Libray - Music Outlet

Libraries as Music Outlets

I wonder if the Music Business is overlooking a useful outlet?

For many years Public Libraries have provided Records, then Tapes, and now CD`s, for their customers to borrow. Libraries charge a small fee for this service, and from that charge a proportion of the money goes to the CD company and then on to the Artist, whose work has been borrowed.

Well it seems to me a completely viable thing to do - if Record Companies got together with the Public Library Service and agrred a way for Library customers to have copying rights to CD`s they borrow. And maybe for an extra charge, Libraries could themselves provide a copying service.

Most Music Outlets have gone from all but the largest towns and cities - so without any outlay on premises, suddenly the Music Business (which is always complaining about the problems it faces in this digital age), would have access to many thousands of outlets.

And the Public Library Service, which itself is suffering due to the current economic situation, would also benefit.

To me it looks like a win win proposition, and a virtuous circle to boot. After all Libraries are at the creative heart of a community so getting more people into them can only help toward increasing creativity, including the musical kind.

(Although I have worked in a library - for Somerset County Library Service for a year or so, in the mid 1980`s - and I am a lifelong Library user, my principal interest is in seeking ways that might help save a valuable community resource, in these straitened times