PLA Blog

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 (1154)

So you may notice that the blog has been conspicuously empty today. That’s because all of us here at the conference thought the server was down because we couldn’t access it. Turns out, it seems like the conference center firewall is blocking all sorts of LISHost stuff (I’m using hotel wifi at the Westin Seattle)”, which is decidedly not good. I’ll inquire about it with ALA staff tomorrow, but in the meantime, we apologize for the “radio silence,” and will return you to your regularly-scheduled crazy conference readings until it’s all better again.

I wish I had posted this last week, but in any case, this free webcast on screencasting (creating digital presentations that record your actions as you use a computer, with or without a voice over) is happening today from 8-9am PST (11-12am EST). If you don’t catch it the first time around, SirsiDynix will be adding it to their archive, along with a whole slew of interesting, free, archives of previous webcasts on everything from podcasting to teaching client (patron) relations, to name just a few.

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.

The Public Library Association’s awards and honors are designed to highlight the best in public library service. Nominate your library or a colleague for a PLA award through PLA’s new online awards application.

The deadline for applications is December 1, 2006. All applications must be submitted online prior to the deadline in order to be considered.

PLA Achievement Awards:

• Advancement of Literacy Award to a publisher, bookseller, hardware and/or software dealer, foundation, or similar group for a significant contribution to the advancement of literacy. Sponsored by Library Journal

• Allie Beth Martin Award of $3,000 to a public librarian who has extraordinary range and depth of knowledge about books/library materials and the distinguished ability to share that knowledge. Sponsored by Baker & Taylor

• Charlie Robinson Award of $1,000 to a public library director who, over a period of seven years, was a risk-taker, innovator, and/or change agent in a public library. Sponsored by Baker & Taylor

• EBSCO Excellence in Small and/or Rural Public Library Service Award of $1,000 to a public library serving a population of 10,000 or less that demonstrates excellence of service to its community as exemplified by an overall service program or a special program of significant accomplishment. Sponsored by EBSCO Information Services

• Highsmith Library Innovation Award of $2,000 to a public library for achievement in planning and implementing a creative community service program. Sponsored by Highsmith, Inc.

New this year from PLA:

• Gordon M. Conable Award of $1,500 to a public library staff member, library trustee, or public library that has demonstrated a commitment to intellectual freedom and the Library Bill of Rights. Sponsored by LSSI

PLA Grant Opportunities:

• Baker & Taylor Entertainment Audio Music/Video Product Award Grant of $2,500 in audio/music-video products for a proposal that outlines the purpose, benefits, and plan for initiating or expanding a circulating audio music/video collection. Sponsored by Baker & Taylor

• Demco New Leaders Travel Grant of up to $1,500 each, not to exceed $5,000, to PLA members who are new to the profession and who have not attended a major PLA continuing-education event in the last 5 years. Sponsored by Demco, Inc.

• “Grow Your Own” Institutional Scholarship of $8,000 to a public library for reimbursement of employees’ course tuition costs at the undergraduate or graduate level. This PLA Pilot program is now in its second year.

Visit www.pla.org for applications and more information.

Remember – Deadline for applications is December 1, 2006!

Straight from Google’s media alerts:

WHO:Google Book Search

WHAT:Google Book Search Launches Scary Stories Site

WHERE:www.google.com/scarystories

WHEN: Starting October 25, 2006

WHY: What would Halloween be without a little trick-or-treating? This year, make exploring spooky classic tales part of your treat.

We’ve gathered some of the best scary classics you can find. This includes the familiar Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as more obscure tales like Thomas Hardy’s The Withered Arm or Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge. You’ll find 26 stories at google.com/scarystories.

Search the full text of the books to discover who famously uttered “nevermore,” why Van Helsing was forced to behead the “bloofer lady” and how Ichabod Crane met his untimely end in a tranquil glen called Sleepy Hollow.

Since we’ve digitized the full text of these stories and novels, you can search every word. But that’s not all, these books are part of the public domain in the U.S., so whenever you see a button, you’re free to download, save and print a PDF version to read at your own pace. And if you decide you want to buy a hard copy, “All editions” will show you multiple editions, many of which are available for purchase.

Please note that some of these books may not be in the public domain everywhere in the world. Where copyright status is in question, we do not enable Full View access or downloading.

We hope that Google Book Search helps you discover some great new authors — and maybe even sends a shiver or two down your spine.

For more information, please see today’s Google Blog post at http:/googleblog.blogspot.com or Google Book Search at http://booksearch.blogspot.com.

CONTACT:
Megan Lamb
703.926.5292

Just one more post about podcasting before I post the remainder of the Service Response posts for everyone to discuss.

While I didn’t end up podcasting from PodCamp Boston, I was interviewed at PodCamp: one of those interviews is already up at Dave LaMorte’s Teaching for the Future podcast, and another should be coming to me via email from Francesca Rheannon at the Writer’s Voice podcast, for me to podcast from the PLA Blog.

The podcasters at PodCamp were an awesome group of geeks, who really believe in working together and collaborating as much as possible. The podcasters I listed above, as well as many other podcasters I met and talked to, are eager to collaborate, and were intrigued and excited with the idea of working with libraries and librarians.

Much like the rise of blogs and Wikipedia and social networking, I see podcasts, vidcasts, video blogs (vlogs), and other examples of multimedia content hold a world of possibilities for libraries. I recently made a pitch to my boss at my library about adding a podcast to our weekly newsletter, which is published using Blogger and also distributed by email. Nothing to fancy, a 5-minute clip on the upcoming book groups, or tech tips, or how to access databases from home, and more. We can even partner podcasts with quick and easy tutorials composed as sets in the library’s Flickr account, to give patrons the option of audio and visual information access.

One thing that was emphasized by all of the podcasters is that you shouldn’t be hung up on hardware, gear, sound quality. While these are all important, they shouldn’t define whether or not you try podcasting. It can be as easy as hooking up a regular old computer mic to a computer, and using an easy recording application. No mixers or equalizers, just you, your voice, and what you want to share with the world.

Not ready to jump in whole-hog on making podcasts? There are other wasy to interact with the technology, and show your patrons you’re hip. Try adding podcasts to your pathfinders and subject portals. Create recommended lists of podcasts on different subjects (they cover everything from physics to knitting) and place them near your library computers, audio books, in your newsletters, and on your site. As with other web content, librarians can help evaluate and recommend multimedia content, while becoming more familiar with the technology. You can even get in touch with podcasters, to learn from and collaborate with them. I’m sure they’d dig it.
Anyone who didn’t go to the conference can not only listen to and watch content from the conference on the PodCamp Boston Recordings page. You can also see pictures on Flickr, check out posts on Technorati, and join the Google Group.
Do you have ideas for podcasts you’d like to hear from the PLA Blog? Add a comment to this post and let us know.

Christopher Penn, the madman behind the PodCamp unconference, speaks about marketing a podcast once you have it. The value of this presentation is not just in the marketing information for a podcast, but the importance of social networking to the future of marketing, especially viral marketing, and how libraries should definitely be thinking about reaching the web market at multiple age levels.

Here’s the quick and dirty on how to market your podcast:

• First things first, make sure to search optimize your site. Make sure your name, or at least a few keywords on your show, is in the <TITLE> tag, list your site with search engines that accept site registrations or in directories. Your site for your podcast needs to be as searchable, indexable, and search-relevant as possible, so that when anyone types in your
• Keep your content as close to you as possible, and offer direct links to your content are key. Try to avoid second-party feed hosts (Yahoo! Podcasts is apparently notorious for fouling up podcasts, losing episodes, etc.) Hosting your own content, then creating feeds to that content allows you to keep a handle on the content as well as get better statistics.
• Create as many access points to your content as possible by creating as many accounts on as many social networking sites as possible, from LiveJournal to MySpace to Xanga to Facebook to Second Life. Provide linkage back to your content and feed, as well as adding the coding for in-page players.
• Create calls to action in your text as well as in your audio. Make sure your content feed and player are “above the fold” on your page, imbed a player so that people can click and listen, allow options for email subscription and email a friend. Also, in the audio of your podcast, tell people how to download iTunes or your podcast player/aggregator of choice and subscribe.
• Make your listeners evangelists by making it easy to let them pass the viral word along about your podcast. You can record little promos that other podcasters can use in their broadcasts, you can do interviews with anyone who wants to talk to you.
• MySpace, MySpace, MySpace. Books and book groups are *huge* on MySpace right now. Creating a profile that mirrors a few important bits of your podcast site, add the web-based player to your page as well as iTunes and direct links to your feed, and add friends like crazy. It does require a bit of homework, spending time in Groups on MySpace to add as friends to push your content to, but it’s a huge marketing boon for podcasters.

While these tips are podcast advertising oriented, I’d say this is a good way for libraries to start thinking about advertising what the library can do for people, especially for people who wouldn’t normally think to use or visit the library.

This weekend, I’ll be reporting to you from PodCamp Boston a free unconference at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston.

Why is it called an unconference? While there is an official sponsor (Museum of Science in Boston) that paid for the location, the rest of the conference is man-made on the fly, as opposed to prefab and prescheduled, as you can see by visiting the wiki. The conference is free to all, and powered predominantly by donations (view the open ledger that tracks the expenses as well as the donations for the event, they made a fair bit from the kindness and interest of others). It’s an intereseting conference model, and in this case, if you build it, they will indeed come in droves.

If you’re still a bit sticky on the concept of wikis, check out “So You Want to Build a Wiki?” by Meredith Farkas. While the PodCamp wiki does go a bit beyond the basic community model to an organized chaos planning model (which, in my opinion, is fabulous and brave), this article will give you some basics.

Why PodCamp? I happen to live nearby, it’s free (although I plan on making a personal donation to the upcoming PodCamp 2, which hasn’t been scheduled yet), and podcasting has been hot as of late. It’s also nifty to attend a non-librarian conference and get the non-librarian view to share with other librarians, as insight to what our potential patrons are up to and thinking about. If you’re a librarian attending PodCamp, and let me know, since I’d love to meet up.

Will I be podcasting from PodCamp? I hope so. The PLA Blog had a successful toe in the podcasting water at ALA with the lemonade for libraries story, and we’d like to do more, especially at conferences. While I had PLA digital recording gear at my disposal in New Orleans, a podcast can be recorded straight to a laptop, so I’ll hopefully be able to record something of substance and interest. Otherwise, I’m walking into the conference like a total newbie with nothing but a laptop and a sense of adventure. I’m sure I’ll be able to hook something up with the help of my new podcasting friends.

I won’t be covering the basics of podcasting. Greg Schwartz did an excellent job of covering Podcasting 101 in his series of webinars, so you should definitely check them out as a place to start. I also recommend checking out Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Podcasting by George Colombo and Curtis Franklin as a great novice reference.

More later!