Thing 21 - Podcasts

Hmmm.... I'm not a big fan of podcasts. I prefer reading. It's much more effective and efficient. Yep, I'm one of those library patrons who cannot listen to audiobooks.

I tried using all three of the podcast directories. I found the Yahoo directory the most user-friendly. It had better descriptions of the podcasts and a Fiction Connection-like map of popular tags. Even though podcasting is not my preferred style of information gathering, I still managed to subscribe to a number of podcasts using all three directories. (he! he! - I'm like kid in a candy store.) In my Bloglines account, you'll see that I subscribed to the Z100 Morning Zoo's Phone Scams, NPR's Book Reviews, NBC4's News Updates, Vegan News and Disney Insider Updates. Other than NPR's podcast, I didn't find many interesting book related podcasts. Many of them were about Sci-Fi or Comic books. Moreover, several of the podcasts had not been updated for quite a while, a year or longer in some cases.

I do think podcasts could be very helpful in certain situations even for us individuals who prefer visual learning. For example, Doug could offer a monthly State of the Library address. Even though information is efficiently disseminated to all the branches, it would be neat to have a podcast from our President of Library Services.