Week 9, Thing 21

I looked in all three of the podcast directories and found an interesting podcast on games. It was an episode from the series Game On: Games in Libraries that discussed a website for virtual pets, neopets.com
and how marketing targets children. ( They can buy accessories for your vitual pet!)

Then I listened to a long, but Very interesting podcast located on Merlin that was one of the episodes from the series Biblio Tech. This episode hosted Michael Stephens (Taming the Web) and was a very interesting discussion about Library 2.0. Although I had read an article by him for an earlier "Thing," this went into much more detail, emphasizing being "human" with our users in order to break down barriers, the vital need to market our collections and services, and the fact that although tools will change, cultural and social change won't.
It was reassuring to me to hear that I don't need to know what's happening "under the hood" with these tools, but what they are and how to use them.

Then I successfully subscribed to LibVibe, the library news podcast. I like the idea of another format for staying in touch with what's happening in the world of libraries.
Obviously there has been transfer of learning during this exploration of technology, because I remembered how to do this successfully on my first attempt!

There are many possiblities for the use of podcasts in libraries, including book reviews, storytelling program highlights, and booktalking, just to name a few.