#21, podcasts

I've never taken the time to figure out what podcasts were, 'cause I'd assumed they dealt with iPods rather than with broadcasts. They make somewhat more sense, now that I know what they are! I have a slight problem with them myself, because I've fallen in to the habit of listening to NPR radio. I feel like if I didn't hear a broadcast when it came out, I'd be hearing yesterday's news. I inserted some podcast URLS into my Google Reader (which I've been lax about using), and discovered that is quite easy; you just pretend that it's a normal RSS feed, and boom, that's it. You can view the podcasts on the reader.

I didn't like the first directory for podcasts to which L&P directed me. It was too poorly organized, Google adds took over the top of the page, the bottom right part of the page, the top left part of the page, and more. Searches included Google adds rather than just showing you results, and the whole thing just turned me off. The second one was better. It was more organized, the searches actually returned what I expected to see, and the feel of it was just better, to me. I did not find; as I recall, my search returned 200 listings, most of which simply dealt with libraries in a single post rather than being about or by libraries. The couple that I looked at hadn't been updated in some time. That was rather disheartening. I think a library could utilize podcasts in a variety of ways. If a library organized book groups, that would be a good way to maintain connection and tell people about the books. If they were going through expansion or changes, podcasts could introduce the customers to those changes. Even just for day-to-day business, the library could use podcasts to keep customer up to speed on their libraries.

That's enough words on this topic.
See ya,
Brian