Freegal Rocks

From Apple's iTunes to Amazon's instant downloads, internet tycoons left and right are wedging their feet into the door-jam of downloadable music. With a single content search nearly any recording from Bing Crosby classics to Ke$ha's electronic pop to cult favorites like Steve Goodman can be called instantly to your computer screen, and for about ninety-nine cents you can own  any of them instantly and transfer them to your digital music player of choice without ever changing out of your jammies.

The Des Plaines Library has provided patrons with an extensive selection of music for many years with an extremely well-developed and rounded collection of contemporary and classic music of all sorts on CD. Recently, however, we too have made a foray into instant downloads--as many will already know the Library has offered a great selection of e-books and audiobooks through our virtual branch MyMediaMall for a while now. A More recent addition to our bountiful list of services and products, however, is Freegal. Through the Freegal platform Des Plaines patrons will be able to access the whole catalog of Sony Records and will be entitled to three free downloads a week for keepsies. That's right--no torrent work-around, no fear for the consequences of violating intellectual property laws. Just free, legal music for keepsies in your jammies.

To access Freegal simply head to our homepage at dppl.org and hover over the "Reference" tab. Select "Research databases A-Z" and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. In the column on the right side the very last link will say "Freegal Test." After entering your library card number you will be directed to the Freegal platform where you can browse popular music or search for something that interests you.I personally used my three downloads for the week already on a Train song and two songs by Julieta Venegas, but there are plenty of artists to appeal to any music lover. Just remember, the catalog includes only albums and artists which were produced by Sony Records, so the selection isn't quite as extensive as platforms like iTunes. Still, though...Free...Legal...Jammies...Need I say more?