Quest 12: Part Two - Podcasts

Today was my second day at SCLA in Columbia. I wanted to write about a fitting use of Podcasts on yesterday here at the conference. At the First General Session, SC State Library Director David Goble gave his introduction of the keynote speaker, Keith Michael Fiels (ALA Executive Director), via a podcast. He is actually in Washington, D.C. lobbying for more support for South Carolina libraries. This was a perfect example of how we can use this technology. Suppose you are going to miss an important meeting. You can make a podcast and have it aired at the meeting. What about using this to promote Library services at an Outreach endeavor? Or at a school to promote Summer Reading? I looked under the directory Podcast.net. The other day I tried to access a library-related podcast using Podcast Alley but I could never get it to play effectively. I was using a computer at the branch. Today, I am using my laptop and I decided to look for fiction-related stuff in Podcast.net. I found a cool site called Obsidian River Free Flowing Fiction in Podcast Form (http://del.icio.us/obsidianriver). It's place where authors submit their work and after a simple approval process their works are included in the directory and podcast. You can listen to a "live" telling of their short fiction piece. I listened to a story entitled "The Hitchhiker". It was a horror fiction story that had unique twist at the end. I have added this site to my bloglines account. I might even try and submit something to this site myself. Well, I think that I've officially finished this 2.0 course at the writing of this blog entry. It's been fun, interesting, and most of all beneficial to me in this library profession. I will continue to use many of these newly learned technologies as I know that practice makes perfect. Many of the steps that I started in this course, I need to review. The challenge now is to incorporate these technologies into my everyday online/computer habits so that they become a part of my daily process. Library 2.0 is here to stay. I participated in a concurrent session here at SCLA on today on Library 2.0 and learned how several South Carolina libraries are creating User-Centered versions of the 2.0 technology for their patrons. I certainly hope to do more with this in the near future. Yes! I have completed all 12 quests! "The race is not given to the swift nor to the strong, but he that endureth til the end shall be saved"