Quoted

“ ‘We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to F-1….

All accounting for royalty payments, billing to the customer, etc. would be automatic, built into the initial software for the system.

The consumer has the option of subscribing to one or more Interest Categories, charged at a monthly rate, without regard for the quantity of music he or she decides to tape.’

-- Frank Zappa invents Rhapsody, Napster in 1983” [Good Morning Silicon Valley, via Shawn]

JFYI, we’re down to the 10 final openings for this month’s Tech Summit on gaming with Erin Helmrich and Eli Neiburger from the Ann Arbor District Library. If you’re in Michigan or thereabouts, you can also catch them this Thursday (May 12) at AADL giving a longer version of the show they’ll be doing at MLS (scroll about halfway down the page).

Fellows and More

“Today, we had a conference call for all the speakers for PLA's preconference ‘Creating a Library Sales Force: It's Easier Than You Think!’ My presentation at that event is going to focus on how to do an e-scan for your own institution. Details to follow.” [It’s All Good]

Drat – I’ll be at the ADL Gamers Conference so I won’t be able to attend this session. I’m going to go out on a limb here – without even knowing any further details than what’s in the brief description of the session - and recommend this session, especially to my member libraries.

Hurry and turn on The Daily Show – Jon Stewart is talking about the 24–hour news channels covering blogs! Catch the repeat tonight and tomorrow.  :-)

“By reading the blogs on TV, the 24–hour news networks have combined the visual pizazz of a text file with the deep insight of a 90–second cable segment.”

“When I want hard-hitting news, I turn to CNN. Who turns to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.”

“Kudos to MSNBC for using the power of blogs to finally give voice to the already voiced.”

And now Rob Cordory is covering blogs! “That no-talent hack Rob Cordory is on TV talking about us….”

I Can't Live Without My Darling iPod

“As I write this, I am listening to one of my many mood-sensitive playlists from the iPod library on my computer. I'm not one of the hip, trendy twenty- (or even thirty-) somethings you see gyrating wildly in the TV ads; I am a busy 43-year-old stay-at-home mother of three active boys. I am not alone in my obsession. Everywhere you look you will find us, "soccer moms" ferrying our kids to sports practices and games and whiling away the long hours of waiting by eagerly comparing accessories and trading songs with other baby-boomer moms. Even Radio Shack has picked up on the trend—it now advertises iPods for ‘moms and grads.’ Not moms and dads, mind you, moms and grads….

With a light thumb spin, I can transport myself back to any age or stage of life. I revel in some of these memories and cringe at others. I see who I was and who I am now—and how I haven't changed so much. I once heard that when women hit their 40s, they find themselves re-evaluating their pasts and speculating on their futures, redefining themselves at that critical juncture midway through their lives. That's been true for me. My playlist has kicked open a big, padlocked door and helped me connect with a part of myself I feared was gone. Now I know that although I am a reasonably mature adult, inside me lives the free-spirited, carefree college girl I once was.

Like that carefree college girl, I get a kick out of creating playlists for my friends. I include all their favorite songs and give them titles like ‘Kelly Rocks!’ and ‘Samantha Rocks!’ and we all have a good laugh. Then we all go take care of our families and attend to other grown-up matters with a song in our hearts and a secret smile on our lips. My kids love the iPod, too; not only have I introduced them to some of the great music of my youth (and before), I've learned to appreciate some of theirs as well. They create playlists and burn them onto CDs for the car, and we groove and sing and talk about things both trivial and profound while we drive.” [Newsweek]

So what are you doing to help the iPod-owning*-soccer-moms in your community? Are you thinking that far ahead? As a profession, we’d better start figuring out how to circulate digital music files to patron players.

* Not just the iPod owners, but MP3 player owners