#21 invasion of the podcasts

I'm going out of order because I am STILL on the desk (I really hate weekend shifts sometimes, they just seem interminable) and it's pretty hard to look at YouTube videos on the desk. Will have to come back to that one later.

You might think podcasts are pretty hard to listen to on the desk. You would be right. Fortunately, I have no intention of actually listening to any podcasts. Here's the thing: there are few things I find more annoying than just sitting and listening to somebody talk at me. It's tolerable if there's something else I'm doing, like the dishes or possibly walking or a jigsaw puzzle or something. But I utterly detest being lectured at, and I am extremely unlikely to actually listen to something on a voluntary basis. Even a podcast of one of my favourite authors reading excerpts from his new book—nope, would rather wait till it comes out in print and read it myself. Even really interesting radio programs, like those on All In The Mind, will not inspire me to listen—either on the radio or as the podcast. Fortunately, they do have transcripts of the shows on All In The Mind, so I have duly added it to my Bloglines so at least I can get the reminder (if I remember to login to Bloglines) that there's been another show. However, Bloglines won't let me open up the link to the page, for some weird reason, so it's pretty frustrating.

Anyway, I did have a look at the various podcast search engines. Was not impressed with Podcast.net, looks very amateur. I liked both Podcast Alley and Yahoo Podcasts, both seem a bit slicker and have more features. I like the way you can find out a bit more about the podcast within the search results. Yahoo is good the way it automatically shows you the difference between a series about, say, libraries vs particular episodes that are about libraries. And both give you a link to the original website, which Podcast.net doesn't. So yes, if I ever need to find podcasts on behalf of a user, I now know my tools of choice.

As for how it could be used in the library setting, well, searching for libraries provides the clue that some libraries already are. Uncontrolled Vocabulary covers library issues, various other libraries have started up regular podcasts covering everything from information literacy to what's on to introductions to Second Life. It's one of those things that is obviously more useful for and interesting to people who either like to get information in an aural way or people with sight disabilities. But I think it really takes someone who enjoys that kind of thing to see all the possibilities, so I will leave it for someone else to develop.