2.0 Alphabet

is for Last.fm, which "taps the wisdom of the crowds, leveraging each user's musical profile to make personalised recommendations, connect users who share similar tastes, provide custom radio streams, and much more." Listen online. Yes, it's very cool; CBS liked it so much that it bought the site last May.

Last.fm is a UK-based internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It claims over 21 million active users based in more than 200 countries.[1] On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for £140m (US$280m).
Using a music recommendation system known as "Audioscrobbler," Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user's computer or portable music device. This information is transferred to Last.fm's database ("scrobbled") via a plugin installed into the user's music player. The profile data is displayed on a personal web page. The site offers numerous social networking features and can recommend and play artists similar to the user's favourites.

Users can create custom radio stations and playlists from any of the audio tracks in Last.fm's music library, and are able to listen to some individual tracks on demand, or download tracks if the rightsholder has previously authorised it. Registration is required to acquire a profile but is not necessary to view any part of the site or to listen to radio stations. [Wikipedia]

2.0 Alphabet

is for Hype Machine. The Hype Machine is here to make music discovery fun and get artists paid. The Hype Machine tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page.
Some of the frequently accessed tracks are cached by the Hype Machine server, much like Google Search caches web pages, to reduce load on the bloggers' servers and protect their bandwidth.
Those tracks are NOT available for download, but you can preview them via the play buttons that are next to each track.
The blog that posted a particular track is identified under every track by name so you can read more about why they posted it. If you enjoyed a track someone posted, stop by and let them know!

The Hype Machine is an MP3 blog aggregator created by Anthony Volodkin. It enables "one-stop shopping" of postings from thousands of MP3 blogs.[1] Volodkin created the website in 2005 while enrolled at Hunter College.[2]
Some MP3 bloggers have complained that aggregators (such as The Hype Machine) allow users to download music without taking in the entire experience of a music blog, such as its editorial content. [Wikipedia]

Audio Available (already) @ HCPLC.org

Did you know that the library already provides - locally created - downloadable audio content to our library customers. Here's a summary of the library's Oral History Project provided by Cody Shelburne, the library's "technologist" behind ...

Hillsborough Remembers: Voices of Our Community
Curious about Tampa History? Did you know that you can experience it in the first person? Just go to Hillsborough Remembers on our website! There you will find over 60 interviews of Tampa residents, recounting Tampa’s past as they remember it. The Civil Rights and WWII eras are prominently featured. You can even download and listen to mp3s of the interviews! There are over 40 hours of interview audio available. So go to our website and put a little local history in your iPod today!
-Cody Shelburne

Many library employees and volunteers have worked on the Oral Histoiry Project in the past few years. The Project is currently managed by Paule Fahle @ JFG.