Nashville Public Library’s vinyl lending pilot program is booming. More than 65% of the records in the collection have been checked out, according to Noelle Rutherford, materials services manager at the downtown branch of the library.
“They have been going like hotcakes,” she said.
The program is homegrown. Last year, an employee at the Donelson branch of the Nashville Public Library had an idea: What if the library had vinyl? He submitted an official suggestion to the central branch, and they approved $15,000 to start a record collection.
Librarians took on the task of curating a record collection.
“We turned to old-fashion books,” said Rutherford.
After researching, they purchased the collections on Amazon, to save taxpayer dollars, Rutherford tells us.
Justin Barney WPLN NewsThe Madison Branch Library is one of two holders of the new vinyl record collection.
They amassed a collection to appeal to the masses, landing on quite a diverse array of albums. They offer classic rock like ZZ Top and Rush, and millennial hits like Fall Out Boy. The library also offers classical and jazz albums, plus some artists on the rise like Zach Bryan.
“People have been checking out a surprising amount of heavy metal,” Rutherford said. “We want this collection to be driven by the community.”
The library will buy more records if the pilot program is successful and demand is high. Right now, the physical vinyl collections are housed at the Green Hills and Madison branches of the library. You can flip through the stacks there, or you can put a piece of vinyl on hold and pick it up from your preferred branch around Nashville.
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