Making Adventurous Use of Our CD Collection

Most Media Center users approach the desk with call numbers in hand to request specific CDs. But student Rustin Hiatt takes a more experimental approach. Whenever he comes in, he asks whomever is behind the counter to hand him three random CDs.

Hiatt realized he had the desire and opportunity to expand his musical horizons with our CD collection, which will be hitting 37,000 any day now. He started working his way through the recommendations in the copy of 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before you Die: A Listener's Life List by Tom Moon (ML156.9 .M66 2008) that sits at the Media Center desk, but he reached the point where he'd already heard almost everything in it. Next he tried the Billboard Top 50 albums list that we post each week, but he didn't like what he was hearing. So he started the random request strategy.

Do you have an unusual way of using our collection to discover new music? Let us know. We'd love to share your story, too.