Welcome to the user guide for National Library Service My Talking Books skill. This skill allows access to the BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) platform using an Amazon smart speaker. This user guide will help you get started with using My Talking Books. To learn even more about the commands to use with the smart speaker skill, access the My Talking Books Command List.
Throughout the user guide, the smart speaker’s name has been replaced with the phrase "Lady A." This is because when your speaker hears its wake word, it may pause the user guide. Please use your smart speaker’s wake word, and not the replacement name (Lady A) when using commands with My Talking Books.
Logging into My Talking Books
Logging in Using the Amazon Alexa App
- On your Amazon speaker, say the command, "Lady A, open My Talking Books." You will be asked to give your name. Your smart speaker will instruct you to open the Amazon Alexa app on your phone.
- Open the My Talking Books skill which should be near the top of the opening screen. Check the two checkboxes, giving Alexa permission to remember your name and email address. At this point, you are finished with the Amazon Alexa app. Your smart speaker is required for the next step.
- Use the command, "Lady A, open My Talking Books.” Your smart speaker will ask you for your ten-digit phone number.
- After giving your phone number, you will be asked how you would like to receive an authentication phrase/numerical code—via text message, a phone call, or by email.
- After receiving the four-character phrase or numerical code via the method you chose in step four, say the command, "Lady A, open My Talking Books," then speak either the phrase or numerical code you were given when the system asks for it. You should then be authenticated and successfully logged into the skill.
Logging in Using the Web
- Activate the following link: Amazon.com My Talking Books Alexa Skills.
- Sign into your Amazon account.
A. If you activated the link from Step 1, navigated the page, and selected the "Enable" button, then you are already signed in and can skip this step.
B. If you did not previously sign into your Amazon account with your browser, or your browser did not remember your credentials, you will find a "Sign In" button instead. You will need to activate this button and sign into your Amazon account.
C. To sign into your Amazon account, you will need at least the email address or phone number associated with the account along with the password.
You may also have to verify the account where Amazon sends you a code via text message or email.
D. Complete the form fields with all the required correct information until you get the page that says "Amazon.com: My Talking Books: Alexa Skills." - Once signed in, find and activate the button that says "Enable."
- Once you enable the skill, the next page will allow you to manage permissions. You will need to locate the checkboxes for, "Email Address" and "First Name". Check both boxes with the spacebar, and then activate the "save permissions" button. At this point, you are finished with the webpage. Your smart speaker is required for the next step.
- Use the command, "Lady A, open My Talking Books." Your smart speaker will ask you for your ten-digit phone number.
- After giving your phone number, you will be asked how you would like to receive an authentication phrase/numerical code—via text message, a phone call, or by email.
- After receiving the four-character phrase or numerical code via the method you chose in step six, say the command, "Lady A, open My Talking Books," then speak either the phrase or numerical code you were given when the system asks for it. You should then be authenticated and successfully logged into the skill.
Using My Talking Books
To start an interaction with My Talking Books, say the following opening phrase:
"Lady A, open My Talking Books."
To keep an interaction with My Talking Books going, as with any other skill, you have to provide commands or answer questions in a few seconds; otherwise, the Smart Speaker will think that you are no longer interested, so it closes the session, and you will have to restart. My Talking Books remembers the books you have recently read and your preferences across all your interactions.
If the Smart Speaker is reading a long reply and you want to cut it short, you can interrupt it with the command "Lady A," followed by your next command. My Talking Books allows you to have multiple interactions at the same time — for instance, you can start searching for a book, then check what you have read recently, and finally, come back to the book search to pick a new book to read. However, it is easy to forget what you were doing when open interactions accumulate. In that case, simply say, "Clear dialog." My Talking Books will clear your previous commands and you can restart by giving it a new command. If you want to stop interacting with My Talking Books altogether, say, “Cancel” and your Smart Speaker will close the session.
While an item is being read, you can give the Smart Speaker a few general commands that apply to all sorts of audio content. For example, you can change the volume using the "Lady A, ask My Talking books to increase playback volume" command.
If you want to ask My Talking Books to do something specific, however, such as to jump to a specific section or to tell you where you are in a book while reading, you need to first stop audio playback with the command, "Lady A, stop." The skill will prompt you immediately for your next command. You may access this user guide via your speaker any time by saying, "Lady A, user guide."
Lists and How to Use Them
In the My Talking Books skill, lists are used to display and group BARD catalog items. The types of lists in the My Talking Books skill include: the most recently added items to the BARD catalog, known as "recently added," the most popular books, known as "popular books," your BARD wish list, known as "wish list," and lists of catalog items based on user-desired search criteria. Please note that searching and playback of foreign language material, magazines and/or music titles is not supported by the skill at this time.
Navigating a List
When you select a list, you can navigate by using the following commands: "next" and "go back." For example, to list the BARD popular books, say "Lady A, list popular books." When the list becomes available, by default, the first ten of the total number of books will be listed, with the total number of available books also reported. The number of books displayed at one time is based on the number of options in a list group setting, which is described, along with how to change it, in the Search Results and Lists Preferences section of this user guide.
From within the list of most popular books, saying, "Lady A, next," will go to the next ten books on the list. You may move back in the list by saying, "Lady A, go back." Your Smart Speaker will go back to the previous ten books in the list. You may quickly move through the list by jumping forward or back by a set number of your choosing. Say, "Lady A, jump forward ten." Your Smart Speaker will jump forward ten books in the list. Saying, "Lady A, jump backward five" will jump backward five books in the list.
Selecting a Book to Play from a List
While browsing a list of BARD catalog content items, you can select an item to play. You select an item from a list using a number or words from the desired item title. For example, from within a list of search results, if you wanted to read the first item, say, "Lady A, play number one," and your Smart Speaker will then begin playing that item.
Streaming History
Any BARD catalog items you read will be added to your streaming history. To access your streaming history, say, "Lady A, streaming history." Your Smart Speaker will provide you with a list of items which you have previously read, starting with your most recently read item. You can select an item to read by saying its number or words from the desired item title.
Deleting Books from your Streaming History
You can choose to delete items from your streaming history. Say, "Lady A, streaming history." If you want to delete the first item in streaming history, say, "Lady A, delete number one." Your Smart Speaker will ask to confirm that you want to delete the item. After deleting an item, you can say, "Lady A, streaming history" again if you want to verify that the item was deleted.
Accessing Your BARD Wish list
You can access your BARD wish list with your Smart Speaker. This is the same wish list available from the BARD website, BARD Express, and BARD Mobile app. If you use your Smart Speaker to add or delete items on your BARD wish list, you will find that those changes have been made to your BARD wish list regardless of which BARD platform you use to access it. Note that your librarian can also make changes to your BARD wish list if you ask them to do so.
To access your BARD wish list, say, "Lady A, my BARD wish list." Your Smart Speaker will list any books which you have previously added to your BARD wish list, starting with the most recently added. Note that not all of the items on your BARD wish list may be available to stream using the My Talking Books skill.
Adding Books to Your BARD Wish list
While browsing catalog items, you can select items to add to your BARD wish list. From within a list of catalog items, after selecting a specific item, say, "Lady A, add to BARD wish list" or "Lady A, add to wish list." Your selected book will now be on your wish list.
Deleting Books from Your BARD Wish list
To delete books from your BARD wish list, say, "Lady A, my BARD wish list." Items in your BARD wish list will display. To delete an item, say, “Lady A, delete number X," where X is the item you wish to delete. You can also delete an item by referring to words in its title. Your Smart Speaker will ask to confirm that you want to delete the item. Say, "Yes" to delete or "No" to retain the book in your BARD wish list. If you answered "yes," the book should then be deleted from your BARD wish list. You can test this by accessing your BARD wish list again. You can also ask your Smart Speaker to delete all read books from your BARD wish list. Note that read books in this case refer only to those books which you have read using the My Talking Books skill.
Bookshelves
Bookshelves in the My Talking Books skill are how items can be organized for easier retrieval later on. You can have one or more personal bookshelves that are maintained and accessed only via your Smart Speaker. This is similar to how files and folders are organized on a computer. Bookshelves are designed to be a convenient way for you to keep a list of items you are interested in and organize them as you please. For instance, you may want to group items of interest in the science fiction genre in a bookshelf you create and name Science Fiction. An item can be kept in multiple bookshelves. All users have a default bookshelf, which is automatically created for each user and cannot be deleted or removed. This bookshelf can be accessed by saying the command "Lady A, default bookshelf" or "Lady A, my bookshelf."
Creating A Bookshelf
You can create a new bookshelf with a name of your preference. Once created, you can fill it with items of your choice, list or order what is inside the bookshelf, remove or delete items or all items you no longer want, and/or delete the entire bookshelf if you have no further use for it. Bookshelves are identified by name. You can use any word, and possibly more than one. In the examples in the following sections, we will use Science and Novels. Say, "Lady A, create bookshelf science" or "Lady A, create bookshelf novels."
Adding Books to Your Bookshelves
While browsing catalog items, you can select items to add to one of your bookshelves by either words from the desired item title or item number in the list of catalog results.
For example:
Say the following command sequence: "Lady A, list books about science." Items related to science are displayed. Say, "Lady A, number one" to select the first item in the list. Then, say, "Add to bookshelf science" or "add number one to science." You can add a book to one or more bookshelves. If you do not mention the name of a bookshelf when adding a book, as in "add to bookshelf" or "add to my bookshelf," the system will automatically add the selected item to your default bookshelf.
Listing Your Bookshelves and Their Contents
You can ask your Smart Speaker to tell you which bookshelves you have created. Say, "Lady A, list my bookshelves" or "Lady A, list all bookshelves." Your Smart Speaker will list all bookshelves that are available to you. If you select one by its number or its name, you will be provided with a list of its contents. To list the contents of your default bookshelf, simply say, "Lady A, list books in my bookshelf."
Sorting Your Bookshelves and Their Contents
The contents of any list or bookshelf can be sorted. The default order of any list starts with the most recently added item. To sort the items on your bookshelf, say, "Lady A, sort by author" or "Lady A, order by author."
An alternative to sorting by author is to sort by title. For instance, "Lady A, order by title." Items are sorted alphabetically. If you want to have the order reversed, say, “down by author" or "reverse by title."
If you do not want to have the list sorted, say, "no sort" or "do not sort" and books will be listed from the most recently added. The system remembers your last sorting order for each bookshelf; when in doubt, simply say, "which order” or "current order," and it will tell you what order is applied at the time.
Deleting Items from Your Bookshelves
To delete items from one of your bookshelves, say, "Lady A, my bookshelf." Items on your default bookshelf will be displayed. To delete the third item in the list, say, "Lady A, delete number three." Your Smart Speaker will confirm that you want to delete the third item. Say, "Yes" to delete or "no" to retain the item in your bookshelf. If you said, "Yes," the book should then be deleted from your bookshelf. You can confirm this by accessing your bookshelf again and checking if the item has been successfully removed. You can also ask to remove all items from a certain point on, by saying, "Lady A, delete all from number three." You will be asked for confirmation that you want to delete multiple items.
Deleting Bookshelves
To delete an entire bookshelf, say, "Lady A, list my bookshelves." Your current bookshelves will display. You can delete bookshelves by saying their name or number. For example, say, "Lady A, delete number three." Your Smart Speaker will confirm that you want to delete the third bookshelf. Say, "Yes" to delete or "no" to retain the bookshelf. If you said, "yes," the bookshelf should then be deleted. You can confirm this by accessing your list of bookshelves again and checking if the bookshelf has been successfully removed.
Listing Recently Added and Most Popular Books
You can obtain the list of audio books that have been recently added. To do this, say, "Lady A, list recently added books." As with searches, you can select a book from the list, add it to your BARD wish list or one of your bookshelves and play it if it is available to the Smart Speaker. If it is not available to be played, you will be given a message saying that the book is not available for streaming. Similarly, you can ask for the most popular books, that is, those which have been downloaded most frequently by users. To access the most popular books list, say, "Lady A, list most popular books."
Searching the BARD Catalog
You are able to search for any audio book in the BARD catalog. If the announcement "audio not yet available" is heard after the title of the item is verbalized, this means that particular item is not yet able to be streamed via the My Talking Books skill. Searching the catalog via different criteria (title, author, genre, etc.) is described in more detail in the following sections.
General Browsing
To browse books available on the NLS catalog say, "Lady A," list books." or "Lady A" find books." Your Smart Speaker will provide you with a list of available books ordered by the most recently added books first. This is the case with all lists on the Smart Speaker unless you actively change the sort order.
Searching for Books
You can search for books by title, author, subject, series, annotation, genre or by narrator. Say something like one of the following: "Lady A, books with title Little Women,” "Lady A, list books by Tom Clancy," "Lady A, search for books about war," or "Lady A, books about music of genre jazz."
Refining Item Searches
When searching for an item, it is possible to add further details to help refine the search. Once you have made your original search query, for example, "books by Dr. Seuss" and your Smart Speaker has returned a list of results, you may expand on the query. For example, say, “Lady A, books by Dr. Seuss," and once your Smart Speaker has returned a list of books, say, "Lady A, and about cats." The resulting list will contain books by Dr. Seuss that are about cats.
How to Get Information about a Book
Prior to playing a book, you are able to access its title, author, narrator, length, catalog identifier number (DB number), series, annotation, and genre. This information is helpful for deciding if the selected book is something you are interested in reading. How to access book information is described in more detail in the following three sections.
Getting an item's Description
Once you select a book from the NLS catalog, your wish list, or one of your bookshelves, you can get more information about it to help decide if you want to listen to it. After selecting a book, say, "Details" or "Describe." The system will read the title, author, narrator, length, catalog identifier number (DB number), series, annotation, and genre. If you say, "play," the book you selected will start streaming.
Getting a books annotation
To hear the annotation of a book, after selecting a book, say, "Annotation" or "Summary." The system will read the annotation of the book to provide more information.
Getting a books structure during playback
While listening to a book, you can ask your Smart Speaker for the structure of the book. This description can be used to know how to set navigation levels for moving around the book. To get the structure while listening to a book say, "Lady A, pause," followed by "structure."
Navigating Within Books
Navigation within books is possible by different levels (story, part, chapter, etc.), depending on how the book is structured. How to navigate books will be described in more detail in the following sections.
Navigating a book using the book structure
When asking for a books structure, your Smart Speaker will return structure information such as:
"The title of this audiobook is title, author name. It is structured on three levels. At level one there are five stories. At level two there are fifteen parts. At level three there are sixty chapters."
You can use this breakdown to navigate through the book. You can use words like stories, parts, and chapters to navigate. Say: "Lady A, next story," "Lady A, previous chapter," or "Lady A, next part."
Setting book navigational levels using the book description
The navigation level is the level by which the book will jump when saying "next" or "previous" while listening to the book. To set the navigation level while in playback, say: "Lady A, pause,", followed by "Lady A, structure.” “Set level to X" where X is the desired navigation level. To navigate using the set navigation level say: "Lady A, pause," followed by "Lady A, next," or "Lady A, previous." The Smart Speaker will move to the next or previous set navigation level in the book.
Finding your position in a book
You can find out your progress in a book by pausing the audio stream and asking for the current position. To do this, after pausing the audio with "Lady A, pause," say, "position" or "where am I?" Your Smart Speaker should then tell you specific information about your current position within the book.
Bookmarks
Bookmarks can be used to mark a relevant position within a given item in the BARD catalog you are streaming. When you end a session, a bookmark is automatically created at the place where you ended the session. You can add, list (for the purpose of navigating to a specific bookmark), and delete bookmarks. Each of these actions will now be described in more detail.
Adding a Bookmark
You can create bookmarks while listening to a book. If you do not want to give a specific label to a bookmark, say, "Lady A," pause. Create bookmark." Your Smart Speaker should then tell you it created a bookmark for you. In place of “create bookmark,” you can say: "insert bookmark," "add bookmark," or simply "bookmark." If you want to give a specific name such as “interesting point A” to the bookmark, just add it at the end of the command. For example, say: "Lady A, pause. Create bookmark ‘interesting point A’" or "Lady A, bookmark as interesting point A."
Listing your Bookmarks
You can list your personal bookmarks within a book. After pausing playback, say, "List Bookmarks." Your Smart Speaker will list your existing bookmarks by either their name or a simple number if no name was given to it. When the bookmark listing has completed, you may jump to a specific bookmark. Say the name of the desired bookmark. The system will begin playing from this specific bookmark.
Deleting a Bookmark
You can delete a bookmark from a bookmark listing. After pausing playback, say, "List bookmarks." Then say, "Delete bookmark Interesting point A.” The system will ask you for confirmation to delete the bookmark. Say, "Yes" for confirmation or "Go back" to cancel deletion.
Miscellaneous Reading Commands
There are several settings that are able to be changed while reading. These include changing the book playback speed and setting a sleep timer. Additionally, you are able to jump a set amount of time forward or backward. Each of these is described in detail in the following sections.
Changing Reading Speed
You can speed up or slow down the reading speed of a specific book while streaming.
This is done by pausing the audio stream and then asking to "set play speed" or "change speed" to one of the following: minimum, slow, normal, fast, very fast, extremely fast, or maximum.
For instance, using slow as an example, say, "Lady A, pause. Change speed to slow." It is also possible to ask for incremental changes, using "play slower," " play faster," "increase playback speed," "decrease playback speed," "speed up playback," or "slow down playback." Finally, you can say, "maximum playback speed" and "minimum playback speed." To set a default speed for all books to be read in future, it is possible to say, "Set default play speed" to one of the recognized speeds mentioned previously. These settings only affect playback speed and not the speed of the Smart Speaker voice itself.
Changing Reading Volume
You can adjust the audio playback volume without changing the Alexa speaker volume. When the playback volume has been adjusted, it will be saved for that specific book. All new books will start on the default playback volume. Please be aware that the starting volume may vary due to the audio recording method.
How to Use Playback Volume Control
An example of how to adjust playback volume within a book by first pausing playback follows:
User says, “Lady A, pause."
User says, "Set playback volume to eight."
My Talking Books responds, "Play Volume set to eight out of ten. Say, resume reading."
User says, “Resume reading.”
An example of how to adjust playback volume within a book without pausing playback follows:
User says, "Lady A, ask My Talking Books to increase playback volume."
My Talking Books responds, "Playback volume increased. Say, resume reading."
User says, “Resume reading.”
Playback Volume Commands
IMPORTANT: "Alexa, pause" or "Alexa, stop" must always be said before the following commands. If the pause or stop command is not given, Alexa may interpret the commands as directed to the speaker rather than to My Talking Books and adjust Alexa speaker volume instead of the audio playback volume. Adjusting playback volume can be done using the following commands:
- Increase playback volume.
- Decrease playback volume.
- Higher playback volume.
- Lower playback volume.
- Maximum playback volume
- Minimum playback volume
- Normal playback volume
- Set playback volume to N percent (where N is a number between 0 and 400).
- Set playback volume to N (where N is a number between 0 to 10).
Notes:
- “Playback” may be shortened to “play” i.e. "lower play volume."
- Incremental volume changes will change the volume at a rate of 40% until the maximum playback volume has been reached, i.e. four times the original audio or the minimum volume has been reached.
Sleep Timers
My Talking Books provides a platform-independent sleep timer that can be triggered at any time while a book is streaming. Its purpose is to stop the book being read after a time interval that has been requested or at a specific point in the book. Sleep timers can only be set up and started while a book is being read. The following example assumes a book is currently being read. Say, "Lady A, pause. Go to sleep in fifteen minutes." You may also set a sleep timer at the end of a chapter or part of a book. Say, "Lady A, stop. Go to sleep at the end of this part." When reading restarts, it will continue until the end of the current part at the current navigation level. You may also set a default sleep timer by saying, "Lady A, set the default sleep timer to two minutes." To start the default sleep timer while reading say, "Lady A, pause. Go to sleep as usual." To cancel a sleep timer, just say, "Lady A, pause. Cancel timer."
Jumping forward and back by time while streaming
You may jump forward and back by a set amount of time during playback using the following commands:
"Lady A, pause. Jump forward ten minutes." Your speaker will jump forward ten minutes in the audio stream.
"Lady A, pause. Jump backward ten minutes." Your speaker will jump backwards ten minutes in the audio stream.
To set the jump forward or back default time, say, "Lady A, pause. Set default jump forward to X minutes" where X is the number of minutes to jump forward.
Or "Lady A, pause. Set default jump back to X minutes" where X is the number of minutes to jump back.
To move forward by the default jump forward time, say, "Lady A, pause," followed by "jump forward."
To move backward by the default jump backward time, say, "Lady A, pause. Jump back."
Resetting an Interaction
You may restart or reset an interaction with your smart speaker by saying, "Lady A, clear dialog" or "Lady A, clear conversation."
Setting Your Preferences
Preference Settings allow you to personalize your My Talking Books experience. There are three categories of preference settings: Book reading, Search Results and Lists, and General. When using the Skill for the first time, all settings will be preset to their default values. Each category of preference settings along with the default values for each setting will be explained in detail in the subsequent sections of this user guide.
Book Reading Preferences
Within the Book Reading preference category are the following settings, including the default value for each:
- Jump Forward: 5 seconds
- Jump Backward: 5 seconds
- Reading Speed: Normal
- Sleep Timer: 15 minutes
The Jump Forward, Jump Backward, and Sleep Timer can be set in time increments of seconds and hours. The Reading Speed can be changed to one of the following values:
- Extremely slow
- Very slow
- Slow
- Normal
- Fast
- Very fast
- Extremely fast
Search Results and Lists Preferences
Within the Book Reading preference category are the following settings, including the default value for each:
- List numbering: Continuous
- List information: Title & Author
- List sort order: By date of addition to the list, most recent first
- Number of options in a list group: Ten
The List numbering setting can be changed to Continuous or Repeated. The List information setting can be changed to any of the following:
- Title
- Title and author
- Title and series
- Title, author and series
- Title, author and narrator
- Title, author, narrator, and series
The List sort order setting can be changed to any of the following:
- Date of addition to the list, most recent first
- Date of addition to the list, oldest first
- Alphabetical by title
- Reverse alphabetical by title
- Alphabetical by author
- Reverse alphabetical by author
The Number of options in a list group setting can be changed to any number between three to fifteen.
General Preferences
Within the General preference category are the following settings, including the default value for each:
Experience Level: Beginner
The Experience Level setting can be changed to either Beginner or Advanced.
Opening your Preference Settings and Selecting a Preference Category
To open your preferences, say, "Lady A, my preferences." After opening your preference settings, you will be given a list of categories.
To review or edit the current settings, you will need to select a category. Make your selection by saying the options number or title, such as: "Select one" or "Book Reading."
After selecting a category, you will be asked if you would like to review the current settings, also known as the default settings. To review the current category settings, say, "Yes."
To go directly into editing the current category settings without reviewing their current values, say, "No."
Reviewing Preference Settings
After saying "yes" to review the current category settings, you will be taken through all the current settings for that category. You will hear statements like, "The setting for sleep timer is fifteen minutes." At the end of the statement, you will be asked, “Okay or change?"
To keep the current setting, say, "Okay."
To choose a different setting, say, "Change." After reviewing all the current settings for the selected category, if you have asked to change a setting, you will be given a short statement about the setting and then asked a question to set your preference. For example, the command "Go to sleep as usual" will use your default sleep time setting to save your position and stop reading after the set time. How long do you want your audio to read before going to sleep? Say a number and a unit, for instance, “five seconds.”
To review your setting after answering the questions, say, "Yes." To save your preferences, say, "No."
Editing Preference Settings
After saying "no" to go directly into editing the current category settings without reviewing their current values, you will be given a statement about a setting, then asked a question to set your preference. After answering the question, you will be given another statement until all the settings in the selected category have been set. To review your settings after answering the questions, say, "Yes." To save your preferences, say, "No."
Resetting Preferences to their Default Settings
When using the Skill for the first time, all preference settings will be preset to the default option. After setting your preferences, you can always return all settings to the default option or return a single setting to the default option.
To return a category of setting to the default, say, "my preferences." Select the category you want to change. For example, say, "Select one" or "book reading." After the category introduction has been read, say, "Apply default." The system will confirm that your preferences have been saved. All preferences for that category will now be reset to their default values.
To return a single setting to the default, say, "my preferences." Select the category you want to change. For example, say, "Select one" or "book reading." To review the category's settings, say, "Yes." You will now be asked to confirm if you want to keep the current settings or change them.
For the setting you want to return to the default, say, "Change." Now when you are asked a question to set your preference, say, "Use Default." The Skill will now use the default setting for that option.
Changing Settings Outside of Global Preference Settings
You can change settings while searching or reading using single commands. These commands either temporarily change the setting while you are using the Skill or change your global preference setting, so your choice is remembered every time you use the skill.
Temporary Setting Changes
You can temporarily adjust your settings without changing your global setting preference.
For example, you can set a sleep timer for any length of time without changing your global preference setting. While reading a book, say, "Lady A, pause. Go to sleep in forty-five minutes." The Skill will confirm that it will go to sleep in forty-five minutes.
Other settings you can adjust without changing your global preference settings include list sort order, reading speed, jumping backward, and jumping forward. While browsing a list to change the sort order by title, say, "Sort by title" or "Sort down by title."
To change the sort order by the author’s last name, say, "Sort by author."
To change the sort order by the date it was added to your list say, "Sort by most recent."
To change the reading speed while reading, say, "Lady A, pause. Read faster." or "Read slower."
To move through the book while reading, say, "Lady A, pause. Jump back thirty seconds" or "Jump forward three minutes.”
Changing Default Preference Settings
You can change some of your default preferences while reading or browsing using a single command. These commands start with the word “set.”
Change Default Reading Speed Preference
To change your default reading speed preference, say, "Set default play speed to extremely fast." or "Set default play speed to normal."
Change Default List Numbering Preference
To change your default list numbering preference, say, "Set book numbering repeated." or "Set book numbering continuous." The repeated numbering option will repeat the numbering of items in a list as you navigate it. For example, when presented with the first ten of fifty items, the items will have numbers one through ten. When navigating to the next ten items in the list, those items will also be numbered one through ten. Conversely, the continuous numbering option will allow for each item to have its own number. For example, when presented with the first ten of fifty items, the items will have numbers one through ten. When navigating to the next ten items in the list, those items will be numbered eleven through twenty.
Change Jump Preferences
To change the jump forward time preference, say, "Set default jump forward to ten minutes."
To change the jump backward time preference, say, "Set default jump backward to five minutes."
To use your preference while reading, say, "Lady A", pause. Jump forward." or "Jump back."
Change sleep timer preference
To change the default sleep timer preference, say, "Set the default sleep timer to ten minutes."
To use the preference while reading, say, "Lady A, pause. Go to sleep as usual."
Troubleshooting
If you have questions or need support, please email [email protected].
Canceling your BARD account
If for any reason you would like to cancel your BARD account, please contact your cooperating network library. Your user ID and password will be deactivated.
Last updated: October 1, 2024