Could We Podcast...for Free?
I did a presentation today for the West Tennessee TLA Staff Development Workshop. One of the topics I spoke about was podcasting. What is podcasting, you might ask? Podcasting is placing audio onto the Web so that people can listen to it either on their computer or on a portable media player.
Some libraries are creating podcasts that describe what is going on during the next week or so. Others use it to create book reviews (like an audio Memphis Reads blog). Other libraries allow some of their teen customers to "host a radio show".
While investigating podcasting for this conference, I discovered a way to do podcasting absolutely free. First, you have to download Audacity, a free audio recorder. You use this to record and convert your recording into an mp3 file.
Then, you can register for Gcast, a website that will convert mp3 files into podcasts. They will host the audio and also provide you with a player that can be embedded onto another website. See how you can embed the player into a blog post!
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So, do you have any ideas for how MPLIC can use this sort of tool?
2 comments:
We'll be missing a bet if we don't show the kids at Teen Tech Camp how to do this. Plus, it looks like a great way to get some of our original WYPL programming some extra "air" time. I wonder if we could use it when we have speakers in- to get their presentation out ot a larger audience. Or how about training? Or maybe even storytimes? That would be a hoot!
I have seen other libraries doing storytimes via podcasts.
I have discovered a limitation. A half-hour recording that I tried to upload cut off after 16 minutes.
However, if we were really interested in offering this service, there are other products that come with a price tag.
In the meantime, I would like to experiment and do something with this. I was really blown away by the teen-hosted shows. And everyone in the conference started oohing and ahhing and writing furiously at that point as well.
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