was started by Mancuso in concert with Steve D'Aquisto and Paul Casella in 1974 in New York City as a grassroots, non-profit effort to design an efficient pipeline for swapping information between the music industry and working DJs. It was to be known as The New York Record Pool, which disbanded a few years after its founding, due to differences regarding the operation of the company. The record pool received the newest releases directly from the record labels and distributed them to their subscribed members. In exchange, they agreed to provide the labels with feedback for each record. “The disc jockeys would get the records and they’d fill out a feedback sheet; they would give the personal reaction and the floor reaction. And that information, based on the test pressings, would go back to the record company and they would adjust certain things or whatever,” Mancuso said. Largely used in the United States, the promotional pool system has never really been established outside of that country. The number of record pools peaked about 150 regional organizations during the 1980s and 1990s, but that number dropped off steadily during the shift from vinyl records to CDs then to digital formats. The broad term "music pool" eventually arose, reflecting the advancing state of music distribution technology and the shrinking number of vinyl promotional releases, shifts that have caused pools to undergo major transformations in membership and in nature. There are approximately a dozen remaining music pools in operation as of 2017, which collectively produce a monthly chart of their most popular distributed music (Published in DJ Times Magazine). Almost all remaining music pools now provide product to their members in digital format exclusively. Record pools continue on today as a modern promotional channel used by the biggest record labels around the world to target the vast amount of DJs worldwide. They also act as a tool for individual DJs to release their own productions to the record pool, assisting their careers and helping them gain exposure to the general public. They have also evolved into a business that has their own team of in-house producers, remixers, and editors that release music into the DJ community through the record pool’s networks. Many have also adapted to the modern/digital age and post regular content providing the DJ community with DJ related news and advice on how to begin a DJ career. References DJing