Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal December 2006 Volume 4(6)

Future of the profession

Podcasts

A new way to use digital space

What I used to know about MP3 downloads and podcasts could be written on the back of a particularly small stamp. After attending the sixth annual E-Books Seminar in Glasgow this October, I have enough information to create a podcast myself.

We had a fascinating overview of the BBC’s podcasting trial. Launched in May 2005, the trial now covers 50 programmes, mostly with audio downloads, but with five incorporating images. Sarah Prag, Senior Project Manager at the BBC, told us that the podcasts have proved very popular, and not just with young people; Chris Moyles rubbing shoulders with Melvyn Bragg at the top of one weekly chart. Sarah mentioned some of the issues involved, such as copyright and performers’ rights, and current restrictions on BBC podcast availability – currently for seven days after the broadcast. I was struck by her assertion that a podcast must be engaging and relevant, needing to earn a right to people’s personal digital space.

Mainstream e-books and resources featured as well. A recent survey has shown an upward trend in the use of e-books, said Lorraine Estelle, CEO of JISC Collections. The main barriers are lack of choice and unsatisfactory price. JISC Collections has become a mutual trading company, aiming to provide license agreements for the academic community. Agreements have been reached for e-books and e-reference books, but not for e-textbooks, with publishers reluctant to give up the student market. The HE community looks to JISC Collections to negotiate value for money, and seeks innovative use of technology. As the speaker remarked, in a world of podcasting, e-books with the same features as a conventional book are not enough.

Andrew James, Education Officer with East Lothian Museums, described the museums’ pioneering use of MP3 tours dating back six years. For the tour of Prestongrange Mining Museum, Port Seton artist John Bellany has made the recording, with alternative tours for the youth market provided by museum staff. Andrew’s step-by-step guide to podcasting using free downloadable software such as Audacity to record and edit your words, and FeedBurner to create the podcast, showed that anyone can use this technology, cheaply and easily. He outlined the usefulness of podcasting for recording oral history, people’s thoughts and opinions, and for guides to exhibitions and tours. We also learned that what makes an MP3 recording into a podcast is that it is regularly updated and available for subscription.

We also heard about the SirsiRooms project from Janet Guinea, Systems Librarian at the University of Leicester. SirsiRooms is a subject gateway and Leicester University is currently the only user of the product in Europe. Features include an OpenURL link resolver, leading searchers through a list of subject headings to journal titles, and access to any full-text journals subscribed to. Federated searching is available, and there is a degree of integration, with Rooms being referenced from library web pages and catalogue, and links from department pages to Rooms pages.

What are the information needs of MSPs? Janet Seaton of the Scottish Parliament Information Centre described how they are met with briefing papers, answers to individual questions, and Material for Debates. SPICE staff deal with all sorts of enquiries from “Is bird flu devolved or reserved?” to “When were the windows last cleaned?” It was a fascinating look at the ‘information’ side of Parliament, and on hearing about SPICE’s overnight election results service one enthusiastic delegate signed up to assist on the spot.

For the final session we heard from two case-studies. Father and son team Ian and Paul Stringer make a good team, Ian being a mobile library consultant with 40 years public library experience, and Paul an e-commerce technician. They showed the suitability of MP3 technology to talking books, bearing in mind users’ other needs, for example for tactile buttons. Richmond upon Thames has had some success in this area. Then Heather Worlledge-Andrew of Glasgow University Library demonstrated the high suitability of podcasts for tours of an academic library which new students can access before coming to the building. In their initial trial the podcasts proved equally as popular as the tours with a librarian, and were described as high quality. The library has further podcast plans, such as news releases, interviews with managers of units, resources for specific subjects, and student podcasts.

For an MP3 dunce this seminar was hugely interesting and accessible, with the speakers making clear exactly what a podcast is, and how anyone can go about producing one. It is an area with plenty of scope for use by all kinds of libraries at no great expense.

Lauren Forbes is John Murray Archive Cataloguer, National Library of Scotland.

Information Scotland Vol. 4(6) December 2006

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