Libraries facing music in CD accord

Public library directors across the suburbs north and west of Boston 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, including Massachusetts.

In addition to individual checks for $13.86, which went to 68,000 affected 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 wasn't exactly in the spirit of the settlement, that the music executives ordered someone to clear their shelves of unwanted and unpopular titles," said Krista McLeod, the director of Methuen's Nevins Library.

Nathan said her office is anticipating some distribution problems and is hoping the libraries can swap the CDs among themselves.

''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."

Attempts to reach music company representatives were unsuccessful.

Library officials from communities in the Merimack 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 35 libraries in the consortium and distribute a combined spreadsheet back to each library by e-mail to see if there are any takers for the duplicates.

''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."

Of the 500 discs the Parker Library received, 210 titles are duplicates and several of the duplicates are in multiples, as many as eight to 21 copies of a single CD title, according to Schwarz.

Also, of the 280 individual titles Dracut received, Schwartz said, many are Christmas music by unfamiliar composers and performers that the library would have been unlikely to buy in the first place and has no space to retain in its permanent collection.

Billerica fared little better. The town library received 750 discs but only 375 individual titles, said director Barbara Flaherty.

''This certainly isn't what I was expecting when we first heard we'd be getting the music," Flaherty said. ''Many of the newer titles are discs we already had, and many are so obscure, we won't keep them because of space issues."

Schwarz had a similar observation.

''The one Celine Dion CD we got, we already had," Schwarz said. ''And while it is nice to be able to fill in holes in our collection, I am just not sure how many people really care about 'The Three Mo' Tenors.'"

Dracut got five copies of that one.

Methuen and Andover also each received 750 CDs and, of that total, got 410 separate titles. Among its duplicates, Methuen got 21 copies of the ''Mystery of Santo Domingo de Silos," a Gregorian chant collection, and 21 copies of ''Songs from an American Movie Vol. II," according McLeod.

Nathan said in the lawsuit, the state attorneys alleged 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.

One of the issues the librarians have is that they don't know yet whether they are all holding the same bunch of duplicates, Flaherty said. She suspects the worse, however, because she does know she received 21 copies of the same Gregorian chant collection that Methuen was sent..

''That one must not have sold very well," she said.

Meanwhile, Jim Sutton, the director of Andover's Memorial Hall Library, said he is adopting a pragmatic attitude.

''I figure we got 177 more CDs than we had before, and we will sell whatever we don't trade with other libraries at our book sale in November and then use that money to buy more popular titles," he said.