Remember when you used to go to school, lugging around all those text books and library books in your huge bags? Those days seem to be gone now with the introduction of audio books.

Yes, they are exactly what you imagine them to be: entire books in audio format so all you have to do is sit down and listen to what you would have been straining to read off a paperback or hard cover. This is just one of the advantages that a student has using audio books. Here are some other reasons to make the switch today.

• Lightweight – Now that audio books exist, there is no reason to pack such a big bag of all your favorite novels and text books. You can just carry around your audio books in different audio formats. They are sold in CD form, earlier ones were sold on cassette, and now you can find audio books in tiny mp3 variants that you can carry around in your mp3 players or iPods. That's like carrying virtually nothing! But the actual fact is that all the knowledge you need is in the palm of your hand.

• Easier – Do you remember how it was so much of a chore just getting a book, opening it to the right page and straining your eyes reading all the boring words on the paper? Well, audio books make it so much easier. Audio books are recorded into chapters much like chapters in a book. You can scroll to your favorite chapter on your audio player and skip tracks to exact places in the reading you need. Reading no longer has to be boring because you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the narration of the book sent to your ear drums. Now that is reading that's easy as pie.

• Cheaper – Believe it or not, even though the technology is great, audio books are actually cheaper than their paper-bound counterparts. Teachers and students alike can spend lesser money for an experience that is more interactive than actual books. Audio books are slowly making real books a thing of the past.

• Accessibility – Is there a title that you have been looking for at the library or book store but have a hard time finding it? The chances are that an audio book version of the book you are looking for exists and is easy to find. You can make audio book purchases online and there are even some bookstores that will sell the CDs of some rare books that are really hard to find. This makes content even more accessible than ever before.

• Entertainment – Face it, reading books is entertaining. But listening to a story is even more entertaining. You don't have to get tired of reading and you don't have to take a break from the book. You can do other things while listening to a book being read. For example, have you tried getting a snack out of the fridge safely while reading a book? If you were listening to an audio book, getting a snack would be a snap and you wouldn't miss a thing from the story you were listening to.