Sound is the Future

There were enough cool links in this assignment to keep me busy for hours. I'll just dive in! I like the control last.fm gives me to browse and discover new artists (like the long list of bands I have to check out courtesy of the Icelandic Music Scene group), but I enjoy the surprise of Pandora. I didn't get too far into imeem because it relies more heavily on user-loaded content than I'm interested in.
I don't know that I understand the informational or library-related implications of sites like these, sites that combine music and social networking. I get that familiarity with them is useful, that they're 2.0, and fun! But I don't know how they might be used in a library setting or if their access should be a priority. At least not without a good set of headphones. But maybe access to sites like these will make up for our lack of a music collection? "No, we don't have the latest Yanni, but you might be able to download it from last.fm, or Amazon for that matter." As an aside, I really hope the CD isn't dead because I am a respecter of cool packaging. The art, the band photo, the hidden content: it's all part of my image of the musician.
I can see how useful a site like the sound effects archive is, even in a library setting though. We do occasionally get asked if we carry CDs in this vein, and a website might appeal more to some than placing a hold on our meager offerings. The same goes for the Internet Archive's radio plays, poetry read by the poet, and Presidential speeches, just to name a few.
It seems like a no-brainer that libraries should have auditory offerings beyond books on tape, but traditionally libraries have been quiet places. Maybe that tradition has stymied growth in the area of aural information.