The Freegal mp3 service (probably USA only)

iatee has the information advantage

in the meanwhile late great, tell me more about public space, very interested in yr alt universe definition

ok, let's see. i recently took my students to the library. since they live in a non-walkable neighborhood it took, oh, about two and a half hours round trip of travel time even though it was only three miles.

now we could have spent the entire day in the library, enjoying the filtered light and comfortable furniture of the public space, giving friendly smiles to strangers at the long tables, looking at the bulletin board and engaging w a diverse and fascinating staff, as i do when i vist my branch.

instead we used the online catalog to reserve our books and just picked them up and walked back.

so the future of libraries is...a building where you pick up your pre-ordered books?

you would argue that expanding the online catalog would undermine the library since you can find that stuff more easily on the internet, and that the logistics of our field trip only bolstered an unnatural relationship to public space in the minds of my suburban students

it could be iatee, it could be

do you prefer the past of books?

but...what if someone came up w/ a way to transmit book-information that did not require going 3 miles

oh you mean the internet?

but then kids will not learn to read books.

or do you mean a car?

you still haven't told me about your community programs, or your community library, or how you help your community

also they will not know the library exists, iatee

some of them were sixteen and did not know the library existed in their town

Okay, this lady is kinda upset about it too.

http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2011/04/just-say-no-to-freegal.html

Maybe it costs about $100,000/yr for a large public library system? I'd rather spend that money on getting back the online subscription to World Book (we still order the book sets), but directors are gonna get excited about sexy, shiny new products. It's a yearly subscription--the environment for digital downloads is constantly evolving--just because libraries are paying for it this year doesn't mean that they will be doing the same next year. I can't really blame libraries for trying to get a foothold in the digital market--it's going to be a learning process.

i don't trust anybody who titles their blog "amazingly informed and properly opinionated" but we should introduce her to iatee, she looks hot

xp

haha i remember when i was a kid i would make bigass lists of sci fi books out of the back of analog and omni magazine and whatnot and then my mom would drive to the library and park outside and start a ten-minute timer while i would run in and hurry to gather them all up before time was up

picture iatee the information gatekeeper: "ma'am, your son's not using the public space or community programs. shouldn't you be walking?"

let the record show I did not bring the suburbs into this discussion

I think libraries are probably even more valuable in places that don't have a lot of public space (ie..)

anyway let's go back to your definition of public space that doesn't include parks or libraries

you can create a new subset of urban planning that's like non-euclidian geometry

i never said that, i just said that the definition of public space wasn't a park, i.e. it wasn't literally about a physical space the public can access, but whatever. i mean, of course the physical spaces are public spaces too, but that's not all there is to it.

the economic argument against pay-per-use the librarian girl gives sounds pretty solid to me, especially in terms of "we're buying something for people instead of lending it", i thought this was a subscription service.

10k/100k licenses??! (note to self:must start competing service immediately)

like if the library has to pay when my grandpa downloads an ebook and when i download an ebook too, then yes, that's not going to work because they're competing w/ amazon

but that doesn't mean libraries shouldn't develop online services for their patrons, if they want to stay usable, they need to develop online services just like all businesses and public institutions

well I guess now that I'm right we can stop arguing

at the very least this thread resulted in an entirely new branch of urban planning

library patrons are a valuable market -- mp3 providers should be paying for the privilege of accessing that market. i can't believe these guys were able to reverse that equation.

yeah mp3 providers aren't really wielding much power these days

there has been a bit of thought in the urban planning community about how to integrate network spaces within meatspace. there's no definitive answer, but it's something cities have to consider -- euclidian planning/the new england style "catchment area" isn't enough for the 21st century. that means libraries have to expand their own definitions of what they are -- by being mindful of a whole new world of digital media, by understanding that people want flexibility in how they use libraries, whether that means going there and checking out books, or whether they can download materials from their own homes. university libraries already let academics download journal articles, to no detriment of the actual place where people go to browse the stacks.

i'll post more later; my tv show is starting.

there's no detriment to the actual place because...fewer people are there? at this point in a university library sure, it's ndb, but at small public libraries yes, fewer people is a detriment to the actual place.

in any case there is a difference between being mindful of digital media and...not being a library in any sense. this is 100k that's going from a library's budget into sony's pockets so people can have personal-use mp3s. I'm sure people love the service. they would also love if the library spent 100k on pizza, or just gave them 100k.

I agree that libraries have to expand their own definitions of what they are, I just think 'oh yeah, the library, that's a website that buys three mp3s for you' is probably not the right route. this is a skeezy business that's taking advantage of library higher ups who are freaked out about the future.

ndb = nbd

done 4 tonite

I can't really blame libraries for trying to get a foothold in the digital market--it's going to be a learning process.

exactly. and maybe there will be a system that's more cost-effective for the libraries, but it's better for them to experiment and get it wrong (which i'm not sure they have) than to wait years until they feel they've gotten it right.

anyway, i posted on twitter before that the "public good" aspect of freegal is the number one concern -- the provision of knowledge. and i include "entertainment" under the knowledge umbrella, as long as 50 shades of gray is available at the library. and i like what freegal can potentially teach people about the value of art. not that most people are inquisitive enough to figure out how the freegal model work, but for those who care, it could be meaningful that library systems that subscribe to this officially endorse paying artists for their work. yes, you could spend a couple bucks and get the same material from amazon (and make sure the artists get paid), but then you're supporting a giant corporation. why not use your library and be part of this digital-media experiment? i think libraries want to see whether this project will work.

Pretty dope service imo

is there a representative i can talk to that could make a motion to use public/library funds to host iatees "thoughts u can use" blog somewhere else

Okay, so I showed this to two rising 7th grade boys who were hanging around my desk. I searched for about 5 artists they were interested in, and none of them came up. Kevin's assessment? "Freegal sucks!"

introduce kevin to the flying luttenbachers; there's a bunch!

new week, new downloads: mahavishnu orchestra's between nothingness & eternity.

Kevin and Juan were briefly interested in "Call Me Maybe," but then got distracted by asking me to show them videos of various Coney Island rides.

It's not even the real "Call Me Maybe", right? Isn't it a cover?

mahavishnu orchestra's between nothingness & eternity

sick

you should check out the santana / mclaughlin covers of coltrane if you haven't yet

i got that cd for a dollar at the mountain view rasputin records, holla

nothingness / eternity i mean

yeah, an ex-bf had a copy of the mclaughlin/santana coltrane record; i remember it being good but i haven't heard it in over a decade.

x-post

Omigosh, you are so right. Kevin would have really been incensed. Luckily he gets enough amusement from teasing me about my nonexistent "grey hair" that I get from being "so old."

i used my latest round of freegal credits to get the tracks by david toop, scanner, and dj /rupture from this record:

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Melatonin-Meditations-On-Sound-In-Sleep/release/687462

my three for this week:

oneohtrix point never - physical memories
mouse on mars - the three unwanted alterations of the natlab archive
wobbly - clawing your eyes out down to your throat

best service ever

http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/03/05/36208/netflix-style-on-demand-streaming-movies-tv-audio/

it's about time the public library paid for my netflix account

vahid's points itt were so dumb. was his grandfather or uncle really a librarian, or was this all about him being mad cause he lives 3 hours away from his nearest library?

I liked how he argued w/ me for a day before he realized this wasn't a subscription service

http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2011/04/just-say-no-to-freegal.html

Get Lucky
Genre: Pop
Label: Columbia
(P) 2013 Daft Life Limited under exclusive license to Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment

; )

cool, topic records label stuff now available

when going to the library means getting hot new daft punk singles for free everybody wins

we're up all night to get freebies