Sharing music libraries on a server?

Hi all,
I work as a music teacher in a small school district in CT. I just bought an iPod to use in the classroom, and many of my colleagues are also using iPods for instructional purposes.
We would like to share music from school to school through our server. Ideally we'd like to have one central iTunes library that every music teacher in the district could access.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Kathy Adams

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Sharing music via a home server?

We have the following setup:
1 PC Desktop running W7
1 PC Laptop running W7
1 iMac desktop
2 iPhones (one synced with iMac, one with PC Desktop)
1 iPad (synced with PC Desktop)
1 HP EX495 Windows Home Server that has all our music on it (and recorded TV and whatnot).
We would like both the iMac and the PC Desktop (and theoretically the other devices though we would be satisfied with just those two) to be able to:
1) Create playlists (not necessarily shared) that can be synced to mobile devices
2) Purchase music and add it to the shared database so that the other computer sees the new music
3) Subscribe to podcasts and have the other person see them
4) Whe one person imports an Audiobook from CD, the other person should see the same audiobook. When the audiobook is deleted, the other person should automatically have the audiobook leave their music library without little exclamation-points-in-circles next to all the tracks.
Can anyone explain to me what the Best Practices are in setting up a system with the above requirements?
Thank you very much for any pointers.

With a browser.
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Sharing music libraries across user accounts

We've got 1 Mac and 4 users with iPods. I'd like us to share music, but use our own accounts to manage our music and iPods. I've seen these articles but am still a little perplexed:
Multiple iPods:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300432
Multiple Accounts:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93195
The Multiple Accounts article starts off with a Tip indicating you don't need to use any of the further instructions if you have the latest iTunes and OS:
"Tip: With iTunes 4.5 or later and Mac OS X 10.3 or later, it's easy to use the Fast User Switching feature in Mac OS X with the Music Sharing feature in iTunes to share your songs with other users on the same computer."
But if you follow the link to Music Sharing it has nothing to do with Multiple Accounts and is really about Multiple Computers. Also the music sharing only allows you to listen to other users music; not copy it onto your iPod. Also the music sharing requires you to perpetually leave iTunes running on any account you want to view the library from. None of these address the main issue.
Anyone have some simple instructions?
We want to all be able to copy some of the same music onto our iPods from our own user accounts.
thx
ed
iMac 17-inch/2GHz Mac OS X (10.4.2)

We put our music folder in the /Users/Shared folder.
Type this in the Terminal:
mv ~/Music/iTunes /Users/Shared/; ln -s /Users/Shared/iTunes ~/Music/iTunes

Shared music problems

Many shared music libraries give me this error when I try to access them: "The shared music library ~[x]~ is not accessible for an unknown reason. (-3259) Check that any firewall software running on either the shared computer or this computer has been set to allow communication on port 3689."
Even with no firewall running, I get this error most of the time. No restriction that I know of exists on port 3689. Also, most of the time people don't see my music library even though I've set to share it. If it does show, they get the same error as described above in trying to connect. Can anyone help me here?

hiya!
hmmmm. let's try doublechecking the firewall things. although the following articles aren't necessarily on your error message number (or specific symptoms), they might give some pointers on configuring the firewall and security software.
(what security software are you running?)
iTunes for Windows: Music Sharing with Windows Internet Connection Firewall
AirTunes: Error -3256 when streaming to multiple AirPort Express units
... and just in case you're running a Norton package:
iTunes cannot connect to the Music Store or Shared Music after installing Norton Internet Security
love, b

Is there a way to have two iTunes music libraries: a library on my computer and a shared library on a NAS server (cloud box)?

I would like to know if I can have two iTunes music libraries: a library on my computer and a shared library on a NAS server (LaCie CloudBox). I want to have some music files on my computer and a larger collection of songs with cover art on a shared CloudBox (NAS server) so that also my family members can listen to the music on the Cloudbox. Is there a way to do this?
I know I could just copy the music files to the CloudBox, but that way only the songs are shared, not the cover art. I could also just keep the files on my computer and share the library via home sharing, but that way my computer would have to be always on. So is there a way to have a shared library on the cloudbox that works regardless of my computer being on or not?
Thanks,
Jay

Try homesharing. I am not sure if this will keep them seprate but this is really close to what you are looking for.http://www.apple.com/itunes/inside-itunes/2010/01/sharing-itunes-libraries-at-ho me.html

HT202213 I have 3 users on one computer with 3 unique user accounts. Each have unique ITunes accounts. How do we share our music libraries using home sharing?

I have 3 users on one computer with 3 unique user accounts. Each of us have separate and unique ITunes accounts. How do we share our music libraries using Home Sharing? Everything that I can find talks about sharing between networked computers, but this is all on the same computer. I just want to share between ITunes accounts. Thanks!

Hi b noir, I also have two users on one pc with two different iTunes libraries. But I also want to put them onto an external hard drive so that I can free up some memory on the pc. So I figure I need to consolidate the two users iTunes libraries first before moving to hard drive? But not quite sure how to do that on the iTunes 11? Thanking you in advance!!

HT1473 My girlfriend and I both have iTunes account with our own music libraries and we want to combine our two libraries into one icloude accounts so can both then access our one shared libary at anytime in the cloud. How do we do this?

My girlfriend and I both have iTunes account with our own music libraries and we want to combine our two libraries into one icloude accounts so can both then access our one shared libary at anytime in the cloud. How do we do this?

No it is not possible. Content purchased from the iTunes Store is permanently tied to the account from which it was originally purchased, and Apple does not provide a way to change it.

HT2688 Working on a single computer with multiple users, I have set things up to allow each user to view and listen to the others' music libraries under the "Shared Library" function. Can you then connect an iPod touch and copy music from a shared librar

Working on a single computer with multiple users, I have set things up to allow each user to view and listen to the others' music libraries under the "Shared Library" function. Can you then connect an iPod touch and copy music from a shared library?

Was your wife logged into the libray at the time you tried to log in? I have had a similar problem and it was because another user was logged into the library when I attempted to. I got the permission denied banner.

Problems sharing music between libraries

I'm having trouble sharing music from my computer to my wives computer on the same network different apple id's. This was never a problem in the past. has there been any changes to prevent this?

Whilst you can share the content between two different libraries using a different Apple ID for the iTunes login, they both need to use the same Apple ID for homesharing (iTunes > file > homesharing)

On our shared laptop we had three music libraries. When I switched on the laptop this morning they had all gone. They are not in the itunes folder either. How do I get them all back please?

On Our shared laptop we had three music libraries. When I switch on the laptop this morning there were no libraries in itunes at all. It's as if ituned has installed itself from new and that we never had ipods? As far as I know no updates have been done. I restored the laptop back a couple of days and after restarting it still no libraries. How do I get them back please?

Try browsing out to and opening these alternate iTunes library using the instructions in this document.
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
B-rock

Shared Photo & Music Libraries for Multiple Users on Same Machine

I've setup multiple users on a single machine and I'm trying to have a common shared folder for photos (w/ Adobe PSE) and music (w/ iTunes). First, on photos:
-Tried setting up a folder on /users/shared/pictures. How can I "share" the main folder and have permissions carry down to all subfolders and files?
-I've given the other user permission, but when logged on, Finder window only displays icon, not preview of image? In cover flow mode, image shows up, though?
-Is this the best approach or is /me/public the better way or /me/pictures (shared) a better way?
And then on music:
-recommendations on best approach to have a single library with multiple users and multiple iTunes accounts.
Thanks in advance

The iTunes sharing is for sharing music between computers on a network.
To share music on a single PC, read this article
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93195

How can I combine itunes libraries for a shared music setup?

I wanted multiple users on my computer to share the same itunes music folder and library. I put an itunes folder (with an itunes music folder and library data file inside the itunes folder) into the computer's shared folder. I set each users preferences to use the new shared music folder and copy their music to the new folder.I also used the option key on startup of itunes to point each user's itunes to the new shared library.
I'm stumped on how to do one final thing: Is there a way for me to combine everyone's existing library data into the new shared library? In other words, I want all the folders that each user already created to be combined into the new library that everyone sees.

I tried that first, but then you are just replacing one library data file with another, you're not combining them. But I just figured it out myself so my apologies for posting prematurely -- There is an 'add to library' choice under the file menu. You navigate to your original itunes music folder, choose it, and the library information associated with those songs was added to the new shared itunes music folder that my itunes app is now set up to use. Fortunately, I hadn't trashed the original music folder yet.

How do i share music libraries between an older Mac running iTunes 4 and a new one running iTunes 11?

I have an older G4 Mac laptop that I use exclusively for playing music. Trouble is that it's limited to an older system and thus runs iTunes 4. Much of my music is on my newer machine which runs iTunes 11.x. I have made certain libraries available for sharing on my newer machine, but cannot see those libraries on the shared list on the older Mac. How do I get both machines to see each other. Note: they also do not see each other if I try to Go -> Connect to server -> Browse. However, they will connect if I type in the address (e.g. afp...) of the machine that I'm trying to connect to. Anyway, I'm hoping there's some soft of back compatability setting that I've overlooked.
rr

This article has the directions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203
The important steps for you are these
+To listen to another account's music files+
+Open iTunes.+
+From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.+
+Click Advanced.+
+Deselect the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library file" option.+
+Click OK.+
+From the File menu, choose Add File to Library.+
+Note: Windows users can also choose Add Folder to Library to add a folder of songs.+
+Navigate in the Add File To Library window to the location where the other user's music is saved (the iTunes Music folder in the case above).+
+Click Open.+
+Repeat these steps for each account that is listening to shared music.+
+When another user of the computer has imported new music from CD, repeat steps 6 through 8 to add the music to your library.+

Can you create playlists from network shared iTunes libraries?

I have a file server in my basement running XP Pro SP2 which is set to share it's rather large iTunes Library. I also have a laptop which is set to look for shared libraries. That all works fine. I would LIKE to create playlists on the laptop FROM the shared library broadcasting from my fileserver. I would like to be able to sync my wife's iPod on the laptop utilizing the songs on the fileserver, also of course using the shared library and playlist created from them.
Now, I attempted to "Add Folder To Library" by pointing iTunes to the shared music directory on the fileserver... no dice. For whatever reason, iTunes only adds about one sixth of the music.
I also attempted to export the iTunes Library as a text file into a shared playlist directory and then import the playlist into the laptop. Also no dice.
I also read a prior post which suggests that you set iTunes to organize and add files to the iTunes library upon importing... but that effectively doubles the size of the library.
So I'm at a loss. There's got to be a way to do this thing. No?
~( ):>

Good point... perhaps mapping the drive will help. To make a long story longer, I added folders... one at a time like you suggested. One specific directory (which included a few hundred subdirectories) kept missing files. I'm not really sure why it was doing that. So, I determined a few of the files it was missing and drilled down and added the specific albums. Boom, they were added. It would however take me until 2035 to do that for every album, hence my post.
This is NOT a gigabit network I am running, so I wont know if the drive mapping does anything until... probably morning. iTunes is adding the files as I type. I'll post back the results though. Thanks.
~( ):>
iMac 233MhZ Biondi blue 96MB of RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

ITunes crashes when sharing Music

When i want to connect from my iBook to my Mini for sharing iTunes Music, it says "Library is loading" for a long time. And then, when it should show the remote library, it shows nothing. iBook says that there are no Shares in my network any more, and on the Mini, iTunes is not responding any more, so i have to restart it.
When i want to connect from the Mini to the iBook, it is the same.
But, when i only share a playlist instead of my whole library, everything works fine.
Is there any network timeout? I've reinstalled iTunes and fixed my disk permissions, but it won't work.
What else can i do? I need this sharing feature very much...

I get this too.
Running an MDD down in my office. I play iTunes on that most of the day.The library is on an external 250GB firewire drive. Then I come up to the house and run iTunes on old iMac running 10.3.9, iTunes 6.0.1 via an Airport Express, from the G4 MDD's shared library.
Most of the time, no problem. However, if, from the iMac, I double-click on a different song from the one that's currently playing on the shared music library I lose the connection. Can't start it up again without trogging down to the office and restarting iTunes on that machine (restarting the iMac has no effect). I can still see and play from other shared libraries up at the house, though.
Once, during this issue, I got an error message (can't connect to server, may be a firewall problem). Can't remember the error number, unfortunately...
Martin

Sharing music libraries on a server?

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