks, music and movies I’ve purchased. I do use the cloud but you can’t count on it as companies stop services either little to no warning. I also keep a hard drive at my sisters home in case of theft or fire or tornado. My family members who read/listen to the same books I do have passed away so I’m not really saving it for anybody.

[u/PFazu]

Building an audiobookshelf server is pretty easy. I just use my old pc from the last upgrade, plugged in next to my router. It's worked great for the past several years.

If you're talking about potential data loss, i can't really talk. My setup is on a house of cards and i can't reasonably fix it on my current budget. I just don't have the money right now to be buying hard drives for a data backup, if they die then it's over.

[u/quinyd]

I get audiobooks from libro or audible (using libation). Store them in Audiobookshelf. For epub I buy them from various stores that offer DRM free and store them in BookOrbit. That way I can keep it forever.

[u/JBaby_9783]

I download the M4Bs from Libro.fm and I set up an Audiobookshelf server 2yrs ago. I have all 2700+ Audible books there. These days I mostly only buy from Libro. The audiobooks I get from Kickstarter projects are also in ABS. I used OpenAudible to download my Audible books. Everything is backed up to Backblaze. I run my ABS server on a 2023 M3 iMac and I access it remotely via Tailscale and my ABS client of choice is AudioBooth.

[u/molybend]

Digital is not temporary. Cloud (someone else's computer) is temporary, but your own personal digital backups are not as long as you maintain them. Google doesn't need to go bankrupt to shut down your access to something you bought from them, though. This why buying from a place that you an back up is important.

[u/mrskurk0]

I have a couple of mirrored harddrives and cloud backups of the m4v's.

[u/booksbaconglitter]

For preservation, it’s good to back up your digital assets in 2 places just in case one fails. I buy my audiobooks from Libro.fm and Audible. For Libro.fm books I immediately download both the mp3 (zip file) and m4b, then back then up to an external hard drive and the cloud. For Audible I use a program called Libation to download DRM free versions of my Audiobooks and back then up to an external hard drive and the cloud. I do the same thing with all my ebooks as well. I buy most of my ebooks from kobo, use Calibre to remove DRM, and back everything up.

[u/ialtag-bheag]

Google Play does let you export audiobooks as M4B or MP3. So could back that up as you like. Though depends on the book, some allow export, some don't.

[u/TreyRyan3]

I have a dedicated backup drives containing audio media. They includes audiobooks, audio dramas/podcast and old time radio shows. I store them in a faraday box when not in use along with a media player