Madison is home to talented musicians, from DJs to bluegrass to string quartets. We created Yahara Music Library to share this musical talent with our community and explore alternative models for delivering digital contant.

Yahara benefits both the library and local community in the following ways:

• Encourages library patrons to support local musicians.
• Records link out to sites for purchasing music online, band websites and social media, so patrons can use the platform as a launching pad to discover local talent.
• Offers a new lending model for digital content.
• Albums are DRM free; patrons with access can legally download and own.
• Releases technical elements of the Yahara Music Library under an open source license, so anyone can contribute to the project’s design.
• Other institutions can create their own iterations of the project (Edmonton Public Library has recently joined).

Murfie built a special platform for Yahara based on their successful commercial platform for delivering online music and the Library licenses content from local musicians. Selection considerations include genre, Madison connection, quality and support for the Yahara concept. The UW-Madison’s Center for the Humanities partnered with both organizations by providing a nine-month fellowship position to help launch the project, as well as other digital projects at Madison Public Library. The collection has 56 albums and is growing at a rate of 40-50 albums per year. The library maximizes the partnership by drawing on Yahara talent for musical performances at library events.

Use of the collection is growing; users typically listen to more than one album during a streaming session and download one album for every 13 streamed. We have already achieved our goal to create a product that others could adapt. Murfie created a company to work with libraries to create their own local collections of music. Edmonton Public Library is now using Yahara code and improvements made for their project will benefit Yahara. One lesson learned from this experience is the importance of increasing musician involvement in the development, implementation and evolution of this new service. The Library recently took steps to engage local musicians by creating a survey to ask them how we could better promote the collection and their involvement. The Library has not only helped distribute the work of Madison artists, but also created a space for them to produce and create their music. Local hip hop artist Rob Dz created his entire album in the Central Library, from recording to promotional video to launch.