Downloading a book to the MP3 player

Last Friday afternoon (12/29/06), John Robert helped me figure out how to listen to a downloaded book on one of the library’s MP3 players, which we borrowed from Marf. He was able to do it on his computer in the morning and then showed me how to search for a children’s book in NetLibrary (HORRIBLE HARRY GOES TO THE MOON by Suzy Kline). He pointed out the note that we need to download a book in CD quality in order for it to play on the MP3 player. The first time I did it, I saved the file directly to the MP3 player. The book title displayed but it wouldn’t play. I got a message about needing to “sync” the file. We found the little CD (for installing Windows Media Player) that goes with the MP3 player. So we did the installation. (~Maybe Alan had already installed it on my computer??~) But the book still wouldn’t play. Then we tried downloading a different book to see if I had missed a crucial step. Then we went back through the installation procedure – and there we saw a tab called “SYNC”. However, we couldn’t figure out how to put my book in the sync list. Finally, John Robert advised me to save the book in My Documents. We could open the book files and play them there. Then he right-clicked on one of the files – and that’s where we finally saw “Send to sync list”. At last! I sent it to the sync list and let it get synced, which I think copied it to the MP3 player. Anyway, it played! Hallelujah!

Today, I downloaded a book onto one of the older public computers in the Reference Room. At first, I tried to download HORRIBLE HARRY GOES TO THE MOON again, but a message said that it couldn't be licensed to a 2nd computer, just the original computer. But I was able to download and play a new book on the public computer. However, it took much longer to download.