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Give a narrative of the three people that you observed and interviewed. Don't use their names. Don't identify the users by name, but do describe who they were. Each narrative should include a particularly interesting moment -- a breakdown or workaround that exhibits a feature of the problem you're aiming to solve.
Names have been changedomitted.
Douk Music Director D. (Americana/Roots):Highlights
Role: Receives music from the bin and logs them in the log books. Sometimes decides that something is a keep at this point. Files music in the new bins and comes to flush perhaps once a month, removing them. Currently receives digital media, but except for specific high-priority tracks, does not even bother downloading them, let alone playing. Does not usually burn CDs of digital media for playback in the studio, so digital media is often lost.
- The library is currently made up of physical CDs.
- Currently, he receives 5-20 CDs every week that he has to rip and enter into the library.
- He gets a lot of digital media as well, but most just get thrown away. Occasionally, he will play them right away and pick out the good ones to burn on the CD.
- Most of the time, he needs to find time to preview the music tracks before burning them.
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- Sometimes this process comes extremely tedious, as the track information is not properly embedded in the music files (track name will say “Track 1, Track 2, Track 3 …”)
- It might also help to have the “digital liner notes” or a PDF/image of the album information stored in digital form
- Categorization of music is problematic, sometimes music fits into two categories (then two physical copies need to be made, one for each category) or into a category that doesn't yet exist
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- The process of getting digital music looks something like: download the music -> burn to disc -> print out track list -> put it on the new release rack (for Doug in particular, he also writes an entry into his logbook, which prevents duplicate CDs from being filed)
- CDs are often flagged with some physical sticker (for example, if it’s going to get flushed soon)
- Doug often likes to play music on his home computer, and he would like to be able to access the system from there, so remote access is a plus for him
- Doug would like to store the highest quality possible music on the system, that is, if possible in a lossless format like FLAC. MP3 is the low-end of the quality scale.
Bruce Music Director B. (Folk):
HighlightsRole: Receives and logs new music, but completely ignores digital submissions right away. Is willing to use a system if learnable.
- Due to being very low tech, Bruce feels no need to use digial media at all and when he received emails containing digital media, he deletes them right away.
- Bruce thinks if there is a system that he can learn easily, then he will probably use digital formats more often. Julia
Music Director J. (World):
Highlights: Receives new music, but has never logged received CDs. May play or burn digital media rarely, but usually deletes. Submits to CMJ semi-regularly.
- Incoming digital music currently needs to first be burned to CDs before it can be added to the library and played, it is more hassle than physical copies and therefore digital music is not as attractive an option
- The World Music director receives a large number of emails containing music in digital format (~10 a month)
- They get a lot of free music and promos because of the CMJ (college media journal) reporting that they do, a national reporting system on music which the record labels like; reporting involves going through the physical CDs and looking at the labels to see how many plays each CD has, and filling out a table, with some subjective opinion of the music director as well
- Currently, due to time constraints, she will either delete them, or forward the emails to volunteers of the station, who also find the digital formats frustrating to deal with
- The World Music director receives songs from an eclectic range of record labels, and many of the smaller, independent ones cannot afford to send her physical CDs
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- Julia is a little discouraged that this is a “one-shot deal” project for us, but an inevitable artifact of this being a class project and not a real-world project Other (but relevant):
- (Ian): Some physical form of the music must exist if it's received as a CD, if sent digitally a physical form may not have to exist- Trackblaster is a way to see all the DJs and how many times they’ve played each track, but not all DJs use it
Joanie (Loud Rock) - if something comes in and she knows she like it, she will download it
- lazy, no time to download (so much of it, within the last 6 months or 1 year the number of digital media multipled)- adding “fun” information to an album (pdf or digital liner notes), or even the email content
- concerned with the tracklist and manually find album art
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- how will the general WMBR public know the new music coming in- downloads vs. physical copies
Other notes (not taken from any particular person):
- Some physical form of the music must exist if it's received as a CD, if sent digitally a physical form may not have to exist
- Trackblaster is a way to see all the DJs and how many times they’ve played each track, but not all DJs use it
- User Classes. Describe the user classes that you have identified, and their major characteristics.
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