New Products: Music to a Librarian's Ears

By Meg McCaffrey -- School Library Journal, 6/1/2004

Librarians who care about customer service know that a CD like Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below deserves some room in the collection, even if hip-hop is not exactly their musical taste. After all, the critically acclaimed recording won the 2004 Grammy for Album of the Year and has sold millions. But many librarians don't listen to current pop music and aren't sure what to order. That's where a new online music ordering tool called the Billboard Standing Order Plan aims to be of service.

Created by Book Wholesalers Incorporated (BWI), the service offers public librarians weekly updates of Billboard magazine's pop charts, plus full-text reviews of CDs, screen shots of album covers, and complete MARC records. "This is a sleek tool if you have a large [music collection] budget as we do, but not a large acquisition staff," says librarian Cindy Demuth of the Multnomah County (OR) Library. She adds that public librarians have long used the Billboard charts to make ordering decisions, and this tool makes it easier.

How does the service work? BWI, a division of Follett, allows librarians to choose from more than 50 top-selling music charts, everything from Top Bluegrass Albums to Top World Albums. BWI's collection development team will track a library's preferences and notify them of new titles making the charts. Librarians can then log on to BWI's free TitleTales site at www.bwibooks.com and order CDs. "It speeds up the ability to process orders," says Demuth. "There's no typing in of bibliographic information, so it cuts down on human error." Although libraries must register for the service, there's no cost or obligation to use it. You just pay for the cost of the CDs.