A conference is going on at the Dublin Business School today. By following the accounts of individuals in attendance one is exposed in real time to the salient points under discussion discussion. An hour or two ago the topics were collaboration, two way communication and the successful utilization of social media to appeal to users and creating consumable information.
If the twitter fairies are to be believed then Information Institutions must create quality palpable content which is accessible to as wide a range of users as possible. This is easier said than done. Quality information is very difficult to come by. Given the thousands of newspaper, articles, blogs, tweets etc. How is a user to know which is “good information”? Even as a trained Library and Information studies (LIS) student this is an issue I also struggle with daily. To give an example my undergraduate degree is in History and I enjoy locating material on topics relevant to my interests. Very often however I find myself trapped between either a deluge of dubious sources or, a paywall around scholarly articles which are clearly of a certain standard. While I do not wish to delve in depth into the issues of open access and monopolisation of the publishing industry by private companies, it must be argued I have come to the conclusion that podcasting can play a role in remedying both of the situations above.
Firstly, I must argue that I am biased in favour of Podcasts. The reason for this is simple given my interest in history I am often drawn to topics and areas not normally covered by western historians. As a result translations and information regarding topics such as the experiences of the Central Asian republics of Soviet rule from 1918 onwards is non-existent. However just this week I located the Central Asianist programme by the Freedom House organisation in which specialists discuss the historical and contemporary issues related to central Asia. In other words I found material which bridged an information gap which was not available elsewhere. What’s more given the format of Podcasts, relevant information is either included in the recording or attached to the description in the RSS feed. What is more, they are rarely concealed behind a paywall and offer quality information to the general public free of charge. While it is certainly true that poor quality podcasts exist: for the most part many programmes are created by academics and researchers employed by research institutes with access to quality sources or passionate laypeople who wish to accurately represent a topic they love.
What has this to do with Libraries? Well it is interesting to note that these programmes practice many of the techniques discussed in LIS literature. A high quality podcast will avail of search engine optimisation techniques, skilfully exploiting tags, linking social media account, creating a recognisable brand name directing users to other relevant content and collaborating with other podcasters to produce projects consisting of easily digestible information. Is this a perfect comparison? Of course not but it is curious to note apparent trends present in two tightly knit communities such as LIS professionals and Podcasters. Moreover, many of the presenters do this work as a labour of love in their spare time. However, the success of their approach may be seen by logging into a channels Facebook group and reading the volume of questions, extra content and interaction between patrons and creators. It could be argued that Podcasts fulfil the argument of the library role offered by Martin Berendse chairman of the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam for the need to bond with a user community, serving as a social mechanism and the creation of a recognisable “brand name” to ensure patron loyalty (Van de Geer, 2015).
I learned that from a podcast. Am I arguing the Podcasters are perfect tools for libraries? Not at all, by their very nature podcasting is very constrained by the digital divide. The conversion of audio into Mp3 files automatically limits their usage to certain devices. Factor in the sheer amount of time, energy and money required to purchase professional recording and editing equipment and software, scripting, editing and creating content on a constant basis plus the categorisation and publicity work involved in search engine optimisation for each program. There are also the issues of curating the digital files, generating metadata and the creation of collection policies to oversee the management, deselection and preservation of Mp3 files across technological formats.
That said, I would argue that there is much that Libraries could learn from the podcasting community. Due to the nature of their work, these channels are well versed in the realities of collaboration, marketing, search engine optimisation and brand creation in the digital age. Furthermore, to quote Paul B. Kaufman who discussed the digital revolution and shift in the representation of information from print to audio visual regards to oral history suggested the possibilities of collaborations with Journalists and Public Media producers (tv, radio, websites) (Kaufman, 2012, p.3). While podcasting is not specifically mentioned, the possibility that the community will continue to grow offers a resource for librarians to learn from and work with.
References
Kaufman, Peter B. (2012). Oral History in the Video Age. In D. Boyd, S. Cohen, B. Rakerd, & D. Rehberger (Eds.),Oral history in the digital age. Institute of Library and Museum Services. Retrieved from http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/07/video-age/
Van de Geer, J. (Producer). (2015, May, 31st). TWIL #121: Martin Berendse (Chief Executive Amsterdam Public Library). [Video Podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.thisweekinlibraries.com/
librarymuses 