The Chicago Public Library is diving into downloadable audiobooks with the launch of its new OverDrive service. The OverDrive site says right at the top, “Download digital audio books to your personal computer anytime, day or night. All you need is a library card!”

However, there are a few big caveats.

First, the OverDrive software is based upon the horribly-designed Windows Media Player, its wildly unpopular formats and its odious DRM, so Mac and Linux users are out of luck. The help pages state that “…in order to use OverDrive Audio Book titles on a device, the device must play DRM-protected Windows Media content,” so many portable MP3 players are out of luck, too.

Second, the audiobooks are not compatible with iPods which, comprise 70% of the portable music players out there. Now, this is neither CPL’s nor OverDrive’s fault; rather, it is Apple’s, for exclusively supporting Audible audiobooks.

Third and most disappointing, these audiobooks can’t be downloaded by too many people at one time and expire automatically. According to the article, “After three weeks, the files no longer work, essentially ‘returning’ themselves. And like regular library books, only limited copies of the audiobook are available, and waits for some books aren’t unusual.” (emphasis mine) Yes, you read that right; if a book gets popular, you can’t download it until someone else’s copy is returned.

Chicago Public Library is taking a remarkably (or perhaps “unreasonably” is a better word) rosy view of a digital audiobook system which excludes so many people and makes the rest jump through so many hoops. “Who we expect [to download books] is Chicagoans of all ages…but especially commuters and joggers,” said Chicago Public Library spokeswoman Tanya King.

Sure; all of those commuters and joggers we see on the el who don’t have an iPod, who are running Windows Media Player and who are willing to subject themselves to this kind of nonsense just to listen to an audiobook. What in the world is going on when a digital download is treated as a finite resource, like a physical copy of a book, and what happens to people who haven’t listened to a whole book when the expiry date comes up?

Now, CPL has one compromise; a small portable audiobook player called a Playaway, which holds one book and which you check out and return like a normal book. That isn’t as bad (I suppose), but it’s still a silly hoop to jump through, just to hear someone read a book.

You know, sometimes I really love the Internet.

I had just extricated myself from the last of the Gawker blogs a couple of months ago when I stumbled on io9, a weblog dedicated to science fiction. Its other great feature is that unlike the rest of the Gawker community, it isn’t annoying. In fact, I think it’s a great blog (which made me double-check that it was actually a Gawker product).

Now, when I was five or six years years old (back in the late Mesozoic era), I remembered seeing a television show that I really liked. It was about a pair of time-travelers who used a device that looked like a pocket watch. I’m sure it wasn’t actually a good show, but hey, I was five and easily amused.

For years, I’ve tried to remember what that show was, but I couldn’t remember anything but that pocket-watch time machine. All attempts to figure out the show from others met with failure and some even insinuated that I’d never seen any such show.

However, today io9 gave me sweet, sweet vindication: the show was called Voyagers! and ran for just twenty episodes in 1982 and 1983. (No wonder no one else could remember it!)

Essentially, this guy and a kid travel through time, giving it a nudge and keeping history on track. It’s not exactly Doctor Who; it was more like Doctor Who Cares? Nevertheless, I love io9 for remembering this show and letting me see the Omni (that’s the name of the pocket-watch time machine) for the first time in twenty-five years and proving that I really did see this cool show when I was a kid.

Oh, look; YouTube even has the opening sequence! (Wow, look at those hairstyles; it was astonishingly early-1980s. I’m amazed that neither Ben Murphy nor Willie Aames were in this.)