Rudaí 23 #thing7: Adventures in podcasting

For this week’s task, I recorded a piece based on the Ireland's Films Lost and Found blog I wrote this month for the Irish Film Archive's Tiernan MacBride Library. I enjoy highlighting the archive's collections and my friends and colleagues have grown used to my enthusiastic monthly ramblings. I added more details to the blog, rewrote it in a more conversational style and recorded the piece while reading the rewrite. Even so, I had to start the recording from scratch a few times, when I stumbled over a word or skipped a line. The finished recording comes to about 8 minutes.

I used my Zen Creative MP3 player to record myself and transferred the audio file to my laptop which was hassle-free. I converted this WAV file to an MP3 file using Audacity, though I later discovered this was unnecessary as Soundcloud supports WAV files too. Once I created an account on Soundcloud and figured out how to add tags to my uploaded track (thank you Google) it was just a matter of following the step-by-step guide on the Rudaí 23 post to embed the podcast in this blog post.

I was introduced to the joy of podcasts about eight years ago by a friend who recommended The Ricky Gervais Show podcasts to me. With the help of the downloaded podcasts, I guffawed my way through a long train journey but I didn’t return to a podcast series again until last year, when I listened to Serial. This was mainly under pressure from friends and colleagues who were listening to the show and wanted to talk about it with everyone they met. I finally gave in and was immediately hooked by what is basically a true crime series featuring an actual murderer (or is he?), the witnesses and lawyers involved in the case and the cognitive processes of its narrator and executive producer, Sarah Koenig.

I think podcasts can be incredibly worthwhile – they give access to content that is free, original and interesting. You choose what you want to listen to and when you want to listen to it. Organisations like the BBC offer great Arts-related podcasts that I listen to occasionally, like this interview with one of my favourite writers, David Mitchell. Alternatively, if you subscribe to an RSS feed you don’t have to lift a finger to access those particular podcasts, the audio file is automatically downloaded to your computer and synced to your MP3 player.

For libraries, podcasts can be a way to connect with their local users as well as with international audiences. A successful example of this is the Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive created by Maynooth University library.The archive features a series of podcasts in which people are interviewed about about Saro-Wiwa’s life as a writer and social activist, as well as about their own lives. The audio archive and Maynooth University Library’s special collections received a lot of media attention in 2014, boosting the profile of the library and of the university.  

In terms of education, podcasts are being used by universities internationally to provide students with recordings of lectures they may have missed, with research content and extended learning support. They’re a great benefit to auditory learners, can be accessed anytime, anywhere on portable devices and can also provide students with a way to share their learning experiences with each other.

When done properly, podcasting boosts engagement with listeners and adds to the reputation of an organisation. Content is easily created, downloaded and distributed but it’s important that the content is gripping, the programme sounds professional and the podcasts are scheduled to go out regularly. It’s something that could be used in the libraries I work in to promote upcoming events, interview writers and academics and highlight special collections. A lot of time and support as well as training would be needed by the staff involved to ensure the podcasts are of a high quality and they would have to be carefully planned in advance. A good example of a successful library podcast series in Ireland can be found on the Dunleary Rathdown Libraries Podcast page, which gives access to recent DLR author events.