How to Download Free Music From the Topeka & Shawnee County Library



I bought my first car, a cream colored 1968 Ford Mustang in 1982, right after I graduated from High School. In 1982, the car was only 14 years old.  At some point, someone had installed an 8-track player in it. By the time I bought the car, 8-tracks were already old technology, though you could still find places to buy them. I really wanted a new stereo but couldn't afford one so made do with the three 8-tracks I owned.

 

To this day, I am quite confident I could belt out any song from Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" or Carly Simon's "Boys in the Trees" albums. It's true...the songs you listen to in high school are the songs you will be listening to in your retirement years.

 

 

So, in my lifetime, I've gone from 8-tracks to cassettes to CD's to Mp3's. It gets expensive to be constantly buying the same old music in different formats.

 

For our anniversary, my husband bought me a Google tablet, which I love. I wanted some music on it but hated the thought of spending a lot of money. This is when I discovered I could download songs from the Topeka and Shawnee County Library's website.  Here's how it works:

 

Go to the website located at http://tscpl.org/.  On the banner across the top of the library's home web page, click on "Find Stuff," which is the first item listed on the top left side of the home page.

 

After clicking on "Find Stuff," you will see the above page with a link to "Downloads".  Under Downloads, click on "Music Downloads (Freegal)".

 

Once you have registered with freegal, you may download three songs a week for free. You log in using your library card number and library password and then can search for songs by title, artist, album or composer.

 

Not all artists or albums are on freegal.  You will find a lot of newer artists, seeking to build an audience and a lot of older music. That's fine by me because I love me some Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Judy Garland and Dinah Shore. To date, I've downloaded almost 40 songs. These are songs I probably would never have gone out and bought but still enjoy listening to...like my bagpipe music or classical instrumental cowboy theme songs.

 

I once had a boss who had moved to Topeka from out East and was unfamiliar with our town. One of the first thing he did was have all the employees in his department make a list of the ten best things Topeka has to offer. My list definitely included our library.