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<TITLE>Circulating MP3 Players -- Responses and Summary</TITLE>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Hi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">–</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> I am sharing these</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">responses. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">with the list as requested. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I have removed information</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> that would identify the library in case my respondents</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">had any concerns</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">(</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">not that you</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">would</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, but</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">JUST IN CASE and</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">don</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">t want to squelch frank discussion!)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">Short version: </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">Creative and Sandisk are the preferred players, models depend on features. This is not the first round of this (we were in ListenOhio</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> as well, and still have ten players we can</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">t use for anything!).</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Wingdings">n<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">At Avon Lake --</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> w</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">e are also in Ohio EBook Project</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">and</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> use Overdrive, didn</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">t get Download Station (wanted to wait and see a bit)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> but</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">it seems it may increase use and convenience</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Wingdings">n<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">We got a pack of ten Creative Zen Stone MP3 players for staff practice/training/red-team purposes, then circulating and perhaps giveaways in the future.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">We can</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">re-</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">use cases</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">and cassette adapters</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">from ListenOhio/Audible</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">. Players</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">can be charged and</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">content</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">wiped via USB cable when returned</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Wingdings">n<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">No batteries needed and no headphones provided (we have always sold headp</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">hones for computer use for $1 each and most people have their own pair).</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Wingdings">n<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">Not sure if they will circ well given the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">tin</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">y</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ness</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, also a screen would be nice. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">We may look at a model up. I l</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ike the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">idea of a small powered speaker</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> as an option</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Our local paper is doing a story on</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">OhioEBook</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> that should run tomorrow.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Thank you all for responding</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">. I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">f more</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">have stories, post them to the list or I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">d be happy to pass them along anonymously!</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri"> I will pass them along to all!</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">--</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">1. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Consolas">We are circulating ten MP3 players here</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Consolas">I was one of the people in charge of the project when we started it, and it is approaching its first anniversary. Since we are with Clevnet, we have set up a Download Station for Clevnet's OverDrive products. Patrons are able to check out an MP3 player and use OverDrive at the station to download the book. This works especially well for patrons who have iPods and don't want to purchase another type of MP3 player, since the audiobooks don't work with iPods.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">For the most part it's been pretty smooth. Patrons love the service and think it's very cool. The biggest difficulty is that the books download slowly, particularly in the evenings when there is more traffic on the network. Many patrons don't want to wait that long, especially for longer books. Often, however, they can start by downloading at the library and then take the MP3 player home to finish up. We have two different brands, the SanDisk Sansa (1 gig) and the Creative Zen (2 gig). We like them both--I prefer the Zen, but sometimes the Sansa is better because it runs on a triple-A battery, which is sometimes easier for patrons to use. We also let patrons use their own MP3 players at the station if their players are compatible.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">--</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">2. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">We tried circulating mp3 players back with the NOLA Listen Ohio program. Granted, they weren't as good as things are now, but it was a pain. So, we started pre-loading them with titles for patrons to make it easier, but we'd still have people thinking that you could just drop everything at the ref desk & download the book in a couple minutes. (more likely a half hour). The biggest problem was staff from other depts who wanted us to download specific titles like at lunch time on a Saturday :-)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Anyway, I know that Overdrive pushes the Creative Zen. I've heard that with those you can actually load several eAudiobooks and flip through to your music or other files and when you go back to the original book, you are still in the same place as when you stopped. This is a big deal, because on most of the ones that play .wma files, you end up starting at the beginning & fast forwarding to your spot.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I know that I tell people to just go out & buy a "cheap" player for audio, I have a SanDisk, but I think I might get a Creative if it really does work that way.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> Rather than having players for people, I'm thinking that having a download station in the library may be the way to go. The players aren't too expensive-- I'm hoping our marketing director can get a couple to use as giveaway prizes for our launch.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">--</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">3. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">We</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana"> circulated mp3 players in the past. We got about 20 circs from each player before they broke or were billed to patrons. We only circulated five, so it wasn’t a huge loss. We are actually starting to circulate them again as part of a promotion for our new e-audiobook service. We now have five 2 GB Creative Zen V Plus players that cost about $75 a piece. I can’t say that they’re extremely intuitive, but they have a nice screen display and were listed as one of the suggestions on Overdrive, our e-audiobook service. I’m not sure how this next round will go! We did have a lot of demand for them before, but that was about 2 or 3 years ago, when they were still a bit newer.<BR>
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Unfortunately, it seems that nothing about public use of mp3 players is simple, but we have set up “download stations” that patrons can use to load their players. We’ve trained staff as best we can, but I think it’s going to be an on-the-fly learning experience for a lot of them. Hopefully all will run smoothly!</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">--</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><BR>
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</SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">4.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Consolas">We’ve been circulating 10 Creative Zen V digital media players since October. The number seems right for the local population of 45,000 as we range from having a couple MP3 Players on the shelf waiting to having just a couple of Holds. Borrowing for 28 days is currently limited to Adults and no renewals. Fines are $1.00 a day.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">On the downside, I had to return one unit for servicing shortly after the warranty ran out. Two units are currently overdue.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">We are not loading content although we do offer a download station dedicated to the Ohio eBook Project for the public to use in Digital Media Services.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">All content is removed and the unit recharged when returned.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">We had 3 hands-on training sessions with the Digital Media staff and individual follow up sessions to learn how to use and service the players. None of the seven of us owned an MP3 Player and so had limited knowledge. Parents of teenagers had a decided edge in the learning curve, or at least had experienced users to consult.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">I chose the Creative Zen V unit based on compatibility with Overdrive and recommendations from a variety of sources including the Audiobook listserv. The unit is rechargeable and has some additional features that simpler models do not offer such as Media Transfer Protocol.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">Because of MTP, we must circulate the installation CD for customers to install the software on their computers. We have reports of some computers recognizing the devices without an install, but none of the computers at the library duplicated that.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">We include a hard, inexpensive amplified speaker case for additional protection and flexibility when using the player. It plays loud enough to use in an automobile in a driving rain, one of my pre-circulation test experiences. All components are packaged in a soft case about the size of a paperback which has pockets for the USB cable, and room for the CD in a protective case, the speaker case, and a set of Quick Instructions for Ohio eBook and the MP3 Player. The whole package costs about $100.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Consolas">My second choice is the Creative Nano which is a very easy to use, battery operated MP3 Player. It also is compatible with Overdrive and was recommended by a number of listserv participants.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Calibri">--</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Gerry Vogel, MLIS</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Assistant Director, Avon Lake Public Library</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">32649 Electric Blvd. Avon Lake OH 44012 www.alpl.org</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">tel: 440-933-8128 x239</FONT><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> fax: 440-933-6406 cell: 440-258-8925</FONT></SPAN></P>
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