catch up notes

week 7 - Technorati search for bookmobile resulted in 527 answers. A search in advanced for all the words had 293 responses, 323 answers for at least one of the words and exact phrase had 689. A search for nswpln2008 returned 1 answer initially over a week ago but 8 blogs tonight. There are more than 22 pages of photos from the search.

week 9 - podcasts was a very interesting topic. I have been listening to podcasts for ages through a couple of yahoo groups I belong to but hadn't really explored the wealth of other things available. I listened to a lecture from Stanford university on Hannibal the early years (will return and listen to the other parts of the lecture). This lecture must have been recorded in mono sound as it only came through one side of my headphones while all the other things I listened to were in stereo. I had only html script or something on some of the links which probably meant that I didn't have the correct program to open it. I had better luck at home as Itunes is installed on it but not at work. The library wiki had so much on it. There were online catalogues, local author interviews, staff training, broadcasts for booklovers groups and such things as poet Sandra Beauchamp reading and discussing her poetry. Ohio University had numerous podcasts (52x1 minute episodes) on all aspects of their services such as hours of opening, how many volumes etc. The British Library podcasts were initially hard to figure out. Most of the initial podcasts used windows media but Itunes came into play with the British Library and I had never used it before. I only had it installed because my sons use my computer when they are home. After a few false starts I worked some things out and listened to a fascinating recording of Graham Greene discussing books based on his films. I listened to some of a podcast on Birds of Madagascar which had a sample of sounds and a review of the recording which was available through the library. I also listened to one lecture (48 minutes) on old English poetry - fascinating. There are about 10 other lectures by this professor available and I will eventually catch up with them all as well as some other ones that I saw on the lists that looked good. I think I may be too scared to do a search via yahoo podcasts !! (As if I need to spend even more time on the computer than I do now lol).
I can see numerous applications for using podcasts in the library (staff meetings where everyone can hear exactly what has been discussed, training sessions, book reviews etc) but I think that I would like to hold podcast search sessions for customers so that they can be introduced to this wonderful resource. Listening to an author discuss their own book in their own words (like Graham Greene) is an experience not to be missed. I think that it would be an excellent idea for the local/family history group who work in conjunction with our local library to explore the idea of recording senior citizens and podcasting their stories for everyone to hear. (oral history has not been much utilised in our local area and we are losing too many of our older residents whose stories are untold)