Podcasts

I went to a Podcast meeting at SCLS about a year ago where Andrew Bollerman of Sachem showed everyone how to create their own podcasts. It was kind of cool and a neat idea. He said he did them with his teens and they posted them on the Library's website (at the time, I believe he was working at Hampton Bays).

As far as listening to podcasts goes, I'm not really interested. I find it boring to sit here at the computer and listen to someone talk. I did try looking at a few different types just to check it out though.

I looked at a cooking webcast where a woman from Good House Keeping showed you how to make different things. It was ok and I might go back to look at specific recipes, etc., but I didn't feel the need to subscribe to it in order to watch it every week. Before I found this one, there were also some creepy ones with weird people cooking.

Then I tried an audio cast of a walking tour of a London neighborhood to see how the travel podcast was. The idea of this one is to download it to your ipod, etc. then use it when you're in London or whatever other city they're covering. This is an interesting idea and probably would be useful because it's an insider's view of the city one is traveling to. Often, people only visit the main tourist areas and miss the lovely, local ambiance. Again, I'm not going to subscribe because just listening to it at my computer made me start to yawn. However, I might think about it if I'm traveling.

Lastly, I went to the Lindenhurt Library's site because I know their Director is big on podcasting. They have a section on the website where children's books have been read, author interviews have been done and where they're using podcasting as a way to document local historical narratives. They also have a section set up for music where you can listen to the school's jazz band, etc. All of these things are a nice idea, but again, thinking about sitting at my computer listening to these things for 15 minutes, half an hour, etc. puts me to sleep.

We're going to try a TAG here at the Library in September and I mentioned to Ms. Peter's who will be running it that maybe as part of the TAG the teens can do book talks or book commercials for their favorite titles or recent books they have read and we can put them on the teen page of the Library's website. I'm not sure if anyone will listen to them, but it will definitely give the kids something creative to do.