Week 9 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

Podcasts make shows personal and on demand which is a big improvement over broadcasting. Most podcasts are available free. There are 3 reasons why podcasts are so popular, 1 anyone can do it, 2 Subscriptions to podcasts with a tool called a pod catcher make easy to get new podcast sent from any website when they are updated with a new podcast, 3 Gadgets allow you to not only download podcast to PCs but devices like laptops and Ipods which you can take with you and view the podcast anywhere anytime. So podcasts are more convenient as you can download them anytime and automatically as well as allowing flexible delivery while doing other things such as travelling to work.

It was interesting to see OCLS promoting their coming events in the library such as author talks. It would be great if we could do the same thing. This would give us a great way to information about our events to our patrons especially if they could subscribe to our podcast. On the OCLS site I was able to listen to the MP3 & WMA podcast but our computers which are running Windows XP Pro and are about 6 months old and our version 9 of Windows Media Player will not play MP4 files a present.

It was interesting to hear the LibVibe library news and interesting to see the wonderfully clear layout where you are given the length of the podcast and an outline of the story.

It was interesting to hear the British Library interviewing the compiler of a CD on famous British and American authors. They also use podcasts for interviews of authors, film makers and to promote the library especially the exhibitions. The ABC has used podcasts to make available some great stories including: Radio National News, Interviews often done as part of the different show they have on the ABC Radio and some music collections.

After listening to some podcast from the Library Success wiki I think podcast could be used in our libraries for any personality interviews, Author talks, celebrity story-times as well as our staff story-times and as a promotional tool to show potential clients the facilities we offer. I feel this would help us target computer users that may not normally think about using the local library’s range of services. Promotion could be done for coming events and programs that the library is offering like the Summer Reading Program.

Week 6 - NSW Public Libraries Web 2.0

The “Welcome to the Williams College Library Mystery Tour 2006” ... This was a great promotional video which included testimonies from students who have been helped by reference librarians. The video can be viewed at http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=i-t0LHnw-fc

Having Author talks to be viewed at Google Videos as Mosman Library have done seems a great idea. We have had some fantastic authors visit like James Morrison, Di Morrissey plus loads of others. One scene which would have been great captured on video would have been when we had the Wolverines riding their Haley Davison bikes into our library to give a storytime to kids. They did a fantastic job. It was a real spectical.

A guided tour on video would be a wonderful alternate way to show and promote all the great facilities that our library has to offer even the databases we offer access to over the web. It would be best to have some young people tell their story of why they like and use the library. Using a YouTube video for this would be a wonderful way to target a younger audience to help entice them to come into the library and use remote library tools like our website.

Other video uses could include giving a sneak peak to the latest gallery exhibition which is housed just upstairs from our library. I like the idea of having oral history videos especially if you can find some great old characters who can spin a good story of historical events.