Just thinking out loud: Let’s say you’re a blind person, and you would like to access public domain literature on the web, the kind of stuff that is made available to sighted readers by folks like Project Gutenberg or the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia (two very different enterprises, but you get my drift). You could acquire a screen reader program, which will read text out loud right off the screen. But let’s say you want to hear it in a more ‘natural’ sounding voice, rather than in a somewhat robot-like voice.

• Where do you go? Are there free sites on the web featuring sound files of people reading out loud?
• If not, why not?
• How hard would it be to start up such a project? An oral/aural Project Gutenberg staffed by worldwide volunteer labor? Obviously the necessary storage space for sound files would be larger than for text files, but not insurmountably so.
• If one were to apply for grant money to support such a project, what would be some likely places to apply?