The Synthetic Librarian

What is Podcasting?

Richardson (2009, p. 110) describes podcasting as the Internet equivalent of radio:

Podcasting is basically the creation and distribution of amateur radio, plain and simple. And it’s the distribution piece of this that’s important, because although we’ve been able to do digital audio for some time now, getting a lot of people to listen to it hasn’t been very easy. Now it is.”

But… he’s wrong about that first part. Podcasting is not radio.Internet Radio exists and is something different. Internet Radio is characterized by streaming audio. It is just like regular radio, but on the Internet: you tune into a “channel” and you hear audio and it just keeps coming until you change the channel.

On the other hand, Richardson’s (2009) comment about the important of distribution is correct. Unlike Internet Radio, podcasts are distributed in the same way we distribute blog posts: via RSS (or ATOM or XML). This means that a better definition of a podcast is a discoverable and subscribable audio or video file (This is explictily stated by Worlledge-Andrew, 2007, pp. 22-23 as well). Importantly, podcasts can be audio or video (other media filetypes are possible, but not currently usable by RSS podcast players).

Podcasting is like radio and television in that podcasting is broadcasting. However, its most important aspect is that podcasts are described media files. By describing media files in RSS, we gain something important: convenience. If we know the URL for the RSS feed for a podcast, we can tell a program like Miro, Juice, iTunes, or RSS aggregators like Google Reader or Bloglines to automatically download newly posted audio files for us whenver they are released. This might be made available to us by automatically loading them onto our MP3 players, or by making them playable with online media player (as is the case when Google Reader discovers a podcast file).

Importantly, podcasts are popular because of their convenience. Barsky & Lindstrom (2008, “Background and Introduction to Podcasting”) and Barnes (2007, p. 220) both attribute the popularity of podcasting to the availability of portable media players such as iPods. In addition to automating the downloading process, the availability of personal media players like MP3 players and PDAs that can play video, allow users to choose the time, place, and means with which they will experience a podcast.

Describing media files using XML also allows specialized search engines to discover podcasts, and index them, and make them searchable. The XML files that describe blogs and podcasts include metadata including the title, subject, and more. This means that podcasts are discoverable. Perhaps this is a little bit like old-fashioned radio: you could discover new channels by turning the dial on your radio.

It should be noted that podcasting is not necessarily the same as video or audio sharing. For example, video sharing sites focus on aggregating video content under a single site (e.g. youtube.com or revver.com). Users then explore, search, and discover content within that site. These sites typically, do provide the ability to subscribe to videos via RSS, however, there is an emphasis on sharing the videos by cutting-and-pasting HTML code to embed the playable videos in users blogs or sites in ways that are not technically “podcasting”. In short, one could podcast using a video sharing site (or an audio sharing site like Odeo) but sharing and podcasting should be seen as complimentary and not strictly the same thing.

How can Podcasts be used in Libraries?

The characteristics of podcasts imply many possibilities for use in libraries. Podcasts share the discovery and subscription features of blogs, the availability of portable media players make using these media convenient, but audio and video formats come with specific limitations (some of which I explored in a previous post on Video Sharing). These uses have been explored by many libraries and I will describe several examples below.

Promoting Services and Collections

A common purpose for which podcasts have been used is to promote library services and collections to new audiences or in a way that reaches the audience more effectively.

Jowitt (2008) reporst on how the University of College Learning (UCOL) in New Zealand usage podcasts to provide patrons with instruction on using feature of the library catalogue. UCOL used an open-source audio recording/editing program (Audicity) and existing equipment making the process cost-effective and reported that the product process was not labour intensive. The advocated the use of scripts to make the podcasts more effective.

UCOL solicited feedback from users regarding the podcasts and found that all the topics coverage were helpful, with some being more popular than others. Importantly, patrons reported that some topics were not well suited to audio-only podcasts and suggested the use of visuals to accompany the audio.

Similarily, Worlledge-Andrew (2007), reports using Audicity and existing equipment to produce a variety of podcasts to promote library services at Glasgow University Library (GUL) in the UK. GUL’s podcasts included various tours of library facilities and instructions on how to find and borrow books in the library. GUL patrons reported appreciating having text transcripts of podcasts that supplemented the audio because they allowed for better accessibility (they had one blind-deaf patron, p. 22). GUL podcasts included audio and video. When they solicited feedback from students, results were very positive (p. 24)

Barnes (2007) reports on how Mississippi State University (MSU) Libraries’ used a podcast to promote their government documents collection.

The University’s constituents require sufficient information to perform their regular activities, and a great deal of this information comes from governmental entities at both the national and international levels. In order to utilize the abundance of government information, the University community must be aware of its existence and also know how to find and access it (p. 220).

The MSU project was substantially expensive compared to the two previous examples involving the purchase of multiple Apple Macintosh computers, software, and microphones and other audio equipment and the support from central IT staff (Barnes, 2007, p. 221). The staff however, were given support from the highest levels and ample timelines to complete the project.

MSU staff produced multiple podcast episodes in varying lengths with extensive work on scripts: some were short with only announcements of the availability of content, others were longer with information on how to use collections.

A key limitation of the MSU project came in evaluation. They evaluated the project by how many “clicks” the podcast files received. Unforunately, this does not measure how many subscribers there really were and thus does not indicate how many people the podcasts reached. A better evaluation method might have been to survey users of the government documents collection to find out how they found out about it or to measure the increase of usage of the collection compared to the period preceeding the release of each podcast (i.e. that is, does podcast publication increase use of the resource being promoted).

Other Uses and Limitations

The use of podcasts for library tours seems to be popular in the LIS literature (Lee, 2006; Worlledge-Andrew, 2007). However, using the definition of podcast that I have provided above, these would not actually be podcasts but audio files. The inclination to call them podcasts seems to come from the association of iPods for use in walking tours as opposed to the discovery or subscription of content through RSS.

Outside of libraries themselves, podcasts have been successful in the profession of librarianship. For example, the Talking with Talis podcast is an outstanding an unique source of information for software developers and IT professionals working in libraries consisting of interviews with notable professionals in the industry. LibVibe was one of the earliest librarian podcasts, with weekly updates on news occuring in the library world. It covered a broad range of issues related to librarianship and libraries.

The potential for individual librarians to engage in discourse throughout their profession via audio and video broadcast seem particularly exciting to me. The kinds of podcasts I listen to and that seem to be popular are non-trivial but not particularly challenging content: opinion, news, and interviews that are both through-provoking and easy to listen to. Highly conceptual content, or content that introduces difficult new material doesn’t make for good podcasting. If I have to stop, go back, and listen again, then podcasting is the wrong format.

This highlights a fundamental limitation of audio and video. These formats are not easily scanable, not easily skimmable: they are linear. You experience them from start to finish. Thus, podcast producers need take into consideration the type of content they have to communicate and how it will be experienced in the podcast medium. The discoverable and subscribable nature of podcasts might mean your audience finds and easily uses your content, but can they understand it? Can they enjoy it?

Barsky & Lindstrom (2008) report that student “enthusiastically” accepted podcasted physics lectures made available by the University of British Columbia Library through their institutional repository. However, I wonder if this is because podcast is a superior medium for lecture, or if the freedom to listen when and where the students want is of significant value. I suspect the latter. Secker (2008) reported that at the University of London students wanted more podcasted lectures (also made available by the library), but also wanted “to attend face-
to-face classes for the interaction they provide.”

I would suggest that screencasts combining audio with diagrams, text, and/or video would provide the best alternative (this could be made available as video podcasts of course). However, audio or video recording a normal lecture and podcasting it may have extraordinary cost-effectiveness and still be useful!

Experience Creating a Podcast

To explore podcasting in practice, I created a 3 part audio recording to go along with my Hackers in the Library presentation from Netspeed 2008.

There are many technology options for recording audio. For example, one can attach a microphone to a computer and use a program to record the audio. One can record the audio using a tape recorder and then digitize the recording on a computer somehow. I already have several laptops with built-in microphones, but the quality they produce is not excellent. I have a headset microphone that plugs into computer that produces acceptable quality. Richardson (2008) outlines a number of ways to produce recordings: using Audacity and headset, using an iPod and external recording device, or using a laptop. I opted for a third option. I purchased a $99 handheld audio recorder that saves files in MP3 format and acts as a USB disk (i.e. a Sony ICD-UX70 MP3 IC Recorder). All you do is press record, talk, and when you are done, plug it into your computer. The device appears as a removable hard disk with the audio in MP3 files. This seems like an ideally simple solution.

I printed out my powerpoint slides, complete with notes, and rehearsed my podcast once. I did several brief audio tests and discovered that if I were to hold the recorder in my hand that it would pick up rustling sounds. Placing the recorder on a flat surface produced the best results. The audio quality was good. It took me roughly 15 minutes to test the device the first time.

I decided to record the audio in three segments, corresponding to the three separate parts of the presentation itself. I did this not because the presentation breaks up that way, but because I wanted to explore actual podcasting with multiple recordings described in RSS, and because I felt that it would be better for an audience to have the option of listening to 3 shorter pieces.

Recording went smoothly, with one “gonk” where someone walking in on my during recording, and recording had to be stopped, and repeated. The recording process was not much different from delivering the actual presentation, except that I took time to describe some of the slides for an audience that might be listening without visuals. I think the first part could be improved with more description and that the second two parts sounded more natural.

Richardson (2008, p. 117) states, “When you’ve finished the talking part of your podcast, you might want to do a little editing and production. Using Audacity, you can easily edit out all of the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’….” I did have some “ums” and some long pauses in my recording, so I decided to edit my podcast. I have some past experience using Audacity for editing and thought this would be as easy as Richardson (2008) makes it sound: it wasn’t. After 10 minutes I gave up, realizing that it would probably take several hours to edit the 45 minutes of audio that I had recorded.

The editing process takes time due to the nature of audio. You have to search for the precise spot where the part you want to cut starts and stops, this can be challenging and involves scaling in and out in the visual presentation of the audio. I’m sure that experienced audio editors have methods to make this easier and that I might discover those methods if I edited podcasts on a regular basis. However, I conclude that, for a casual user, editing just isn’t cost-effective.

In the end, my only edit was to eliminate an interruption that occurred during recording when someone walked in during recording. I cut out the person, and tried to make the transition as smooth as possible. The total time to do this one cut was about 10 minutes (acceptable given the outcome and seriousness of the audio “gonk”).

I also used an audio editing program, Roxio Sound Editor, to add descriptive MP3 tags. These tags are metadata that is embedded in the MP3 file that can be displayed by MP3 players, iPods, and media playing software. I tagged the recordings with a title, author name, track numbers, genre (i.e. “Lecture”), and year of publication.

To my ear, it sounds like some audio quality was lost after I edited the MP3 file to add the tags. The program I used imported the MP3 that I recorded, converted it to an internal format, and the exported it to MP3 format again. MP3 is a lossy audio compression format: that is you lose quality from the original. Multiple import/exports of an MP3 file can be bad. In the future, I would use a program designed to edit the MP3 tags without altering the audio content of the MP3 file.

From Audio Recording to Podcast

An audio recording is not a podcast. For it to be a podcast, it must be published in way that makes discovery and subscription possible (e.g. described with RSS). I decided to compare two different ways to publish this audio as a podcast. I published it to my own blog as three separate posts, and I published it using the University of Alberta’s eCast Podcasting Service.

WordPress as Podcast Platform

I use WordPress for my blog and, in theory, attaching an audio file is all that is required for WordPress to add it as an “enclosure” which makes it a podcast. Enclosure is the technical name given to the mechanism by which a blog post includes a reference to an audio file, making it discoverable as a “podcast”.

When I attempted to upload my first MP3 file, I received an error from WordPress that my file was over 2MB in size, and that I would have to edit my php.ini file to allow the upload of my file. Fortunately, this is something I both familiar and comfortable with (it’s also why I prefer to how my blog on my own server, so that I’m not limited by default settings like this).

I uploaded the files to the WordPress media library, and then created three posts, one for each Audio recording. In the post, I briefly described the podcast, and attached the media file. Uploading the MP3 files took a long time(i.e. greater than 10 minutes) because of their large size.

I verified that the “podcast” (i.e. RSS worked) by subscribing to my own blog in Miro, a podcast management program (like iTunes but open-source), and verifying that it detected the audio content. It worked!

As a final step, I downloaded and installed the Audio Player Plugin for WordPress and updated my podcast posts to include the player. This allows those people who visit my blog using a browser to play the MP3 files in their browser without having to download them (downloading is still possible via a link in each blog post).

The three podcast blog posts are available at http://syntheticlibrarian.com/2009/07/19/hackers-in-the-library-podcast-part-1, http://syntheticlibrarian.com/2009/07/19/hackers-in-the-library-podcast-part-2, and http://syntheticlibrarian.com/2009/07/19/hackers-in-the-library-podcast-part-3 and subscribable at the RSS feed of this blog.

The University of Alberta’s Podcasting Service

I became of the University of Alberta’s podcasting service several months ago and thought this would be a good time to try it out. It is available to staff and students alike: you just have to have a Campus Computing ID (CCID) to login with. It is unclear what features it offers or how it works, but the process seems easy. There are 5 steps: file upload, metadata creation, submission to producer, metadata suppression, and cleanup. I didn’t see a description of these steps and the last three seem… mysterious.

I began at the beginning by uploading an MP3 file I had recorded. It ask me what type of podcast it was (i.e. audio or video), and I have to provide a title and description.

After uploading an MP3 file, the final 4 steps happened automatically without any input needed from me. I guess that is why they don’t describe those steps. When I was done, it gave me the option to “Managed Existing Podcasts” or “Submit Another Episode”. I uploaded the remaining two episodes before “managing” them.

The “manage” step allows you to give a name to the podcast as a whole (that is the collection of all episodes uploaded) and to get the URL of the XML file that describes the podcasts. The XML file is needed if you want people to be able to subscribe the podcast. In this case the URL for my podcast feed is https://ecast.srv.ualberta.ca/Podcasts/mwm2/xml/10f8b5b3ca85e804ba60178637490713.xml.

I tested the podcast feed by adding it to Miro, my podcast player, and it worked! It automatically included an image of the eCast logo in the XML for my podcast. Unfortunately, I could find no way to change that. It would be nice to be able customize that with a logo or screenshot of my presentation. However, I do feel confident that I could recommend the eCast service to University of Alberta faculty, staff, and students: it is fairly easy to use.

Comparison of the Two Podcasting Platforms

I like the WordPress method better. I’m not sure what the advantage of using the eCast Podcasting Service would be. If I had no access to a WordPress blog, I think I would be very thankful for the eCast service though! The eCast service was easy to use but the lack of customization is tiny bit limiting.

Simple Recipes for Effective Podcasts

Based on my own experience (reported above) and the advice in the LIS literature (Barsky & Lindstrom, 2008; Jowitt, 2008; Ellero, Looney, & Ragon, 2007), I believe the following recipe represent a simple but cost-effective way to generate podcasts.

Use a handheld MP3 recorder. This eliminates the need to install and configure software and hardware on a computer. I found that a $99 handheld recorder was trivial to operate and produced excellent quality sound. It was recorded to MP3 format and the files are easy to transfer to my computer as it acted as a removable hard disk.

Minimize editing. Editing takes time, and the more time that is required to produce a podcast means the more likely it is that you will stop producing podcasts. If your podcasting project is successful there will time to learn editing skills later. The goal should be to produce a “good enough” podcast consistently and repeatedly and make improvements in the future as success allows.

Reherse. Unless your podcast is an interview, reherse the content to minimize the need for later editing. An hour of rehersal could save twice that much time in editing and produce a podcast that is more pleasant to listen to (rehersed content may flow better for the audience).

Publish it in many ways. Make the podcast available/playable in multiple ways. It’s not enough enough to support iTunes, as not everyone using an iPod. It’s not enough to make the RSS feed available for podcast players. Post each podcast episode on your blog and include an embedded audio player so that those people who don’t know or care what a podcast is can still use the audio files. Link to your blog posts anywhere where it is relevant to link to the content: promote the episodes the same way you would a blog post. This may build your viewership. In short, don’t assume that “if you build it they will come.”

What are these important elements in the recipe? Because they keep the overall amount time required to create an acceptable podcast low and the maximize it’s accessibility to your potential audience. While some libraries may receive substantial financial support and given ample time, as MSU was for the government documents podcasting project(Barnes, 2007) other may not be given that luxury. Jowitt (2008) specifically sites low-cost and simplicity as factors that make podcasting effective for libraries. Given that simple podcasting is possible, a simple recipe could put podcasting projects within the reach of most libraries, with or without budget, excessive time, or technical expertise. My own podcasting experiment took roughly an hour and half (not counting the time to purchase the handheld recorder and the time to sit around while the files uploaded to the server) and cost $99. This make me optimistic that podcasting is within everyone’s grasp… they just need the content and libraries, as hubs of information dissemination, should never been in short supply of content!

Putting it Perspective: It’s Broadcast

I will now back-peddle a little bit. I began this post by claiming that Richardson (2009) was (a little bit) wrong in claiming that podcasting is radio “plain and simple.” While people have the choice to listen to a podcast at the time and place of their choosing, they are all still listening to the same content: like radio, podcasts most defining characteristic is that it is broadcast. We must remember that people subscribe to podcasts, and once subscribed, we choose what content they will download. This has powerful implications for libraries. In the research I reviewed, libraries began their podcasting projects by choosing the content or services they wanted to promote, but they may have been better served by considering who their audience is instead. This is because implicit in any broadcast medium is the existence of an audience that can choose to tune in or tune out, but that once tuned in, will probably stay tuned in. This means that libraries may benefit by starting off considering who will listen to podcasts and asking what they will value and what they will want to listen to and finding a way to deliver it. As long as that audience finds the podcasts somewhat valueable, they will continue to listen and libraries can then deliver the content that the library finds important.

In the research I reviewed, the audience was consulted only after the fact, and while audience response was positive, little consideration was given to asking them how what else they listen to, how and when the listen, and what might make them continue to subscribe or stop subscribing. As a podcast user myself, I can attest to the fact that a person can only listen to so many podcasts in a week and competition is great. The content has to be of value and fit into my workflow and schedule.

Libraries, if they are to be successful podcasters, must think like broadcasters. This means consistently coming up with easy-to-listen-to but valuable content which will keep the audience from leaving. My advice above, is a recipe for achieving this but an incomplete one, it does not address what content might be acceptable. To determine that libraries will need to engage their audience and define them more specifically than “student” or “patron.” Content that the audience does not get elsewhere and that is entertaining, such as author talks or interviews would be key candidates. Promotion of services could piggyback this content in the same way that advertisements piggyback on radio. I believe, that while technically simple, this make podcasting one of the hardest Web 2.0 technologies for libraries to have success with (relative to others). In the end podcasting may be more like radio “plain and simple” than it is like Web 2.0.

References

Barnes, N. (2007). Using podcasts to promote government documents collections. Library Hi Tech, 25(2), 220-230.

Barsky, E., & Lindstrom, K. (2008). Podcasting the Sciences: A Practical Overview. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, (55).

Ellero, N., Looney, R., & Ragon, B. (2007). P.O.D. Principles — Producing, Organizing, and Distributing Podcasts in Health Sciences Libraries and Education. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 26(1 supp 1), 69. doi: 10.1300/J115v26S01_05.

Jowitt, A. L. (2008). Creating communities with podcasting. Computers in Libraries, 28(4), 14-15.

Lee, D. (2006), “IPod, you-pod, we-pod: podcasting and marketing library services”, Library Administration & Management, (accessed from Wilson Web database, 21 November 2006), Vol. 20 pp.206-8.

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. 2nd Ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press.

Secker, J. (2008). The adventures of LASSIE: Libraries, social software and distance learners. Serials, 21(2), 112-115.

Worlledge-Andrew, H. (2007). Podcasting – putting the library back at the centre of learning. SCONUL Focus, (40), 21-25.