PLA Blog

Attending PLA 2008? Not heading to Minneapolis, but attending via the Virtual Conference? Consider leaving a message for the good folks at LISten to be included in the LISNews podcast:

For those attending PLA 2008 National Conference, steps have been taken to allow conference participants to contribute reflections for consideration by LISTen. To leave your thoughts just call 646-495-9201 and enter the extension 12761. It would help immensely with such if you identified who you are and what library/vendor/agency/entity you work for as we will discard any anonymous messages. As long as we actually get some reflections left at that voicemail box, LISTen will try to air a montage of the best in the episode directly following the conference.

The telephone number above is a temporary one and will disappear at 5:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time on March 29th. Voicemails will be accepted all throughout the conference.

[Stephen Kellat of LISten via LISNews]

I’ve never recorded a session for podcast and *not* sat in on the same session (my post of the session I attended is forthcoming), so this is something new. Many thanks to Melissa Faubel Johnson for minding the digital recorder!

The description for the session, which was presented Saturday, June 23, was as follows:

Audiobooks are a growing portion of library collections. Here is an event to celebrate and learn about the creation of quality audiobook products from the perspective of authors, narrators and producers who build the blocks that create great listening experiences. This program will focus on audiobooks for young adults and children and is cosponsored by ALSC and YALSA.

Many thanks to ALSC for working with us to record and podcast the session!

Here’s the list of when each speaker begins in the recording, and a little tidbit about each speaker’s segment. It sounds like it was a very interesting and entertaining recording, and I’m sad I missed it (even though I wouldn’t have normally attended this session in the first place), so I’m glad we have the podcast to share with all of you.

Intro: Mary Burkey, Moderator, Odyssey Award Committee Chair, introduces the session, and talks a little about the Odyssey Award, a collaboration between ALSC and YALSA.

5:37: Bruce Coville, Author, Full Cast Audio:

16:03: Judy Blume, Author, Books on Tape/Listening Library - very humorous presentation with bits about reading her books to audio. Her advice to writers is to read aloud!

31:00: John Green, Author, Brilliance Audiobooks - Creator/contributor to the videoblog Brotherhood 2.0 who has worked for NPR, includes bits on the relationship between text and audio.

47:00: Jack Gantos, Author, Books on Tape/Listening Library - Oh my word, he’s funny. Jack tells the story of how a reading of his book that was like “Miracle Whip on white bread” led him to read his own books for audio.

58:40: Question and Answer
Really interesting stuff about sending books to audio before print, behind the scenes at an audiobook recording from an author’s perspective, Fisher Price mp3 players, enhanced audio book CDs, and the fabulous emotion in audiobooks. Unfortunately, the recording stops short of the conclusionary comments, but we still got a good bit of it, and it’s still a good listen.

 

 Standard Podcast [79:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (301)

On Friday, March 2, 2007, about 55 people delayed the consumption of a well-earned dinner after a long day of learnin’ to attend my presentation on wikis and the PLWiki project. You can listen to the podcast of that presentation, attached to this post. You can also download the Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file of the presentation, “The Wikipedia of Public Libraries: A quickie wiki primer, the PLWiki Project, and You,” and follow along (requires Adobe Reader).

At the presentation, I promised I would post a link to the original post, A wiki for public libraries: your feedback requested (posted 1/29/2007), which includes the original idea for the project and links to wikis librarians should know about, plus the 4 big questions we have for everyone:

• As a public librarian, a graduate student, a patron, an administrator, a friend of the library, or even just an onlooker, seeking information specifically about public libraries and librarians, what would you be looking for in an encyclopedia/almanac/pathfinder/ of public librarianship?
• What kind of information about public libraries and librarianship would you seek that you can’t readily get your hands on right now?
• What about Wikipedia, which is powered by the MediaWiki software, do you like or dislike? Is it easy or hard to use? What do you think would be better?
• What about Wikipedia, as an editable encyclopedia where you can search, navigate, and edit content, do you like or dislike? We’re looking for comments on the layout and usability, and not a discussion of judgments about Wikipedia itself.

We still need your feedback! Please feel free to post your answers (and anything else you want to share about the project) as a comment on this post, or email us with your thoughts. We’ll keep you posted as the project progresses!

 

 Standard Podcast [55:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (393)

Many thanks to Po Bronson for giving us the permission to podcast his presentation at the 2007 PLA Spring Symposium Author Luncheon!

After a brief introduction from PLA president Susan Hildreth. The author of What Should I Do With My Life? and Why Do I Love These People? spoke about recent research in child learning and self esteem (you can read more about it in his New York Times article and on his blog) and how it pertains to librarians, inspirational stories from his childhood and his travels, his family’s 45 books per month library habit, and so much more.

Have a listen, and feel free to add your feedback about the presentation by posting a comment here.

 

 PLA Blog: Po Bronson, 2007 Spring Symposium Author Luncheon [56:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (205)

I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Mary Baykan, director of Maryland’s Washington County Free Library, executive director of the Western Maryland Public Libraries, and Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year for 2007, present the keynote session for the symposium, which Mary graciously gave us permission to record and podcast for your listening pleasure.

After an entertaining introduction by PLA president and California State Librarian Susan Hildreth, she spoke about how she found out she was librarian of the year, her experiences as the originator of the feat of advocacy now known as the Maryland Poll which measured the importance of libraries to Maryland residents, fun with legislative lobbying, about how librarians choose “to fight the bull” everyday, and so much more. She was entertaining, engaging, and very, very funny, definitely worth a listen!

While there are some interesting tidbits about upcoming PLA developments in the opening remarks, if you want to skip straight to the keynote, Mary is introduced around 10mins29secs.

The Urban Libraries Council report that Mary mentions towards the end of her remarks, Making Cities Stronger: Public Library Contributions to Local Economic Development, is available for free online (.pdf, requires Adobe Acrobat to view).

Many thanks to Susan Hildreth for the awesome PLA Blog plug at the very end, and for the recognition of the work of our peeps and volunteers as well as our contribution to what she calls “PLA 2.0.”

 

 PLA Blog: Mary Baykan, 2007 Spring Symposium keynote [48:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (236)

The evening of Saturday, January 20 was a typical party-hopping affair. First I hit the NMRT social at the Elephant and Castle in the Red Lion Hotel, organized by one of our own conference bloggers Heidi Dolamore, and somehow found myself in the company of many, many ALA Councilors amidst the new members, some of whom happen to be old friends, some became new friends.

Since many of us were also bloggers, we headed off to the OCLC Blogger Salon at the Sheraton, which was a bit tight and warm, but offered lovely snacks and time with old friends. I wasn’t there long (definitely long enough to end up in, and “at fault for,” an interesting photo with an extra long tag dedicated to me :D), before I was off to the ALA New Councilor’s Reception in one of the fancy, large rooms.

There amidst the lovely deserts and ever plenitudinous Starbucks and Tazo bevies, I mingled with new and experienced councilors alike, and met Joseph Eagan, who works for the Montgomery County Public Libraries, and also serves as Chair of the Council Orientation Committee and the Maryland Chapter Councilor. Ever the intrepid social butterfly with a digital voice recorder and headphones at the ready, I was able to conduct a quick interview about what it takes to orient new councilors, how aspiring councilors can get involved, the focus of upcoming work, and his excitement about new, young councilors being added to the mix.

Thank you, Joe, for taking the time to speak with me!

And to hear more about the ALA experience first-hand from a new council member, check out Heidi’s post.

 

 PLA Blog: Impromptu Interview with Joseph Eagan [10:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (699)

I had the opportunity to conduct a delightful, insightful, and entertaining interview this afternoon with David Pogue, New York Times columnist and blogger, Emmy-winning CBS news correspondent, and author of Windows Vista: The Missing Manual. My many thanks to David for taking the time to speak with me, and to his publicist Sara Peyton with O’Reilly Media for helping to arrange for the interview.

This was, hands down, the most interesting, humorous, and problem-laden interview I’ve done thus far, party funny ha-ha, part funny uh-oh. At first, it seemed that technology was conspiring against us. The battery in the digital voice recorder, that was fine earlier, was now dead. The microphone, that worked when tested, wouldn’t budge. Can’t do an interview without recording, right? But that’s OK, we can totally figure it out alright!

And then even further hilarity ensued, resulting in David’s funny jab at the interview as the “podcast from hell,” even though fun was had by all. ;D

Not to be thwarted by cranky technology, we tried recording directly through my laptop, but I think I’m still missing a few drivers (I’m rebuilding my computer from factory defaults, long, *painful* story), and the mic was still unhappy, so that didn’t work well.

David, one of the most patient and cooperative interviewees ever, offers up his Mac, which can run both Windows Vista Ultimate and Mac OS X (separately, not at the same time), for our recording needs. He tried Windows Vista, but the mic wouldn’t work, so he tried his mic, and that wouldn’t work either. Then he tried the Mac OS, and neither mic would work, so we ended up talking directly into the built-in mic just above the screen. Talk about cooperative, creative problem solving!

Near the beginning and middle of the interview, you will notice a very strange sound in the background. This was the world taking a turn at trying to thwart us with the sound of baloons being inflated with helium, making it sound like David has some sort of breathing problems.

At around 3pm, ended the interview with just in time for David to get to the Hilton for his presentation, and for me to post the podcast before hitting his session about 4pm. However, when I went to upload the file and post, it appeared that the site was down (we know now it wasn’t, and are trying to resolve the issue). My many apologies to Sara and David for the delay in posting, and for missing the 4pm session, I was so looking forward to it!

However, in the end, we triumphed over adversity. Enjoy this podcast, chock-full of information about the positive and negative aspects of Windows Vista, a small bit on the new iPhone, and so much more. Thank you again to Kathleen Hughes and Sara Peyton, as well as to the wonderul and funny David Pogue for such a good time!

 

 PLA Blog: Interview with David Pogue [21:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (944)

This month’s podcast highlight is produced by Mark Blevis, whom I met at Podcamp Boston back in September, and his wife Andrea, called Just One More Book. Every week, Mark and Andrea go to a local coffee shop and talk about children’s books they and their daughter love. The podcast also includes interviews, comments from littler readers, and more. Hear it the way they tell it by listening to the attached promo: click on the play button (if you’re here on the PLA Blog site), or open the attachment/link (see the help instructions for your news aggregator).

This podcast would be great for children and youth librarians who are looking for off the beaten path books to recommend, and feedback from young readers about what they did and didn’t like. And, it’s a great podcast to recommend to parents who are always on the lookout for books to read to their kids.

Podcasting still a blur to you? Watch the archives of the SirsiDynix Institute webinar on Podcasting (Part 1 - A Consumer’s Guide and Part 2 - A Creator’s Guide) by Greg Schwartz of the Louisville Free Public Library. Also, check out a great FAQ on podcasting developed by the Kankakee Public Library in Illinois. The link takes you to the archive of the library podcasts — which are very interesting and worth a listen — and the link to the FAQ is at the top of the page.

Does your library do a podcast that you’re particularly proud of? Have you seen a podcast in your listening travels that might be useful to librarians and/or patrons? Send us an email and let us know.

 

 Just One More Book promo [1:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (128)

Podcasts are a valuable source of information. Like most other information resources on the web, we suss out the best, most useful and authoritative resources, and present them to our patrons to help them find the information they want and need. In an effort to highlight podcasts that might be useful to librarians and patrons, I’ll be posting links to podcasts from time to time. If you have any recommendations for podcasts to highlight, please feel free to send an email and let me know.

Today’s highlight is the Butterball TurkeyTalk Podcast. In the past, Butterball has offered a hotline as well as online resources to help people out with their big bird roasting issues. To help people get a jump start on planning, Butterball has started a weekly podcast (6 episodes total) to help with Thanksgiving and December holiday planning.

Each episode will give you a quick, step-by-step lesson on essential turkey and holiday planning tips with the Butterball 5-Minute Lesson. This week, Mary begins with party prep ideas and tips for getting “holiday ready.” Then Sherleen walks you through the basics for cooking the perfect turkey.

This is a great podcast to add to your weekly library newsletter, talk up word-of-mouth to your patrons, add as a flyer to your display of Thanksgiving cookbooks and cooking magazines, or somehow otherwise highlight. The real URL is long and cumbersome, so feel free to use this TinyURL instead, which will point to the real page: http://tinyurl.com/jgynk.

As with most other podcasts, you can either click on the link to the episode and listen to the sound file on your computer, or you can subscribe to the feed to receive the podcast through a news aggregator or podcatcher.

This afternoon, as I was walking through the conference center with Kathleen Hughes, I saw out of the corner of my eye a flutter of yellow balloons. Outside near the shuttle buses, a the McGuire family, Bob, Meg, Miles (the 8-year old Marketing Mastermind for the stand), and Callan (a.k.a Cal, the 7-year old Idea Man behind the brilliant idea) had set up a lemonade stand with the express mission of raising money for their library, the Smith Library in Lakeview, part of the New Orleans Public Library system. I had the pleasure of interviewing them for the very first podcast here on the PLA Blog.

Have a listen (the MP3 clip is just over 9 minutes long)! You can check out more pictures of their awesome operation here.

By all reports, the family will be back tomorrow, stationed right near the shuttle buses here at the Morial Conference Center. Stop by, have some fabulous lemonade (made with real lemons!), and experience the wonder of an action plan that came to be literally *overnight*. Since they are interested in making this a nation-wide grass-roots effort, we’ll be posting contact information for them as soon as we get it.

This is our first experimental foray into podcasting here at the PLA Blog. Let us know what you think!

 

 PLA Blog podcast - Lemonade for Libraries [9:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (101)