Did you know that the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library produces audiobooks via Indiana Voices at the Indiana State Library?
Audiobook aficionados know that a storyteller’s voice can create tangible experiences. Narrating is not just the task of reading out loud, but the art of inviting others into the story. For patrons of the Indiana Voices program of the Indiana State Library’s Talking Book and Braille Library, volunteer narrators do just that.
Together with Indiana State Library staff, volunteers bring Hoosier words and voices to people who cannot use standard printed materials due to a visual, physical or reading disabilities, and live in the state of Indiana or across the country. Cozy mysteries, local history, true crime, authors from Indiana and more are recorded in the program, but what goes into the process of recording an audiobook?
Narrators begin work on their titles outside of the studio, reading ahead for thorny sentences and unfamiliar pronunciations. Once they are confident in their preparation, they arrive at the downtown Indianapolis studio to narrate for an hour. A monitor outside the booth follows along in the text to catch mistakes and alert the narrator.
It may take months to finish a title, but when the back cover is eventually closed, the audiobook is sent to a volunteer reviewer for a final examination. Reviews are tasked with finding any error that the monitor may have missed. Corrections are recorded, mistakes are edited out and the finished book is made available to Talking Books and Braille Library patrons.
Reading out loud may sound easy, but each title represents up to four times as many behind-the-scenes hours as the total runtime of the audiobook. It takes dedication to bring an author’s words to life!
In 2026, Indiana Voices has already completed six books:
- “Bird Girl: Gene Stratton-Porter Shares Her Love of Nature and the World” By Jill Esbaum. Juvenile nonfiction, biography, nature – DBC17873
- “The Lucky One” by Lori Rader–Day. Fiction, suspense, thriller – DBC17842
- “I’ll Storm Hell: A Biographical Novel of ‘Mad Anthony’ Wayne” by Noel B. Gerson. Historical fiction, Revolutionary War, war stories – DBC17823
- “Oliver P. Morton and the Politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction” by A. James Fuller. Biography, Civil War history, war nonfiction, U.S. history – DBC17822
- “The Improbable Wendell Willkie: the Businessman who Saved the Republican Party and his Country and Conceived a New World Order” by David L Lewis. Biography, U.S. history, presidential candidates – DBC17820
- “Tales from the Indianapolis 500: A Collection of the Greatest Indy 500 Stories Ever Told” by Jack Arute and Jenna Fryer, forward by A.J. Foyt. Biography, sports biography, automobile racing – DBC17874
Volunteers are needed to do all of these task. Opportunities are open to join the work of providing Indiana-related titles to audiobook readers. Indiana is made up of many individual voices, representing different Hoosier communities, identities and experiences, all of which contribute to authentic interpretations of Indiana books. Volunteers from all the different communities and cultures in the state of Indiana are invited to apply. Volunteers are expected to work at least one hour every other week.
For those interested in learning more about volunteering with Indiana Voices as a narrator, monitor or as a reviewer, please visit the Indiana Voices website or contact Judy Gray, Indiana Talking Books and Braille Library supervisor, via phone at 317-232-0609 or via email.
Patrons interested in receiving audiobook materials from Indiana Voices should contact the Indiana State Library’s Talking Book and Braille Library at 317-232-3684.
This blog post was written by Judy Gray, Indiana Talking Books and Braille Library supervisor.






























