Although I have not been much of a user, I am a big fan of the downloadable content on our website.
The process itself is fairly straight forward. Our patrons who already have mp3 players and have some familiarity with the technology don't seem to have many problems.
However, in my experience we are leading some of our patrons into this technology ( a good thing ) and it is these "newbies" that are having difficulties. Getting them to download the console first is a important step. Additionally, getting them to understand that we only have a single "copy", that you can't return it early, and that the catalog always says it is Not Checked Out seem to be the biggest hurdles.
I did not find much of interest to me in the music "Pop and Rock" area nor in the Soundtrack titles available. In fact, I did not recognize most of it. That might be more of a commentary on how "out of touch" I am.
Our selection of audio books is much better. I think the nonfiction titles are a great resource for patron...especially the language instruction titles. I find myself refering to those most often.
It seems that these audio titles might still be undiscovered by our patrons. On a number of occassions I have found a title available when all the of the print and Book on CD copies are charged with waiting lists.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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1 comments:
Nate,
I agree with all you say here, and not recognizing the music isn't a function of being out of touch--more a factor of there being a very small selection of known artists willing to put there music out for libraries to purchase as downloads.
This is one of those tough areas where the library wants to support an industry that is growing--so that major artists will be willing to sell their music this way. Record labels seem to be slowly coming around to the fact that discs are old technology, and the future is digital.
The artists available for download make some very good music--a lot of it local--(Vancouver BC)--which is another thing I like supporting--but only a few could be labelled as top tier--most are in that second struggling artist level.
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