Essentially, it was a monitor and keyboard set up in various music retailers back in the 90's that allowed shoppers to search for titles and print out information to take to the order desk if a particular title was not on the shelves. It seems pedestrian now, but it was cutting-edge technology for 1993.

A MUSE kiosk was installed in a Peaches that I used to frequent back in the early 90's, and it marked the first time that I was able to search a cross-indexed music database.

It reminds me of how, in the pre-internet era:

A. How difficult it was to obtain a "complete" collection, and
B. How difficult it was to learn what was out there to "complete" a collection.

Ironically, in googling MUSE, I'm not finding much online documentation of the database/service--what it was, who created it, and whether or not it still somehow exists.

That's probably because the service is name "Muze", not "Muse".

I did buy a couple editions of CD International (the book, not the CD-ROM).

Oh, I used to live for those CD-International books and updates! That was one of the few ways to know what was being released on CD worldwide in the early days! Takes me back to ordering from the awful sites located somewhere in Oregon (I think) that were some of the few places to get CDs from the UK, Germany, and Japan -- each of them had a different name, but I am drawing a blank as to what they were!

Ebay is using a company called Muze for their "prefilled listing" information. I don't know if it's the same Muze, but they're HORRIBLY inaccurate.

I actually use a disclaimer on all our ebay listings, "Please note we use ebay's "pre-filled listing" information because we believe using it is necessary for success on ebay at this time. However, at times ebay's "pre-filled information" is wrong. We stand 100% by the information that WE WRITE in the description; but we can not & will not guarantee the accuracy of what ebay writes."

It is Muze that I am referring to in that statement.

We have a local store that still has a Muze system (or at least something like it).

oops...

Yeah - used to use that CD- Int. cd-rom for a while. Before that, we used to have that GIANT catalogue (on yellow paper), that we would get updates for every few months.....was good for certain oldies.....but in terms of keeping current - a complete joke! Can't remember the name of it, but many stores used it back in the day.
How things have changed with the NET!!

I guess I was thinking about all this earlier today because I was reflecting on all of the legwork I used to have to do to find out which discs I didn't have--never mind all of the legwork involved in finding the discs themselves. I vividly recall how I could type in the name of an artist and the Muze machine could barf up a bunch of compilation and soundtrack CD's that I'd never heard of containing one-off's by that artist. However even then, in the pre-Amazon era, many of these discs were seemingly impossible to find, and ordering a CD at a store only to have it mailed to the store, not to my home, now seems incredibly pointless, even though once upon a time I did it constantly.

For the past ten years, I've been maintaining a computer database of every track on every CD I own, but before that, I used to compile such lists using legal pads, composition notebooks, or index cards, depending on exactly what it was I was attempting to catalog.

phonolog?

I used to have the most frustrating time trying to special order CDs from record stores, both with and without MUZE. It usually seemed that the clerks would try to actively discourage customers from even trying. If they did place an order for you, nine times out of ten it would never come in. While I miss record stores for the browsing aspect, I have to admit that when you're looking for specific titles, Amazon and other internet retailers are the way to go.

Wasn't the bit yellow book called the....Phonolog?
We had one in the KING KAROL I worked in...updates would come in and you had to file the pages like your sixth grade loose leaf notebook!

Gary/NYC

I remember that! We used to buy a "budget" bound update version.

Phonlog....yeah that's it......a royal pain in the ass to update. And most of time, album wouldn't be available in Canada anyway....
It did get bet over the years.....we finally got on the Net, then got a U.S. distributor (CD One Stop) and were able to get more and more for customers. We even got a UK, German, a Japanese distributor. We were in heaven there for a few years.....