Techno-skeptics (like me) tend to roll their eyes when someone tells them the next new file-format/media type/social bookmarking site is THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE, and that anybody who doesn’t climb on board the bandwagon is going to get flattened. After all, microfiche was once going to replace all our books, and there are probably still laserdiscs sitting forlornly on some library’s shelves.

So it’s in this spirit that I haven’t worried too much about the notion of circulating digitial audio files. However, a couple of days ago, NPR’s Morning Edition had a piece about digital music players that contained one very interesting fact:

The Consumer Electronics Association, the industry’s main trade group, says sales of digital-music players tripled last year, with the value of shipments of digital-music players totaling $3.7 billion versus just $1.2 billion for traditional home stereos.

I think this indicates that a tipping point has been reached. Indeed, I’m starting to think that if you’ve already got a circulating CD collection, there’s certainly no philosophical reason you shouldn’t be offering an mp3 collection as well, because that’s where your patrons are starting to move to.

But of course philosophy is one thing, physical reality another. The current reality of digital music is that there are a host of concerns. Dealing with copyright is one — what does it mean to “lend” a digital file when the first sale doctrine doesn’t apply? Not to mention that the Digital Rights Management tools that “protect” most digital files frequently make it impossible for many of our patrons to use them at all.

However, just because it’s not yet clear how best to provide digital files to our patrons doesn’t mean we can put our heads in the sand until it’s all sorted out. The time to start planning for these new services is now.