Tuning In at the Library

This
story has almost everything we look for in a good blog posting.  It
features an innovative use of one of our favorite technologies, libraries
and librarians, and a money-saving move by a public institution. Everything,
that is, except an opportunity to feature a little artfully exposed flesh.
So we decided to exercise a little creative licence, at the end of the
story…

Checking out a new iPod now applies to more than shopping trips or web browsing.
This week the South Huntington Public Library on Long Island, New York, became
one of the first public libraries in the country to loan out iPod
shuffles.

For the past three weeks, the library ran a pilot program using the portable
MP3 devices to store audio books downloaded from the Apple iTunes Music Store.
They started with six shuffles, and now are up to a total of 10. Each device
holds a single audio book.

"It’s changed the books on tape from a car-only
experience to a bring-it-with-you experience," according to library
patron Sonia Dora McGillicutty (see photo), who has been listening to
the library’s Shuffle of Azar Nafisi’s
Reading Lolita in Tehran to unwind from the stress of her job
as a software engineer.

The article doesn’t mention what, if any, anti-copying
protection the iPods have. Perhaps they rely on old-fashioned good faith,
which seem to work out just fine for the books and other materials they
lend. Could they also "loan" the digital files themselves to people who
already own iPods?

adapted from Wired
News