We share our music library by keeping separate copies on each of our machines. This works MUCH better then trying to share using a network drive (speed-wise).
For simplicity, the decision needed to be made to choose a master copy and then find some way to ensure that the slave would keep up-to-date as songs were added or removed.
Michelle doesn’t have much interest in ripping CDs or otherwise acquiring media so we made my machine the master. I back up all my stuff to my server every night and Mich’s machine checks the server periodically (daily, when she’s got it turned on) to pick up any new music / pictures that I’ve added or changes that I’ve made (we use SyncBack SE for this – works GREAT!).
Anyway, iTunes is a bit of a pain in that it is not able to monitor folders for updates. So instead I found this solution on Lifehacker’s web site. The iTunesLibraryUpdater fits the bill quite neatly.
All I needed to do is customize the associated batch file and add it to the “Scheduled Tasks” app to run an hour or so after I’ve got SyncBack to run. So any changes that were pulled down from the server can then be applied to iTunes automagically.
The suggested batch file command line (modified for Mich’s machine) looks like this and works perfectly:
“%PROGRAMFILES%\iTunes Library Updater\ITLUconsole.exe” /a /l /r “d:\my music”