Editing Audiobook (section)

====Beginnings to 1970====
Many short, spoken word recordings were sold on cylinder in the late 19th and early 20th century;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cyberbee.com/edison/cylinder.html |title=Cylinder Recordings |publisher=Cyberbee.com |access-date=2 August 2012}}</ref> however, the round cylinders were limited to about 4 minutes each making books impractical;<ref name=rubery/> flat platters increased to 12 minutes but this too was impractical for longer works.<ref name=rubery/> "One early listener complained that he would need a wheelbarrow to carry around talking books recorded on discs with such limited storage capacity."<ref name=rubery/> By the 1930s close-grooved records increased to 20 minutes making possible longer narrative.<ref name=rubery/>

In 1931, the [[American Foundation for the Blind]] (AFB) and Library of Congress Books for the Adult Blind Project established the "Talking Books Program" ([[Books for the Blind]]), which was intended to provide reading material for veterans injured during World War I and other visually impaired adults.<ref name=rubery/> The first test recordings in 1932 included a chapter from [[Helen Keller]]'s ''Midstream'' and [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s "[[The Raven]]".<ref name=rubery/> The organization received congressional approval for exemption from copyright and free postal distribution of talking books.<ref name=rubery/> The first recordings made for the Talking Books Program in 1934 included sections of the Bible; the Declaration of Independence and other patriotic documents; plays and sonnets by Shakespeare; and fiction by [[Gladys Hasty Carroll]], [[E. M. Delafield]], [[Cora Jarrett]], [[Rudyard Kipling]], [[John Masefield]], and [[P. G. Wodehouse]].<ref name=rubery/> To save costs and quickly build inventories of audiobooks, Britain and the United States shared recordings in their catalogs. By looking at old catalogs, historian Matthew Rubery has "probably" identified the first British-produced audiobook as [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''[[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd]]'', read by Anthony McDonald in 1934.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rubery |first1=Matthew |title=Britain's First Talking Book: An Update |url=https://audiobookhistory.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/britains-first-talking-book-an-update/ |website=Audiobook History |date=5 November 2018 |access-date=12 August 2021}}</ref>

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFBD, later renamed [[Learning Ally]]) was founded in 1948 by Anne T. Macdonald, a member of the [[New York Public Library]]'s Women's Auxiliary, in response to an influx of inquiries from soldiers who had lost their sight in combat during [[World War II]]. The newly passed ''[[GI Bill of Rights]]'' guaranteed a college education to all veterans, but texts were mostly inaccessible to the recently blinded veterans, who did not read [[Braille]] and had little access to live readers. Macdonald mobilized the women of the Auxiliary under the motto "Education is a right, not a privilege". Members of the Auxiliary transformed the attic of the New York Public Library into a studio, recording textbooks using then state-of-the-art six-inch vinyl [[SoundScriber]] phonograph discs that played approximately 12 minutes of material per side. In 1952, Macdonald established recording studios in seven additional cities across the United States.

[[Caedmon Records]] was a pioneer in the audiobook business. It was the first company dedicated to selling spoken work recordings to the public and has been called the "seed" of the audiobook industry.<ref name="npr2002">{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=866406 |title=Caedmon: Recreating the Moment of Inspiration |work=NPR [[Morning Edition]] |date=5 December 2002 |access-date=6 March 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307094031/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=866406 |archive-date=7 March 2014 }}</ref> Caedmon was formed in New York in 1952 by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney.<ref name="npr2002" /> Their first release was a collection of poems by [[Dylan Thomas]] as read by the author.<ref name="npr2002" /> The [[LP record|LP]]'s B-side contained ''[[A Child's Christmas in Wales]]'', which was added as an afterthought. The story was obscure and Thomas himself could not remember its title when asked what to use to fill up the [[A-side and B-side|B-side]]—but this recording went on to become one of his most loved works, and launched Caedmon into a successful company.<ref name="npr2002" /> The original 1952 recording was a selection for the 2008 [[United States National Recording Registry]], stating it is "credited with launching the audiobook industry in the United States".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/registry/nrpb-2008reg.html |title=The National Recording Registry 2008 |access-date=9 January 2012 |work=National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress |publisher=The Library of Congress |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324083253/http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/registry/nrpb-2008reg.html |archive-date=24 March 2012 }}</ref> Caedmon used [[LP record|LP]] records, invented in 1948, which made longer recordings more affordable and practical, however most of their works were poems, plays and other short works, not unabridged books due to the LP's limitation of about a 45-minute playing time (combined sides). 

[[Listening Library]]<ref name="Kids and Teens">{{cite web|url=http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/kids-and-teens/|title=Kids and Teens|access-date=1 November 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104062538/http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/kids-and-teens/|archive-date=4 November 2016}}</ref>  was also a pioneering company, it was one of the first to distribute children's audiobooks to schools, libraries and other special markets, including VA hospitals.<ref name="maughan">{{cite web |url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20050307/17853-sounds-like-celebration.html |title=Sounds Like Celebration |work=[[Publishers Weekly]] |author=Shannon Maughan |date=7 March 2005 |access-date=19 March 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140319061319/http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20050307/17853-sounds-like-celebration.html |archive-date=19 March 2014 }}</ref> It was founded by Anthony Ditlow and his wife in 1955 in their [[Red Bank, New Jersey]] home; Ditlow was partially blind.<ref name="maughan" /> Another early pioneering company was [[Spoken Arts]] founded in 1956 by Arthur Luce Klein and his wife, they produced over 700 recordings and were best known for poetry and drama recordings used in schools and libraries.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/21/arts/arthur-klein-81-made-literary-recordings.html |title=Arthur Klein, 81. Made Literary Recordings |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=21 April 1997 |access-date=19 March 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140330160805/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/21/arts/arthur-klein-81-made-literary-recordings.html |archive-date=30 March 2014 }}</ref> Like Caedemon, Listening Library and Spoken Arts benefited from the new technology of LPs, but also increased governmental funding for schools and libraries beginning in the 1950s and 60s.<ref name="maughan" />