Oh, the joys of public wireless internet! Like checking my email in the library as a last minute procrastination before buckling down to hours and hours of physics and calculus, hours and hours, mutter mutter... right, email! And I've got iTunes open on my laptop from last night. Who cares?
Apparently, someone. In the time it takes for me to check my email, some total stranger has connected to my iTunes shared library and now there's a little yes/no box asking if I really really really (really?) want to kick them off in the process of closing the program and getting to work. Well... no. I don't want to get to work and I definitely don't want to kick them off my library. I love having people listen to my music! I can picture them now, browsing past dozens of names which mean nothing to them... completely lost. I do pride myself on having a few names which even the university's much more experienced likemusic'd souls don't know, and the odds of this stranger being one of those admirable folks are very bad odds indeed. I believe most of them would be at work at the moment for starters.
But perhaps there is someone I haven't yet met, who is even now glancing about the study area and wondering whose library they've tapped into. I can feel the shared love of music already. We are kin. Or maybe this stranger will sample a song or two and fall head over heels for a genre, the way I did a few short years ago. Maybe I will meet them at a show someday and we'll stumble right into "that was your music library?" Yes, that was my music library! My shared iTunes library, on the university network, which brings me so much joy.
Or maybe I have an overactive imagination. Okay, that's definitely true. But even for those of you who don't get all flattered whenever someone wants to listen to your files and playlists, there are lots of ways to have fun with shared libraries on big networks.
You can play "match the title" and guess who might name their library with an obscure nietzschean quote while listening to nothing but the beatles and indie pop. You can come up with clever names for your own library and change them as often as you want. My favorite tune-in collection changes once a month and I'm always curious what'll come next. There seems to be a seasonal theme at the moment... Write a poem with iTunes library titles if you can get enough of 'em- why not? Even better, get a bunch of friends to share on the same network and order your library titles with symbols, then spell out any message you please, scrolling down the page. I've had a discussion through titles and I have to say it was the most interesting substitute for instant messaging I've ever tried. Why shouldn't your library title be a response to someone else's title, or your room number if you're in a dorm or an apartment building, or the address of your favorite webpage? Someone will notice, someday, even if you may never know it...