Thursday, September 4, 2008

Free Music Downloads!

No, it's not Napster run amok. There's no LimeWire necessary. Instead, Ketchikan Public Library patrons now have access to over 670 albums through our wonderful ListenAlaska system. Choose from an array of blues, rock, folk, jazz, classical, children's, opera, pop, electronica, and choral music. Popular artists such as Hound Dog Taylor, Barenaked Ladies, Dar Williams, Buddy Guy and Laura Nyro can all be found in this new collection. Even better, you can discover some new and unknown talents and experiment with some different musical tastes, because this system is so easy to use and it is entirely free!
Each title comes with a playlist, a link to other albums by the artist, and an excerpt you can listen to 'on the fly' - so that you can try it out before you check it out. In addition to being able to listen to these albums on your computer, you can also transfer them to any OverDrive compatible device. Some of the selections can even be burned onto a CD or transferred to an iPod.
What's that - an iPod? Yes, indeedy....not only do we have free music available online, but we now offer over 400 audiobooks that are compatible with any portable music device including iPods!. Just look for the OverDrive mp3 format. (A couple of small caveats: you need to download the 3.0 version of the OverDrive media console in order to use the mp3 format - the link is available at the bottom of the left side menu. Another thing to consider is that the mp3 files are about twice the size of the traditional WMA files, which means they will take twice as long to download. This isn't a problem, just something to take into account when you schedule your downloading.) The world is once again your oyster, iPod users! Download and listen to audiobooks anytime of the day or night, from anywhere in the world. How's that for library service?

2 comments:

Daniel said...

I can personally testify that it's fun and easy! Thanks for talking up Listen Alaska!

Rainbird librarian said...

Thanks, Daniel
I've become totally addicted to listening to audiobooks whenever I garden, work out, or clean house. In fact, I have done housework that didn't really need to be done just so I would have an excuse to fire up my mp3 player!