Re: "reading service"

[Keith Barry <barry@meol.mass.edu>]

At 01:26 AM 6/8/97 -0500, BUMP MARTIN wrote:
>
>does anyone know if the 'reading service uses volunteers?  And who
>decides what is read.  ???  As I have never heard it....How is it all
>delivered?  Like a documentary...or with a host reading through the bits
>....???

  The reading service uses volunteers. The volunteer decides what is read.
Now, in choosing books and periodicals, volunteers have to be more careful
to choose tasteful things since the Mass. Radio Reading Network has gone
"mainstream" - stereo TV, WVBF, WJUL, etc.
It is delivered by the host of the program reading selected blurbs from the
periodical - direct reading either live from the main studio or recorded
from one of the recording booths. The show changes every half hour or so. I
am a volunteer at the Talking Information Centers in Marshfield (uses WATD
TX site and basement of WATD studios) and sometimes read books on "Off the
Shelf". In reading periodicals, the reader would read on one of the 360
Systems HD Audio machines and have someone transfer it to the automation
systems and shuffle the programming around into time slots. The bookreaders
are stuck with plain-old cassette recorders made by Onkyo, and from 1987.
Not even Dolby C! Anyways, that is transferred to the HD directly before it
is broadcast (1 hour of bookreading takes up a lot of space on the machine).
At TIC, we used to use 12" reel tapes (the automation system was a bunch of
donated Tascam decks from the '70s wired together, with appliance timers to
shut them on and off). Anyways, the bookreaders are now getting new tape
decks to read from with 3 heads and timers built in. Another thing - it
sounds extremely live and local, but whenever an announcer introduces a
program and gives notes and station I.D., it was recorded earlier in the
morning. The audio quality sounds horrid because it is such a bad
transmission. The direct feed sounds GREAT!
                                                                       -
Keith Barry

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