Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Thing #21: Podcasts

It's pretty cool what some libraries are doing with Podcasts. I see the Denver Public Library has story times available for download as does the Westerville, OH Public Library. Other places are putting up book talks and book discussions for users to hear. Still others are geared toward library professionals and address a multitude of topics from "Academic Libraries in Second Life" to "sustaining rural libraries". I like the outreach ability of podcasts. Folks who aren't able to make it to story times can listen with their child at home... maybe not as fun as going to the library to see the story time, but I still think it's important to have these programs available to people. And this is what I really like about Library 2.0: people being able to access a wide array of information in various formats (in this case, a Podcast). Maybe there's a topic you are interested in and there was a program relating to that topic in some library half-way across the country that was posted for the public to hear on the Internet. You get to benefit from that program even though it was presented nowhere near your local public library. The barrier of geography drops away and resources from the Denver Public Library and the Anchorage, Alaska public library are now within reach. How long until podcasts include visuals too... I guess that's kind of what YouTube is for, but I do see exciting possibilities for libraries in recording and archiving videos of programs for people to watch.

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