By SCOTT REESE WILLEY

Hometown Press

Good news for Chambers County residents who have an iPod or MP3 player but no computer at home to download music: If they’ve got a library card they can download up to three songs each week for free on the libraries computers.

Commissioners agreed Tuesday to allow the library system to purchase 1,000 free downloads this year to see if there is an interest and to get more people into the library.

“We’re trying this out to see how it goes,” librarian Valerie Jensen told commissioners.

If library-goers show an interest, the library can always increase the number of downloads it purchases next year, she said.

The city of Houston library system has purchased unlimited number of downloads because of the large number of library cardholders, she noted. Naturally, the cost of unlimited downloads is far greater than the price tag of 1,000 downloads, Jensen added.

Some 170,000 people visited Chambers County libraries last year, she said.

The one-year contract will automatically expire at the end of the year and costs the county $1,290.

The price tag allows patrons to download songs from a list of some 500,000 selections.

“Is the purpose of this to get kids back in the library?” Precinct 4 Commissioner Rusty Senac asked.

“It’s to promote the library as a place to spend liesure time,” Jensen explained. 

The computerized program resets each Monday to keep track of each patron’s downloads, she said.

Once a patron has downloaded three songs in one week period, they will not have access to the music until the following Monday, she said. 

Only library-goers in good standings will have access to the downloads. That is to say, anyone with overdue books or fines will have to take take care of their overdue books and fines before they will be allowed access to the downloadable music.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Mark Huddleston worried that the program would give underage kids access to songs with explicit lyrics, such as rap songs that contain violence, sex and profanity.

But Jensen said the downloadable music program is offered exclusively to libraries and she believes the songs are screened for explicit lyrics.

However, she said, just as kids can choose to check out books with controversial topics or language, so too can they choose to download music with lyrics their parents may not like.