Thing 17 was a lot of fun, especially for someone who has not played around with music streaming before. I started out with Musicovery, because I liked the idea of the “relational map based upon mood, genre, and decade.” But I kept running into “premium member only” restrictions, and when I tried to do the free registration, I always got a form in a foreign language (French, I think).

So I switched to Pandora. I found it very easy to navigate and choose selections. I like the biographical information it provides about the artists, and the many options for finding and playing the music I like. The only thing I didn’t like was the advertisements, but it is free, after all.

What role can this service play in our patrons’ lives? Well, I guess they could listen to streamed songs before checking out one of our CDs. Maybe the library could provide links in the catalog to streamed samples from our CD collection. Will people still check out CDs in the future? I think the technology will change from CDs to smaller devices with online music providers. Oh, that’s Thing 17! It’s already here!