Thing 7: Podcasts

I heard about the Librarians Aloud podcast that was starting up at an A&SL (Academic and Special Libraries) meeting. I think it might have actually been the AGM. I was at several of A&SL meetings last year because I was interning in the Teagasc Library and I was invited to attend by my supervisor.

Before the Librarians Aloud I had never listened to a Library podcast, but I have listened to several Anime and Sci-fi ones.

I think the Librarians Aloud project is a great idea, it expands the media platforms that librarians can get their views and opinions to be herd especially in today's society were there is more of a focus on new media over the traditional.

The Librarians Aloud is a monthly podcast hosted by Laura Mooney Ferris and run by the A&SL. I quite enjoyed the music in the casts if I do say so myself.

So far there have been three podcasts.
The first one had Jane Burns discussing her career path. Jane's interview was very inspiring. I particularly liked her descriptions on setting up the databases. I also liked how she had to measure the impact that the work of several voluntary organisations and took down the data in a notebook when visiting them instead f the laptop.

She also mentioned how the databases have to be designed for the user and not how the designer imagines that the data should be organised. There was a great fashion example between two types of shoes a peep hole shoe and a beak-a-boo hole shoe. The difference in the shoe designs were minimal for a normal person but the difference in design was of significance in the fashion industry and there was a need to distinguish between the two designs in the database.

Jane had a lot to talk about but she concluded with the need for older librarians to learn and gain new ideas and knowledge form the newly qualified librarians as well as the need for the newly qualified librarians to gain the wisdom and knowledge of the more experienced librarian. She also mentioned that a librarian is always interested in people and will need the skills to pick up clues that are not obvious.

The second one covered the a Zine Archive. A zine is a self-published and non commercial publications. They are essentially magazines but have a broad subject pool. I am most familiar with fan fiction and comic zines, in particular Japanese ones which are called "Doujinshi". Tom Mahar and Mick O'Dwyer were interviewed in this cast and were described as the "guardians of the Zine archive". I felt really bad for the couple who lost rare books during the floods in 2010.

The final one for the moment was an interview with Niamh O'Donavan and Stephanie Ronan on how Rudaí 23 was run and set up. They also talked about how they became Librarians. They talked about the difficulties to tech for working in public libraries. In particular the divide that was between what was taught in the course and the actual duties of a public librarian. For example singing nursery rhymes to toddlers and teaching basic computers.

I cannot ever see myself ever doing a podcast, but never say never, no one knows what is in the future. I never say myself ever going on Twitter in college and look at me now, I am Tweeting and liking it.

The Thing 7 post on Summertime blog has some interesting podcast suggestions.

Also here is a Library podcast I found in a Tweet.
Tweeted by NPD Ireland: Library Land Pod

Part 7: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks either create a podcast or listen to one and write a review.