That said, I am not sure about using podcasts as an engagement tool in a library or archives environment. For one thing, people tend to listen to podcasts for entertainment rather than professional development. If you want to direct your podcast at fellow information professionals, are you sure you have enough new or interesting content or can add a new twist to familiar topics? If the podcast targets library or archives users, how can you promote your service in an entertaining and captivating way? This leads to the second issue, and that is that it takes time and effort to create a good podcast, let alone a regular serial, and not many institutions would have the time or manpower to commit to such an undertaking with any regularity. I had a look at the list of library-related podcasts on LisWiki and of the 30 links provided, eleven had become defunct or contained no podcasts, three had not posted a new podcast in the last six months, ten had not posted new content since at least 2015, and only six were active and had posted new content within the last 30 days. It goes to show how much time and commitment podcasts take.
For those keen to experiment with podcasts but struggling with limited resources, there is one option that might be worth exploring. Podcasts are effectively blogs with sound, and technology is available to do just that - to turn your blog into a podcast. Terry Ballard experimented with this on his blog Librarian on the Edge and had nothing but good things to say about the experience.
I was struggling a bit with the two options given for this Thing. As I already subscribe to several podcasts, Option 1 wasn't really for me. I was tempted to go with Option 2, and make use of the detailed instructions we were given on how to put together and publish a podcast. However, knowing me I don't think it is something that I could throw together in an hour, and as I am already a month behind schedule and struggling to complete the course on time I couldn't very well opt for this either. As a compromise, I have decided to review the first ever podcast that I subscribed to, called Thinking Sideways. It was created in 2013 by two American guys and a gal, Steve, Joe and Devan, to discuss and debate unsolved mysteries of all kinds - murders, disappearances, strange natural phenomena, ciphers, ancient myths, and so on. Each episode lasts for about an hour to an hour and a half and follows the same formula: presentation of the case and various theories that have been put forward, followed by discussion. The three participants take turns to host the episodes. The first one was published on 1 August 2013 and the podcast is still going strong, with 243 episodes released to date.
I started following the podcast in 2015 and was initially completely hooked. I like the length of the episodes, besides which the topics are really interesting and the interaction between the three hosts is entertaining. The discussion is in-depth but lighthearted and not too intense so that even when the topic is quite macabre you don't run the risk of losing sleep! On the downside, the show is poorly edited and the hosts either keep interrupting each other incessantly or wander off topic on all sorts of weird and irrelevant tangents and take ages to get back on track. This can be funny at times, but in the long run it becomes irritating. Some of their jokes can be quite offensive (like laughing at the way someone has died). There are also often serious flaws in their logical reasoning, sometimes to the point of utter ignorance, they make sweeping judgments, and their analyses of the cases seem to lead nowhere. My biggest beef is with Devan who is the most vocal and opinionated of the three hosts but unfortunately also the least informed. Her tendency to hijack each episode and shout down the two guys with uninformed inanities has gotten on my nerves to such a degree that I have taken a break from listening for about a year now. However if true crime and unsolved mysteries are your thing, this podcast is worth checking out. Others in this genre that I have enjoyed include The Trail Went Cold, Unsolved Murders, The Generation Why, True Crime Garage, Trace Evidence, and In Sight.
Image from Flickr by Casey Fiesler under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY 2.0
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