At St. Paul libraries: Free song downloads

Listen up, St. Paul Public Library users.

No, really, now you can download the latest music for free and listen to it forever on your computer or portable device.

It's like iTunes through the library.

The library system is the first in the Twin Cities to offer popular music downloads to its patrons. It's another example of libraries adapting to changing technological and cultural trends by offering materials in digital form.

Hennepin County, for example, has downloadable movies and classical music. The Dakota County Library offers eBooks. Washington County provides e-audiobooks.

"It's a way to expand our collection on a massive scale," said John Larson, information technology librarian for the St. Paul system.

Hundreds of thousands of songs from the Sony Music collection -- which includes artists from AC/DC to Beyoncé to Ke$ha -- are now available to St. Paul Public Library cardholders in good standing. People will be able to access the music collection at library branches or from home computers.

It's a change from typical library workings: Folks don't usually keep the things they check out. In order to make the songs available for portable devices, they were converted to mp3 files, and they never expire.

The songs are made available through a service called Freegal. It was launched last April by a Virginia-based company called Library Ideas and is being used by a couple of hundred libraries nationwide, said company president and co-founder Brian Downing.

The Owatonna Public Library was the state's first system to sign on to the service.

The St. Paul Library pays Library Ideas a fee for the service. The contract terms are confidential, but the money for the program came from a grant, Larson said.

If it proves popular, he said, then part of the music budget would be used to pay for Freegal. The St. Paul system will continue to buy CDs.

"I don't see why it [Freegal] won't be popular," Larson said.