A brush for cleaning a magnetic head is attached to a brush arm. A first portion of the brush arm is rotatably attached to a threader arm for transporting a leading end of a magnetic tape from a cartridge to a machine reel. A second portion of the brush arm is slidably engaged with a cam groove in a predetermined pattern. The brush moves associated with movements of the threader arm, and comes into contact with the magnetic head only when the threader arm stays at a predetermined position.

A tape drive for use with magnetic tape includes a drive body and a cleaning member supported by the drive body. The tape drive also includes a tape guide moveably associated with the drive body, such that the tape guide is moveable between a tape-unloaded position and a tape-loaded position. When the tape guide moves between the tape-unloaded position and the tape-loaded position, the tape guide engages the cleaning member such that the cleaning member may remove debris from the tape guide.

A cassette library (1) is provided with a driving apparatus (13), cassette housing shelves (14, 15) and a cassette carrier (16). A library controller (2) simulates as if driving apparatuses (13) having continuous address numbers were apparently used in the host computer (3) even when physically discontinuous address numbers are allocated to the driving apparatus (13), thereby making it possible to set occupancy for a driving apparatus with an arbitrary address number. The library controller (2) has the cassette carrier (16) automatically carry, at a preset timing, a cleaning cassette from the cassette housing shelf (14, 15) to the driving apparatus (13) to clean a recording reproduction head of the driving apparatus (13) using the cleaning cassette which is then carried back to the housing section in the original cassette housing shelf (14, 15) after the cleaning work.

A tape drive apparatus enables cleaning of a read/write converter head when a tape cartridge is inserted or removed, without interfering with or moving the tape. The tape drive apparatus has a loading mechanism for transferring an inserted tape cartridge to a predetermined position in the apparatus, and a head cleaning unit that can move between a cleaning position in contact with the converter head and a withdrawn position isolated from the converter head. The head cleaning unit moves between the withdrawn position and the cleaning position in synchronization with the transfer operation of the loading mechanism, when there is not tape over the head. In this manner, the head cleaning operation does not interfere with or move the tape.

A threader assembly for a tape drive has a retractable, low profile head brush assembly that is articulated into and out of wiping contact with the tape head. The head brush assembly is integrated into the threader assembly such that the same components used to load and unload the media tape also articulate the head brush assembly. The head brush assembly includes a set of bristles that are mounted to a brush arm. The head brush assembly has a cleaning position for placing the bristles in contact with the tape head. When the head brush assembly is in the cleaning position, the tape head is cleaned through oscillation of the head via a coarse track following actuator. The head brush assembly also has a storage position wherein the entire head brush assembly is pivotally retracted away from the tape head without interfering with other components of the threader assembly.