Playing with iTunes

Bruce Connolly and Gail Holderman at Union College presented an iTunes session at Internet Librarian 2007.

Union College is participating in iTunes University. They discovered quite by accident that the iTunes shared library was turned on by default when they started seeing other people's playlists mixed in with theirs. This discovery sparked the idea for some truly original library services:

• Creating playlists for new CDs in the library. They put the call number in the notes field. Students can sample the CDs and then come in to borrow them.
• Creating themed lists - Black History Month, LGBT Music @ the Library, Beat Poets
• Preloading iPods with specific collections - They got Bob Dylan: the Collection and loaded all 773 tracks onto an iPod and put it on reserve for a class. They did the same with a collection of Cuban music.
• Livening up the catalog record by adding links to iTune samples, associated podcasts, and even interviews. (Move over Amazon!)
• Downloading and burning missing disks to replace them.
• Uploading content created at Union College.

They also are making excellent use of RSS feeds to market new books and library events.

Last, but not least, I'll leave you with their Web 2.0 motto:

"If it ain't broke, you aren't playing with it hard enough. "