Podcasts (#21)

I went about this one in a roundabout way, because I had some trouble with it. First, I looked at the three podcast directories suggested in the exercise, but I had trouble finding anything that interested me, either about libraries or anything else. The descriptions of each podcast didn't sound very inviting: "Mike and Carol talk about libraries." Well, who are Mike and Carol and why should I want to listen to them? I chose a few lackluster possibilities just so I could complete the exercise, but then I discovered I did have to download something to listen. I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong, but I couldn't figure out how to listen without getting software. I remembered hearing that podcasts of NPR shows were available in itunes, so I decided to search itunes for library stuff because at least NPR is a known name. The podcasts listed on podcast.net, podcastalley, and yahoo audio were all of the nature discussed above. They seemed to be made by random people which is perhaps democratic and interesting to some, but not to me. On itunes, I found LibVibe which are short podcasts about headline library news. I listened to a seven minute podcast and the news was all bad, but at least it was short and sweet and interesting. The top news stories were about cronyism at Boston Public Library, racial profiling at the Yale University Social Sciences Library, and how rioting in a Paris suburb resulted in a library being torched to the ground, reducing their new DVD and CD collection to ashes. Ah, just another day in the library world. I did add the RSS feed to my bloglines account, so I'll be hearing a lot more library news (some good stuff I hope) in the future.