2008 West Coast Tour

Here's a full list of my upcoming presentations for the Fall. They're all in California, but West Coast Tour sounds more impressive than California Tour. Anyone want to make t-shirts?

September 25, 2008: Practical Podcasting and Videocasting (Infopeople Workshop). Alameda County Library, Fremont, CA.

October 19, 2008: Podcasting and Videocasting Bootcamp (Preconference Workshop w/ David Lee King). Internet Librarian 2008.

October 24, 2008: Practical Podcasting and Videocasting (Infopeople Workshop). California State Library, Sacramento, CA.

November 6, 2008: Practical Podcasting and Videocasting (Infopeople Workshop). Buena Park Library District, Buena Park, CA.

November 7, 2008: Practical Podcasting and Videocasting (Infopeople Workshop). San Diego County Library Headquarters, San Diego, CA.

December 3, 2008: Practical Podcasting and Videocasting (Infopeople Workshop). Mountain View Public Library, Mountain View, CA

December 5, 2008: Practical Podcasting and Videocasting (Infopeople Workshop). Monterey Park Brugemeister Library, Monterey Park, CA.

I'm pretty excited about the Infopeople podcasting workshops. They'll be very hands-on, all day affairs. So if you are in any of the above areas of California and would like to learn about podcasting and videocasting, head over to the Infopeople website and register. They're remarkably affordable as well.

Also, if you have any tips for food/ drink in any of the above areas, please let me know.

Internet Librarian Props

Hello again. I've been meaning to kick the proverbial blog tires lately and see if it'll still start. I was incredibly overwhelmed by work in the time leading up to Annual and it has taken me a little bit of time (and a few well earned vacation days) to get back to semi-normal. And honestly, my interest in blogging, and most online social activity really, has waned in the past few months. Although it is starting to return. But more on that another time.

I do have another round of presentations coming up, including another edition of the Podcasting and Videocasting Bootcamp that Mr. David Lee King and I have done for the last few Internet Librarian and Computers in Libraries conferences. Sam over at infodoodads talked about our session at the last IL the other day, saying it was the inspiration for his One Minute Critic videoblog. Very cool! I'm always excited to hear about new podcasts and videocasts that come out of our sessions. The post also gives some great reasons to use blip.tv, aside from it being Dave and Dave Show approved. Thanks very much for the nice words, Sam, and great job on the videoblog!

I'll have several more West Coast Fall Tour dates available in the near future when they are officially online.

NJLA2008: Practical Podcasting Preconference

Thanks to everyone who came out to the "Practical Podcasting" preconference session at the New Jersey Library Association conference today. There were a couple of technical issues, but hopefully everyone learned a little about podcasting and videocasting in libraries. Here are my slides, complete with the images that freaked out as a result of the PowerPoint crash. Additional information, including links to podcasts we discussed, is available on my wiki.

| View | Upload your own

The audio recording part went great. All of the "talent" and technical folks did a great job. I'll get the video finished and online tomorrow. Sorry again for the technical problems!

I had a blast talking to everyone today and I hope all the attendees had fun as well.

CIL 2008: Podcasting CyberTour

Thanks to the ridiculously large crowd that came out for the podcasting cybertour at CIL on Tuesday. I'm amazed and glad that so many folks took time out of their lunch to listen to me speak. I hope you all learned some useful information. Links to all of the resources, including featured audio and video podcasts, are available on the wiki page for the talk. And, as always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Here is the presentation, complete with a couple of additions we talked about but weren't included visually.

| View | Upload your own

Thanks again for coming, and I'm sorry for the delay in getting the slides online.

CIL 2008: Podcasting and Videocasting Bootcamp

Thanks to everyone who came to the Podcasting and Videocasting Bootcamp program this AM. David Lee King and I had a blast. I didn't take any still pictures, but here is it in brief video form.



Make sure to check out the audio podcast as well. Sorry for the lack of paper handouts for my part. I promise I really did send them in. Really. I did. But here is the presentation and you can download it from SlideShare.

| View | Upload your own

4/7 Update: The URL for the Princeton Poetry Podcasts in the slide show is incorrect. It should be http://pplpoetpodcast2008.wordpress.com/. My humbly apologies to the super cool folks at the Princeton PL.

Additional info, including linkage is on my wiki. Thank again for coming. I'm doing a podcasting cybertour at 12:30 (I think) on Tuesday and then the awesome Pecha Kucha later that day. Come say howdy.

Happy (Late) Blogoversary To Me

In the midst of prepping for CIL and working on a bunch of projects at work I completely missed my 2nd blogoversary, which was March 28. Yeah, there are a few posts from 2004, but I don't really count those. My actually involvement in blogging starting at CIL 2006 when I was semi-peer pressured into it by Meredith Farkas and Greg Schwartz. Well, it wasn't really peer pressure as much as pointing out that my excuses for not doing so were pretty lame.

And it has been really fun! I've been pretty erratic in posting over the past 6 to 8 months due to relocating and new job and such. And figuring out how I was going to approach maintaining something that is nominally a library-related blog when I'm not working in a library anymore. But what I'm doing now works for me, although I am going to try to write more about publishing type issues. I'm not really sure that my blog is even semi-useful anymore to anyone in libraryland who doesn't know me personally, but it is still a fun exercise.

Speaking of Greg Schwartz, I'm pretty excited that he is blogging regularly again and back on the speaking circuit and has Unvocab going strong. I can pretty much trace all of my involvement in conference speaking, and things that have resulted from it including my current job, to him. And honestly, I've felt like the stand-in or D-List Greg the whole time. I get really uncomfortable when anyone implies that I'm some sort of podcasting expert because, as LiB pointed out recently, he is The Man when it comes to library podcasting.

So thanks for reading, and I hope to catch up with old friends (and make some new ones) at CIL.

Princeton PL Poerty Podcasts

Just in time for National Poetry Month (and CIL presentations), I had an email from Janie Hermann of Library Garden fame today letting me know that the Princeton N.J. Public Library is reprising their most excellent Poetry Podcast Blog. The content will be 60% poems from poets who didn't get a change to participate last year and 40% returning poets with new readings.

There were some great readings last year, so this is definitely worth adding to your podcatcher as new podcasts are released everyday. And a great use of podcasting in general.

The iPod lecture circuit

Take a look at this very nice, lengthy article on coursecasting from the LA Times that was reprinted on the Tribune website this morning. And I'm guessing in print as well, for some reason the Trib doesn't have a weekend only print subscription option. Not very customer friendly!

"Something revolutionary is happening," said UC Berkeley professor Richard Muller, whose Physics for Future Presidents class airs on iTunes. "A large number of people around the world want more education. They thirst for understanding and knowledge."

The article mainly focuses on iTunes U but does give a good overview of the impact of freely available lectures to those outside academia.

Ticer Video

During my talk at the 2007 Ticer Institute a week or so ago I planned to record and edit a video during the session. Of course technical difficulties and time ruined that plan. Ah well. But one of the participants - I'm forgot to get his name during the insanity - shot some footage of people working on the audio podcast part of the session. I edited it and here it is:

Click To Play

Again, I apologize to the people who attended the session for not getting through all of the objectives.

TIcer 2007 Podcasting / Videocasting Talk

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk on podcasting and videocasting at the 2007 Ticer Institute today. I hope everyone learned something in the session and had a good time as well. Here are the links to podcasts and videocasts that I talked about.

• RSS In Plain English (1)


• Claude Moore Health Sciences Library (UVA)


• The L-Team (Williams College)


• GPC Decatur Campus Library


• Dowling College Library Omnibus


• University of North Carolina, Pembroke Library Minute


• Arizona State University Library Channel


• Purdue University Boilercast


• Ohio University Alden Library Audio Tour


• Information and Circulation (Cal State Long Beach)


• WPI Library Audio To Go


• Fairfield University Library Podcasts


• ENGnetBASE (Georgia Tech)


• UCOL Library Podcasts


• Library Guide For Nursing (California State University , Fullerton)


• Moraine Valley Community College Library

We also created a few of our own podcasts during the hands-on part of the session. They are available on the blip.tv site for the class. I will edit the video footage and get it online as soon as I can. I am sorry again for the technical difficulties that caused us to not get finished with the video in class.

Other information from the session, including links to creation tools and additional readings is available on my wiki.

Thanks again for coming. And inviting me to come to the Netherlands.

Keep Your Eyes On The Road

This evening I'm heading out to Brussels, via a 4 hour layover in London (think there's Old Speckled Hen in the airport?), for the 2007 Ticer Institute. I'm talking on Thursday morning about podcasting and videocasting in academic libraries. There will be a pretty large hands on component to the session, so perhaps look for some audio and video online. I'm excited, and slightly nervous, about talking to a group of librarians whose native language is something other than English, but I'm sure it'll go well.

I'm spending a day and a half in Belgium and a couple of days in Amsterdam after, so look for pics on Flickr. I'll definitely have Internet access in Tilburg and looks pretty plentiful in Amsterdam.

Guest Post: Podcast Usage At The Dowling College Library

{Here is another guess post, this time authored by Chris Kretz of the Dowling College Library.}

First off, thanks to Dave for the opportunity to share some podcasting thoughts here on his blog. My name is Chris Kretz and I'm the digital resources librarian at Dowling College on the south shore of Long Island. I also podcast for the library, an interview show called Omnibus. It tends to be about people's research interests and creative pursuits (whether they be faculty, students, community members or alumni) with a few forays into literary and dramatic presentations. I've been looking over our usage statistics for the last twelve months and wanted to informally share what I'm seeing in terms of the number of downloads of MP3 files, with an eye towards the question: are we attracting an audience?

When we started using WebTrends to track downloads of our MP3 files in July 2006, we had nine episodes already online. Over the next year we released 22 more. Those 31 episodes combined were downloaded a total of 17,970 times in twelve months. Here's how the top five episodes break down, with the interview topic and # of downloads for the year (our early shows often contained multiple interviews): a collector of Long Island ephemera and memorabilia (1700), a class on genealogical research (1611), computer safety and the history of a curious traffic intersection on campus (1598), a local historical society and the Drama Club (1494), a local historian and the Drama Club (1439). The local history focus grew out of our special collections . More work needs to be done to identify who our listeners are and this is by no means a full-blown analysis.

Am I satisfied with how we’re doing? My goal with Omnibus was to develop an alternative to onsite programming, something less formal yet with a coherent and continuing format. If we divvied up our downloads into attendance at 31 library programs for the year - well, for one thing, we don't have a room that will seat 580 people. Virtually speaking, however, people are still coming. So far we’re averaging 75 downloads a month per episode. That pace hasn’t slacked yet and since we have no foreseeable bandwidth issues, I see reason to continue and let the long tail continue to attract listeners.

Of course, there are lies, damned lies, and podcast statistics. Each download does not necessarily represent one listener. There’s no way to say if each download actually gets listened to. And we’ll have to do some surveying to get a better idea of who our listeners are. Beyond that, I see it as a positive that 17 faculty, 14 students, 5 administrators, 4 alumni, 6 poets, 4 professional actors, 13 community members and 1 NYCLU lawyer who may never have had occasion to meet or talk to a Dowling College librarian, have done so on our podcast and shared it with their friends and family. That, ultimately, will be how our core audience grows.

SlideCasts

The Chronicle Wired Campus blog had a post yesterday about a cool new feature from Slideshare called Slidecasts that allows you to easily add audio narration to PowerPoint presentations. It sounds like you just upload a PPT to Slideshare, point to an online mp3 file and sync them. This could be a pretty good solution for folks who don't have access to screencasting software like Camtasia to produce narrated presentations.

8/8 Update:
Jeff Scott has a post on his blog Gather No Dust that details using Slidecast to make a screencast for his library. He posted a comment but I wanted to bring the link up top. Very cool!

The Classroom Will Now Be Podcast (Again) Web Links

Thanks to everyone who attended the ACRL "The Classroom Will Now Be Podcast" webcast today. I had fun talking to you over the internets and hope everyone learned something. Here are the links to podcasts I talked about.

• Georgia College and State University (David Letterman Video I didn't show)
  
• Mansfield University Podcasts
  
• Dowling College Library Omnibus
  
• Allegheny College Podcasts
  
• University of North Carolina, Pembroke Library Minute
  
• University Channel
  
• Arizona State University Library Channel
  
• Purdue University Boilercast
  
• Berkeley On iTunes U
  
• Ohio University Alden Library Audio Tour
  
• WPI Library Audio To Go
  
• Fairfield University Library Podcasts
  
• UCOL Library Podcasts
  
• Library Guide For Nursing (California State University , Fullerton)
  
• Moraine Valley Community College Library
  
• Podcasting @ Hunter
• University of Utah Library Podcasting
  

Links to podcasting resources and tools are available on my wiki, as are links to articles and white papers on podcasting in higher education.

Look for posts responding to some questions and comments I didn't get to during the session in the next week after I get a copy of the chat transcript. There were some interesting links floating around in the chat window and I'll post those as well.

Guest Post: Fairfield University Library Podcasts by Leslie Porter

Podcasters Rock!
Originally uploaded by dwfree1967

{As I promised last week, here is a guest post from Leslie Porter of Fairfield University talking about their library podcasts. Leslie was in the RUSA Pre-Conference I participated in at ALA Annual and thus got picked on. She is a good sport. If you would like to contribute something similar about your library podcasts, just write it up and send it to me.}

We created these podcasts for students in English 11 after consulting with English professor Richard Regan, who is very active with iTunesU. We knew he was going to be teaching his section of EN 11 as an iTunesU class, so we approached him and asked him if the library could offer any podcasts for integration into his class. He asked us to cover the databases that students would use for his class: LION, JSTOR, Google Scholar, and Project Muse. Instead of doing a straightlaced description of the databases, we decided to personify each database based upon its characteristics and then interview it in a short one to two-minute podcast.

We played at least one of the podcasts during the information literacy sessions for EN 11. Students usually laughed - and sometimes even applauded after listening to the podcasts - and it worked out well as a break in the session for students as well as the instructor. It was clear to me that many of the students enjoyed the podcasts and were surprised that the library would be doing something so "different." I think this is a good thing, because it helps humanize the library (and librarians) and perhaps affects in some way students' overall perceptions of the library.

Some of the students' comments can shed light on the effectiveness of the podcasts as an instructional tool. After each class, we ask the students to fill out evaluation forms. We never specifically asked about the podcasts, but students often commented about them in response to the question: "What about the session surprised you most?"

Here are a few sample responses:

1. That the web database could speak, and was a man!
2. The sound bites that introduced LION and Google Scholar and how hard the library is trying to be accessible and relate to students.
3. The LION database interview. It was different.
4. That databases can talk.
5. The audio, I thought it was really funny and will stick with me.
6. The LION talking.


-- Leslie Porter

Farewell Transmission

"I will be gone, but not forever." - Magnolia Electric Co.

Wednesday I'm heading out to Chicago, so this will most likely be my last post of any substance for a little while. Although who knows, the Chicago Public Library seems to have free wifi in all branches, so I might be back sooner. But I will return in at least the next few weeks with the usual mix of random stuff that you have grown accustomed to over the past year or so. With probably a little more publishing and marketing type content thrown into the podcasting and library mix. So don't unsubscribe! But you're gonna have to look elsewhere for your ALA gossip. :)

I have one guest post lined up from a bibliopodcaster, so be on the lookout for that next week. And if you are podcasting at your library and would like to contribute a blog-post-length overview or insight or whatever about what your library is doing, I'll be glad to post it as well. Just send it to dwfree(at)gmail(dot)com.

Happy trails.

Uncontrolled Vocabulary Lives!

Last night marked the debut of Uncontrolled Vocabulary, a new online library-esque talk show put together by my man Greg Schwartz. Greg and other awesome folks discussed some happening library issues and cracked a few jokes too. Check out this post for a recap of the first episode. And the show notes are available as well.

I was on of the folks listening in and participating via Twitter since I got in late and realized I didn't have the TalkShoe software installed on my laptop. It was crazy fun though and I hope to join in at some point once I get settled in Chicago.

I know Greg has had this idea percolating for a while and it was great to hear it come to life. And see him back online contributing to the library world. Excellent job.

RUSA Preconference Slides Etc.

RUSA Preconference Stage Left
Originally uploaded by dwfree1967

Thanks to everyone who came to the RUSA/ MARS Reinvented Reference Pre-Conference on Friday. I had a blast talking to you. And listening to all the other awesome speakers. It was a great day.

The music I played before my talk was by Pink Floyd. You may have heard of them.

Links to my slides, podcasts I talked about, info on how to create podcasts, and more are available on my presentation wiki.

Let me know if you have any questions.

The Wide World of Podcasting

Thanks to everyone who came to the RUSA Reinvented Reference III preconference at ALA Annual 2007.

Here are links to the library podcasts I featured in my talk. I'll post my slides and some other information a bit later today.

Lansing (IL) Public Library

Ohio University Alden Library Audio Tour

Pierce County (WA) Library System

Orange County (FL) Library System

Wadsworth (OH) Public Library

WPI Audio To Go

Fairfield University Library

UCOL Library

Library Guide for Nursing (Cal State, Fullerton)

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again for coming!

The Classroom Will Now Be Podcast (Again)

Due to good response and registration last time, I'll be presenting the ACRL e-learning webcast "The Classroom Will Now Be Podcast" again on July 10th. The webcast will start at 2pm EDT, 1pm CDT (my new timezone) or 11am PDT depending on where you live. I thought the session went really well last time and I'm going to incorporate a few of the questions into this version. Here's the description from the ACRL website:

Podcasting is an emerging technology that allows for the easy online distribution of media files. The use of podcasts for both personal broadcasting and as a media tool has grown greatly in the past couple of years. Many institutions of higher education are now utilizing this technology as a method of distributing promotional and educational content. This webcast explores the growing usage of podcasting in higher education and examines how academic libraries fit into the educasting environment. The session focuses attention on examples of podcasts as classroom and library instruction tools and examines how academic libraries can become more integrally involved in podcasting efforts on their campuses.

This Webcast will last approximately an hour and a half.

You can register on the ACRL site. And yes, there is a reasonable registration fee for the session. Again, please don't yell at me for doing something not free.

You may be thinking "Isn't he moving to Chicago around then? Is this guy crazy?" And the answer would be yes. And yes. The presenter bio is slightly misleading as I will technically be unemployed at the time. But the webcast will be fun and informative. And I promise there will be clips this time.