[independent source needed] Can the net harness a bunch of volunteers to help bring books in the public domain to life through podcasting?LibriVox was started in August 2005 by Montreal-based writer Hugh McGuire, who set up a blog, and posed the question.

[8] The main features of the way LibriVox works have changed little since its inception, although the technology that supports it has been improved by the efforts of its volunteers with web-development skills.

The development of projects is managed through an Internet forum, supported by an admin team, who also maintain a searchable catalogue database of completed works.

[independent source needed] In early 2010, LibriVox ran a fundraising drive to raise $20,000 to cover hosting costs for the website of about $5,000/year and improve front- and backend usability.

[11] The target was reached in 13 days, and so the fundraising ended and LibriVox suggested that supporters consider making donations to its affiliates and partners, Project Gutenberg[12] and the Internet Archive.

It contains popular and classic fiction, but it also includes difficult texts such as Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and a recording of the first 500 digits of pi.

The collection also features poetry, plays, religious texts (for example, English versions of the Koran and books from various translations of the Bible) and non-fiction of various interests.

[15] The project has also been featured in press around the world and has been recommended by the BBC's Click, MSNBC's The Today Show, Reason,[16] Wired,[17] the US PC Magazine and the UK Metro and Sunday Times[18] newspapers.

[26] John Adamian, writing in Wired, noted: Sometimes while listening I feel like I'm eavesdropping on a strange over-wrought audition, where an aspiring actor tries on and abandons accents, tweaks their voice in pitch too much, or hyperextends vowels in an effort to feel their way into the voice of a fictional New England sea captain, or a crude Yorkshire industrialist, or a displaced German Jew in London.