The Download Dilemma - Page 2

Although I played only a small part in this project, I realized that BGSU’s library had kept better care of these Mancini album covers than had RCA and further, that Bowling Green was providing a valuable service to RCA, as well as to anyone interested in the history and documentation of recorded music.

Admittedly, the details of this anecdote apply only somewhat to the current situation with download-only music, especially since the heart of this story—album artwork—is practically now a thing of the past. What’s more, the nature of Bowling Green’s collection and its archival mission are not typical. But my story does illustrate the vital place of libraries in preserving musical culture. Surely, most of us have LPs and even CDs in our libraries that are out-of-print, unavailable for purchase at any price, and that were, in more than a few cases, issued by record companies that are no longer in business. If libraries are unable to acquire download-only sound files, the preservation of our culture is left in the hands of record companies. I don’t know if Dudamel’s Symphonie fantastique will one day be considered an important historical recording; but as things stand, the sole institutional keeper of this artifact is Deutsche Grammophon, and our libraries have no part in ensuring its availability to future listeners.

Subscription streaming-audio databases already provide an alternative to purchasing CDs, but while these products solve the dilemma of licensing restrictions, they also require us to compromise our professional dedication to collection development and preservation. Classical Music Library, Naxos Music Library, the Database of Recorded American Music, and a growing array of similar products have become key resources in many libraries, and our patrons clearly enjoy the convenience and breadth of repertoire these databases offer. But the all-or-none model of these subscription services, much like the all-or-none model of the full-text journal aggregators we have grown used to, does not support the careful selection of materials. Rather, our subscriptions give us access to an impressively large and growing number of recordings that, on an individual basis, may or may not be of interest to our users.

Paying for the right to access recordings that our patrons do not listen to is obviously an inefficient use of the funds we manage, but if we are to move toward an aggregator model for sound recordings, we will be less and less able to develop collections that reflect and respond to the particular—and sometimes wonderfully peculiar—research, performance, and recreational listening that happens at each of our institutions. That is to say, the more we rely on subscription databases for our sound recordings, the more alike all of our collections become. Additionally, the impulse to preserve our collections is entirely unsatisfied by these resources, since a subscription cancellation would render the entire contents of a database immediately unavailable. Even if a subscription is maintained indefinitely, a change in license agreement between the database provider and a record company could significantly alter the collection we are providing our patrons.

The transition from the CD format to an entirely online system of sound-recording distribution is well underway. “iTunes is already the biggest music retailer in the world,” observes James Ginsberg, president of Cedille Records. “It’s a mathematical certainty that the CD will cease to be a viable format. I think you’ll be able to get CDs for several years to come, but as far as being the dominant delivery format, the CD will cease to be that very soon, if it hasn’t already. In the next decade, the CD will become to downloading what the LP became to the CD in the 1980s.”
In addition to the Eno and Berlioz examples mentioned, recent download-only recordings—not available on CD—include music by the Dave Matthews Band, Bill Frisell, Dexter Gordon, Maroon 5, R.E.M., Steve Reich, and the New York Philharmonic performing Beethoven, Brahms, Ravel, and Shostakovich. While moving away from the CD affords the recording industry efficiencies and economic advantages that are well understood, the unprecedented level of restriction surrounding download-only recordings impedes libraries’ ability to develop and maintain collections relevant to the communities we serve—and hope to serve in years to come.

Librarians have only a few options, the easiest of which include subscribing to more and more streaming-audio databases as CDs become less available, or—here’s one for you—giving each of our patrons an iTunes gift card so they can download whatever music they need that our library cannot provide. Either way, these are desperate reactions that are not in the best interest of our libraries or our users.
A more challenging but ultimately more promising tack may be for the Music Library Association, the American Library Association, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, and other professional organizations to raise awareness about this matter and then, together, engage the recording industry in discussions to develop a viable means for selecting, acquiring, cataloging, housing, preserving, and coordinating access to sound recordings, just as we have done all along. But if that’s going to be our plan, we need to move quickly, because I’m guessing that by this time next year we’ll have even more examples of download-only recordings that are not available in our libraries.