Podcasting

I agree with Beth, when she says that podcasting is a more personal, yet high tech way to reach an audience. I like hearing a voice it makes the person on the other end seem much more human and anyone who has listened to a lot of podcasts knows they can be all to human. Along with great content you get the added benefit of slips of the tongue, congested casters and even the occasional sneeze into the mic. You would think that with all these faux pas it would detract from content put it usually doesn't. If the person doing the podcast knows what it is they are talking about they can be a great way to broaden your knowledge base on a topic with minimal investment of time.

For years I have subscribed to This Week in Tech, a tremendously geeky podcast about the latest in the world of computers and technology in general. The guys know there stuff, even if they did at one point say that there was no way on God's green Earth that Google would buy YouTube. Even experts can't be right all the time.

The other podcast I subscribed to was Uncontrolled Vocabulary which comes highly recommended. As many of you know I am still new to library land and the more perspective in the library world I can get the better. I will also being checking out other library podcasts but I have not committed to any others at the moment.

The one thing that I have found with podcasting is that if you have a bunch of feeds coming in (I had ten coming into ITunes at one point), the less likely you were to keep up with any of them. Unlike blogs the podcast files can add up to substantial amounts of used space on your computer. At one point I had several Gigs of podcasts that I had no hope of catching up with. This is even worse for Vodcasting (video podcasting).

"Jott" yourself a note to "Remember the Milk"

On the whole it is interesting to see what the small applications designers and open source community can come up with. It seems like if the is a niche to fill out there than someone will develop you an app to fill it. Soon we will have site where you can submit requests for custom apps that can be developed for you on demand, of course there are ways to do this now but I am talking about doing it for a reasonable price.

On to the topic though. Remember the Milk is a handy tool to the freeware folks out there that do not want to plop down the cash to get an integrated tool like Outlook or Lotus Notes. It does have some benefits over these programs in that it is much more portable. You can access it from any computer (or phone) if internet access. It also has some features that make it handy for group use. Of course there is the most important part it’s free. That is important in a world where we really in public funding to purchase our materials.

Jott I had less use for. Its neat, and my hats off to anyone that can get a voice recognition app to work at all – and this one is free. Would it work for dictation, I have not tried but I am guessing no. Would I use it to send myself messages and notes – I doubt it, even though I certainly could use the reminders some times. For those that see it as the niche tool they need, great more power to you, but it is not for everyone.

MySpace - Do it or Don't

As someone who dabbles in web design I will say right off the bat that I am probably biased in my opinions regarding social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Facebook has by far the better presentation though it seems to lack any great tools for individualizing your presence.

MySpace has been considered web design on training wheels since its inception and they have done little to change that. The templates are garish. The layout though somewhat customizable is not very user friendly. Frankly most Myspace pages look amateur at best and probably send a negative impression of your institution at worst.

That said there are some that are not horrible. The Denver Public Library (which is nationally renowned for their embrace of all things techy) does a decent job with their MySpace page. While I do not want to go picking at other libraries there are a couple in the list that are awful.

The Facebook and MySpace pages do create another platform to get the library “out there,” wherever that is. Some of the pages linked to their catalogs which is good. Some had links to online reference systems – great. Others focused on news and events.

I think one of the most important things here is that you look before you leap. If you like the technology and think that it can be good for your library that is great. But you have to stick with it or get rid of it. I think the worst thing you can do is let the site get out of date so that your current events covers last years Summer Reading program. This can be said for all Web 2.0 initiatives. Decide if you need it. A lot appropriate resource to doing it, even when it is free it still needs dedicated resources. Finally stick with it and evaluate its usefulness.