OPEN THE POD BAY DOORS, HAL

posted by James Reel

    Our music director, Steve Hahn, just appeared haggardly on the studio threshhold, the coffee cup in his hand remarkably steady considering what he was about to tell me: He suffered a computer mishap yesterday, and had to restore data with a backup that was two weeks old. And that means that 20 new CDs that were catalogued last week need to be input again. Why do I care? Because I’m the guy who catalogs the blasted CDs. (It’s nice to have some use for my master’s degree in what used to be called library science.)
    At KUAT-FM, we use a system called MusicMaster. At its heart is a catalog of every composition in our music library—right now, 11,815 items, although there were several more before yesterday (sigh). But besides creating and maintaining this database, MusicMaster actually generates our music schedules. Steve gives it certain parameters (don’t schedule two solo piano pieces in a row, use a certain percentage of Baroque pieces during certain times of day, etc.), presses a button, and voilà! A half-done music schedule that requires further fixing and filling from Steve before it’s ready to tyrannize the announcers.
    Sure beats the 3 x 5 index cards I worked with as music director in the early to mid 1980s. But then, I never mistakenly burned a batch of index cards, losing the cataloguing for 20 discs. I never had problems like that … until we installed our first computerized library system.