Thursday, July 17, 2014


Yahara Music Library celebrates Madison's dynamic music scene by creating an online library of local music to share with the community.

Created by Madison Public Library and Murfie, Inc., the Yahara Music Library offers a diverse collection of music that includes established musicians and up and coming artists who play everything from rock, hip hop, classical, and more. The Madison-based Murfie corporation is a modern take on the neighborhood record store. Murfie digitizes the CD collections of its customers and make those collections available for streaming, downloading, and selling in its online marketplace.

All South Central Library System library patrons can stream music from the Yahara Music Library using any web browser or download albums in multiple formats to a variety of devices. Patrons will need to enter their library card number to stream or download any of the music.

Patrons can discover Yahara content either in LINKcat or in the Yahara platform located at yaharamusic.org. An app for Android and Apple devices will be available in the future, but for now the website scales well for mobile devices. LINKcat provides a link that takes patrons directly to the item in the Yahara platform.

Digital formats available for download include:
  • MP3
  • AAC
  • FLAC
  • ALAC
MPL pays musicians a fee to license an album for 5 years, with the option to renew the license. Musicians can also sign a perpetual license with MPL, though most are not choosing to do so at this point.