A book is a book no matter its format : a survey about attitudes, obstacles, and access to audiobooks

This thesis examines what the access to audiobooks looks like, if there are any kinds of obstacles that affect the access, and what people's attitudes are towards audiobooks. According to different theories of access, there are several parts that go into access, of which we look at identification, availability, accessibility, cost, acceptability, and awareness. These parts all act intertwined with each other to improve access. A questionnaire was made and sent out on Facebook, to be able to get a wide range of responders with different relationships to audiobooks. It resulted in 366 answers in a week, 76 from people who did not listen to audiobooks, and 290 who did. The results of the questionnaire showed a big appreciation for how and when audiobooks allowed you to read and how it gave a reading option to those who could not read printed books. The thing that almost everyone agreed on was that the narrator had a big impact on one's opinion on a specific book, and it was also the thing that stopped people from continuing with audiobooks. Awareness came up several times in that people did not have the knowledge about aspects of audiobooks that could improve their access. It could be as simple as not having thought about audiobooks as an alternate way of consuming books, or not knowing about a specific service. All in all, there exists a positive attitude towards audiobooks, even from those who did not listen for themselves. And perhaps with knowing what keeps people away, one could make the world of audiobooks more accessible to all