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Digital Culture

Why I love iTunes….

I think I have mentioned this, but I don’t believe that I have fully discussed my adoration for this little application. How do i love thee, iTunes? Let me count the ways…

1. I love you for your Smart Playlists. iTunes allows you to use, basically, boolean logic when designing playlists for your music. Want all the songs in your collection with the words “rock” and “child” in them, but don’t want anything by Guns ‘n Roses? Smart playlist, to the rescue!

2. I love you for your “Top 25 Most Played” playlist. iTunes automagically keeps track of the songs you play the most, and arranges them in a playlist for you. So, at your disposal, you can immediately have those songs you just KEEP PLAYING. Conversly, you can tell it to only play songs you’ve NEVER played before. So good, soooooo gooooooooood…..

3. Most of all…I love you for your “shared music” capability. You can choose to share the music you have, and anyone on the same network can stream it from your machine…and of course, you can stream from theirs. Right now, I’m on the library’s network, and iTunes sees 5 other users, any of which I can stream music from. So useful…I can listen to a TON of music that I otherwise wouldn’t have access to, and sample bands that I would like to hear.

All this, and not even any mention of the iTunes Music Store, the only way to legal puchase music that isn’t completely moronic and full of DRM goodness (yes, I know that the files you get with iTunes have DRM attached…but you can immediately burn to CD, and poooof! No more DRM). All I can say is, after trying iTunes, Napster 2.0 can suck it.

The end result is that I want both and iPod and a 12 inch Powerbook. Neither of which I can actually get, but the longing is there. I’ll go out on a limb and say that thanks to iTunes the iPod will be the most popular christmas techie gift this year, hands down. Apple is gonna sell a ton of them.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

3 replies on “Why I love iTunes….”

Sing it, brother. The only reason I’ve been able to get any SILS work done in the two weeks since I’ve downloaded iTunes for Windows (since my old iMac can’t hack OSX) is because I’ve ruthlessly forbidden myself from playing with it until the end of the term. Plus, I don’t have a high-speed connection from home. And, I haven’t gotten around to ripping all my old CDs again after my hard drive got wiped.

Have you used iTunes while connected to the SILS network? You can browse the playlist of a certain SILS and JOMC faculty member. Much goodness there.

Sing it, brother. The only reason I've been able to get any SILS work done in the two weeks since I've downloaded iTunes for Windows (since my old iMac can't hack OSX) is because I've ruthlessly forbidden myself from playing with it until the end of the term. Plus, I don't have a high-speed connection from home. And, I haven't gotten around to ripping all my old CDs again after my hard drive got wiped.Have you used iTunes while connected to the SILS network? You can browse the playlist of a certain SILS and JOMC faculty member. Much goodness there.

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