Libraries Turning to iPods and iTunes
February 13th, 2006Jessamyn West is quoted in an article in Playlist on libraries, iTunes, and DRM.
“There are a few notable differences [between traditional and digital collections] that are taking up a lot of librarians’ time lately,” said Jessamyn West, who runs the popular and long-running weblog Librarian.net. “There’s the copying thing, the copyright thing and the DRM thing, not to mention the cost versus value thing. We’re moving away from a here is an item, do whatever you want with it to a situation where we have to pass on restrictions and requirements along with the item. This requires a depth of knowledge about not just items such as songs, videos, tape cassettes but also file formats like MP3, AAC and WMV, and how they do and do not work on individual computers and players. Add to that the library situation which usually has computers that are locked down to some degree, when someone comes in wanting to interact with the internet via their iPod, it can be a challenge.”