[Web4lib] Ipods listening 'posts'

[John Fereira]

I haven't actually set anything up like this but I'm just blue skying some 
ideas here.

At 05:50 AM 1/31/2006, Richard Wiggins wrote:
>It's an interesting idea, really inverting the whole notion of an
>Ipod.  In this case, what would be the advantage of using the Ipod
>over any other MP3 device?  If each of these stations is fixed,
>wouldn't any MP3 player do?

I'm assuming that one is trying to get away from using PC's for the actual 
listening...



>How would you secure the player, whether Ipod or otherwise?

I'm sure that our library is not unique in that patrons can check out 
equipment  as well as print items through the circ desk.  We provide short 
period check outs of laptops, digital cameras and camcorders, headphones, 
and tape recorders.  Checking out an MP3 player from a circ desk would be 
no different.



>Is Itunes the right software for this purpose?  I'd want something
>that makes it very easy to blast the desired MP3 files to each
>destination player.  Would customers be able to choose from your
>library of music on demand?

One of the possibilities could be to provide an MP3 player for checkout (or 
one could use their own) that could be connected to public access MP3 
download stations.

Cornell did something rather innovative a couple of years ago when it 
bought a site license for Napster.  Students (only) could authenticate 
through our portal (we have a proprietary SSO system) which then would 
connect them to the Napster site and they could download/listen to music 
directly.  Libraries have been purchasing licenses for textual databases 
for years.  Why not for audio or video databases as well?


>One of the products intended to let you distribute audio across a home
>network might make sense as an alternative.
>
>There was a news story a while back about people who develop their own
>varsions of the audio narration that major museums offer.  You don't
>like the audio walking tour provided by, say, the Louvre or the
>British Museum?  Download your own to your Ipod.  Of course in that
>case it's the customer's Ipod and she carries it with her.

One of the projects we've worked on here provides a facility for grabbing a 
bunch of video clips with the textual transcript and dynamically produce a 
powerpoint presentation for lectures.