LIBRARY CD'S

the King William County Library

Honoring an unlikely source for music obsession
Or... what's wrong with wanting CD's from a library?
by Peter Crigler
(February 2026)

I have always been a devotee of the public library. Ever since I could read, I've had a library card with the local library in West Point, VA. I have been checking out CDs from said library for the last 25 years or so. Until 2025, when a new change came in and turned the library upside down and cut off yet another avenue of access to physical media.

In the spring of 2025, I noticed that Pamunkey Regional Library, the overall operator of the West Point library and at least seven other branches were no longer ordering new CDs. The last CD ordered was the newest Jason Isbell album, Foxes in the Snow. I was quite disappointed and thought back to the amount of joy and discovery I've had from the library and their insanely schizophrenic CD collection.

Let's take it back in time... I didn't begin noticing the library music collection until around 1997. I was still into cassettes and didn't have access to CDs much at all. During this time, the library, which stretched out from King William and King & Queen County all the way out to Goochland County had quite the cassette collection, ranging from Daniel Johnston, L7 and Pavement to practically anything else you could think of at the time. Then by 1999, I was getting more and more invested in the CD format and while I now had a record store in town, I began to explore what the public library had. Amongst my discoveries on cassette of all things were Big Lizard in My Backyard by the Dead Milkmen and Copper Blue by Sugar. Falling in love with these records almost instantly, I was able to secure CDs from various record stores, copies of which I still have today. As a thirteen-year-old heading for the 21st century, this was an eye-opening revelation. During the same time, through record store means, I found the Violent Femmes and Smithereens. You have to imagine 1999, my peers were listening to Korn, Kid Rock, Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys. As a result of the library and a few record stores, my musical tastes jumped light years ahead of my peers and there was no looking back.

By the time I graduated high school in the early-2000s, the library was my primary access to discovering new to me music, from the likes of Tom Waits, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Amy Rigby, Mercury Rev among others. Without the library, I wouldn't have been introduced to these artists till later in life. By this time, the library had amongst their CD collection, Being There by Wilco, The Curtain Hits the Cast by Low, Mel by East River Pipe, Tom Verlaine's self-titled debut and Pentastar by Earth! This was on top of popular stuff like Collective Soul and Nirvana. By 2004, I was starting my freshman year of college in Lynchburg, VA and now had access to their vast collection and that's when the floodgates truly opened up. I still utilized Pamunkey to a lesser extent than previously. I would occasionally check in when I was coming home for break to see what newer stuff that Pamunkey had.

King William County Library

Around this time, there was a lawsuit simmering in the music industry and small-town libraries were to be the unwitting victor. The major labels were accused of price gouging on CDs and as a result of a class action settlement, the majors agreed to give away millions of unsold CDs to libraries across the country. According to NBC News from 2004, "But when the first shipments began arriving last week, some librarians suspected that the companies -- the Bertelsmann Music Group, EMI Music Distribution, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment -- were dumping CDs that had been gathering dust in warehouses when they received hundreds of copies of some titles for which there is little or no demand." "The public library in Worcester, Mass., with a main library and two branches, received 150 copies of Nastradamus, a 1999 album by the rapper Nas, and 148 copies of Entertainment Weekly's Greatest Hits of 1971."

I don't remember it being that bad for Pamunkey, but for someone still discovering music in 2004, it was a bit of a windfall. Yes we got copies of Pearl Jam's Binaural and several volumes of the Entertainment Weekly comps but the library also got Toad the Wet Sprocket, Silverchair, Lou Reed, Toadies and X's Wild Gift reissue from 2001. That X record was massive for me freshman year learning about punk rock and it quickly became a favorite. It was fun digging through the Pamunkey website when I was coming home for Christmas and finding new stuff to dig into.

As the years wore on, I was still grabbing records whenever they came into the catalogue like Ministry, Wilco, White Stripes and Jason Mraz among others. Then after college and I became more reliant on the library due to financial straits, it seemed that they were getting new releases as soon as they were coming out. Cut to about 2014 and they were already doing that with DVDs, getting new releases available the week they came out which was amazing for someone on a budget such as myself. Imagine being enamored with physical media and not having to wait to hear the new Interpol, Queens of the Stone Age, TV on the Radio and even Sarah McLachlan if that was your thing. It was comforting knowing that CDs were still there whenever I couldn't get out to record stores in Richmond.

From Pamunkey Regional

By about 2017, it seemed the catalogue was expanding in a way that didn't seem feasible a few years down the road but that wasn't my problem. I was just a consumer taking in new releases as soon as I could. Then COVID hit. By the end of March 2020, the interior of the library was closed off to patrons but staff (including my mother) still had to come in to work and process orders for patrons. This meant that there was a shortage of new materials coming through obviously but only temporarily. I was still able to take advantage of what I could; for example, discovering a copy of Volcano Suns' All-Night Lotus Party. Only being familiar with the name, I checked it out and instantly became a fan.

By June or so, CDs were back but not as many as before. I was able to get my hands on new Bob Dylan, Built to Spill, Jeff Tweedy and the Killers. It was still great and there seemed to be no reason to really go to the record store to get new releases unless, in my case, it was a record I had my sights on like Green Day or Mr. Bungle. There was never a chance in the 2020's that a public library would get a Mr. Bungle record but hey, a guy could dream. Anyway, the pandemic and recovery went on and things in the library seemed to go back to normal by 2021 or so.

As the years wore on, it seemed that perhaps the powers that be at the library were ordering maybe a bit too much. It seemed for a while that seemingly every new release from the likes of Ariana Grande, The Black Keys, Dinosaur Jr and even the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were available for check out. For myself, it seemed a bit strange because I knew there was no way they could keep this up; there seemingly wasn't that much demand for all these records. I knew that a lot were getting checked out but there were a lot that wasn't and every time one of the bigger branches like Mechanicsville would have a charity book sale, there would be a lot of weeded records to choose from and I always found a small batch to take home.

King William County Library

By 2024, there were rumblings of things going on behind the scenes. King & Queen, one of the small outposts of Pamunkey decided to break off and start their own library; they already had the building but decided what the hell, they could do this on their own. They didn't realize how tricky it was going to be and as a result, they had to lose their collection, that Pamunkey owned, and start from scratch. This meant no CDs or DVDs and a reliance on donations from the community. The library is a shell of what it was and as a result, no residents of the county could acquire a Pamunkey library card or use any of its resources! Residents of other counties were shocked and concerned it could happen to them...

Then in early 2025, it was announced that King William and West Point would also be leaving Pamunkey, due to financial issues. The counties felt they were paying too much to Pamunkey to have a library. They figured they could go on their own again and they announced in June of that year that patrons in those counties would not be able to utilize library services after June. West Point had its own newer building to stay in so they were fine but King William would have to relocate from its strip mall location to potentially sharing space with parks and recreation. It was during this same time that I noticed something rather interesting. It seemed that the library was not ordering nearly as many CDs as previous and that actually got me concerned. They had been doing fine in the previous few months, even getting new Snow Patrol and The Cure, of which I was super stoked to see in a library. But by early '25, the number of CDs had dropped and between that and the imminent transition from Pamunkey to a local branch, the CDs were going the way of the dodo.

Pamunkey Regional

When June finally arrived, Pamunkey was getting close to leaving King William and I wondered aloud what was going to happen to CDs at the other branches. I already have a feeling that the owners of the King William branch will not be ordering new discs nor will they probably end up keeping the ones already in the catalogue. So I asked a staff member of Pamunkey via email what the future held for CDs and they said, "Libraries across the nation have seen a precipitous decline in music CD circulation and, as a result, many libraries have discontinued and/or removed their music CD collections. Circulation has likely declined so much due to the rise of streaming audio and music, as well as the lack of CD players in newer vehicles. Facing similar circumstances as other libraries, PRL made the decision to discontinue active selecting and purchasing for its music collection as a test run; during the test period, fewer than a handful of purchase requests for music were received."

No total shock there, just amazement that there isn't some groundswell for physical media. I mean when an album is unavailable on streaming/iTunes, what are ya gonna do? Grab a CD obviously but in 2025, it's hard to convince thousands of other people to think the way you do. All you can do is sigh and bemoan the fact that public libraries are slowly getting rid of CDs and then there's one less avenue in which to enjoy physical media.

Pamunkey Regional