Librarians kind of blue as CDs sow confusion

Public library directors across the suburbs are setting up their own version of "Let's Make a Deal" after dozens of duplicate compact discs landed on their doorsteps in mid-June, part of a $142 million settlement with the music industry in a federal class action lawsuit brought by attorneys general in 38 states.

In addition to individual checks for $13.86 that went to 68,000 Massachusetts consumers, the state won 124,000 copies of music compact discs in the settlement, said Sarah Nathan, a spokeswoman for Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly.

"We chose to distribute the CDs to public libraries across the state because we thought that was the best way the most people would be able to take advantage of the settlement," Nathan said.

The CDs were apportioned to each library based on their community's population, Nathan said.

While the librarians said they are generally pleased with the largesse, the high numbers of duplicates they discovered when they opened the shipping boxes are causing them a cataloging and processing headache. They also are somewhat chagrined by the number of less-than-popular titles that were shipped to them.

"It really does look to us that what happened is that these companies cleared their warehouses, that they didn't really meet the spirit of the settlement," said Jackie Finocchio, director of the Topsfield Library and president of the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium, a group of 33 libraries in the region.

Nathan said her office anticipated some distribution problems and is hoping the libraries can swap them among themselves. Those they cannot use, they can sell and then plow the proceeds back into other music-related purchases, she said.

"We did know from the beginning we would be getting some duplicate titles and some obscure titles," Nathan said. "We just didn't realize we'd get as many duplicates as we ended up with."

Library officials from communities in the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium have been discussing the need to develop some way of exchanging CDs among the libraries.

Susan Schwarz, director of Dracut's Parker Library, said she has offered to collect the listing of titles from each of the member libraries in the consortium and distribute a spreadsheet back to each library by e-mail to see if there are any takers for the duplications.

"We are also talking about doing a swap at our September meeting and see how it goes," Schwarz said. "I am just not looking forward to having to haul this many CDs to a meeting, though, so that's why I offered to get things started electronically."

Of the 151 discs the Topsfield Library received, Finocchio said she thinks only one third are usable and many are duplicates.

"We're still looking at them and trying to see what fits our collection," she said. "Libraries do have collection philosophies, so something that works here might not be popular in another community and vice versa."

Wakefield reported getting 500 discs and several dozen duplicates including eight copies of Handel's "Messiah" and nine of Lenny Kravitz's "Lenny." Likewise Everett received 799 discs but only 314 titles.

"Because we have two libraries some of the duplicates are fine, but we would like to get rid of the extras we can't use," said library director Deborah Abraham. "We did get 20 copies of one title and 21 copies of another, but there's some good stuff in there as well."

Abraham said Everett, which belongs to the North of Boston Library Exchange network, also is discussing with other librarians in that consortium how to best swap their duplicates.

Nathan said in the lawsuit, the state attorneys alleged that five music distributors and three large music retailers threatened to withhold popular titles from several mass market retailers if the retailers lowered their prices below a certain agreed level.

The companies named in the suit were Bertelsmann Music Group Inc., EMI Music Distribution, Warner-Electra-Atlantic Corp., Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Transworld Entertainment Corp., Tower Records, and Musicland Stores.

While Nathan said the companies denied the allegations, they entered into an agreement in September 2002 to settle the case with a combination of cash and CDs.

Finocchio said that in Topsfield's case the free CDs have been more of a burden than a gift, but Abraham said that Everett's CD collection is getting a boost.

"I figure we'll be getting to make our own choices once we figure out what we are going to sell after swapping with other libraries," Abraham said. "We might buy more CDs or books on music."

Caroline Louise Cole can be reached at cole@globe.com.