Podcasts

Podcasts are a handy way to keep up-to-date with programming you don't want to miss. Awhile back, using iTunes on my home computer, I subscribed to free podcasting from NPR's "This American Life" radio show. I was surprised that the weekly show downloads into my iTunes account only after I have clicked on an icon on my computer; there's a wait of several minutes before the content is actually there to listen to.

This technology could be useful for certain library applications. Staff at San Mateo County Library suggest some interesting possibilities in their Guide to Podcasting, such as services for the visually impaired, book reviews (e.g., Sam W.'s "One Minute Critic"), and poetry readings. Emory University podcasts a Library Survival Guide to help students and faculty learn what's available at the campus library, and how to use the resources there. (For example, their first episode was "a discussion of peer-reviewed journals: what are they, how do you find them, why do you care?")

Working with a blog -- creating posts, even adding photos, audio, and video -- is at a level of difficulty that hasn't seemed overly daunting for an individual. With podcasting, it seems that while recording may be something most of us could do given the equipment and some basic instructions, the jobs of editing and uploading the podcast to a website probably would be handed off to the techies in our midst.

I'm listening! (Audio sites)

Pandora is "radio from the Music Genome Project." You create a "station" based on a favorite song or artist, and Pandora provides a steady stream of music that the genome project's analysis shows to be similar. So you get an interesting mix of songs. Right now, my Beatles station is playing Pink Floyd's "The Wall," which I do like. My "Heart of Gold" station (based on Neil Young's song) just played "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin, which I'm not too crazy about. Still, it's interesting to hear Pandora's range of choices. One complaint: maneuvering around in Pandora seems a little clunky, with pages taking a long time to load. I keep finding myself routed to their FAQ page, and unable to back out. Maybe this is a temporary computer glitch?

Last FM seems for the most part to allow you to listen only to parts of songs. It does have some interesting features, though. Type in an artist name, and you get a bunch of information organized under tabs, such as "Bio" and "Similar." The Similar tab for Joan Osborne lists Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Alanis Morissette and others. With Last FM you can create a Pandora-like custom radio station, but you need to download software for that feature.

IMEEM does allow you to select individual songs to listen to all the way through. I wondered if IMEEM is providing this access legally, but didn't find an answer to my question on this website. My colleague Sam thinks it may be that songs have been purchased by other users, who then share them online. Possibly it's legal to share for listening (but not downloading) purposes.

Mango Languages looks interesting, but I couldn't try one of its language lessons without first downloading updated Adobe software. Maybe later, as IT will have to enable the download.

I'd like to try downloading one of the classic, public-domain books available at the The Gutenberg Audio Books Project. Some of the texts here are read by human voices, others use computer-generated sound. The audio formats available vary title by title; I didn't see a way to search for all titles that are available in, for example, the format for iTunes or MP3.