Over the years, LATKids has made much use of text-to-speech, the
technology of converting written words into audible speech
through the use of computer-generated voices. For instance,
text-to-speech forms the foundation of our Speak for Yourself
program. Along the way we have watched - and listened - and
synthetic speech has progressed from the robotic, monotone
sounds of the early 90’s to the more natural, fluid-sounding
speech of today. Only recently, though, have we decided that
synthetic speech is up to the task of reading great works of
literature. We have been experimenting with a web service called
Odiogo, which converts written text into computer-generated
speech, then provides it as both streaming audio and MP3 files
which can be listened to or downloaded from our web site. Our
experiments with this service led to our latest project: The
Library at LATkids. Using Odiogo, and books in the public
domain, we have created a site where great works of literature
are now available to children who are visual