I attended the Public Library Association (PLA) conference in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago and attended a great session by Michelle Jeske from the Denver Public Library. She included some great examples of what libraries are doing with audio and video on the web, and since then I’ve run across some other blog posts with additional examples. I have added everything from that session and the posts to the casting kit del.icio.us links, so be sure to take a look there for some updated resources.
Here’s one of my favorite examples of a library vodcast. Enjoy!
An online evaluation form for the instructional materials will be developed and tested.
I originally thought I would work with our Electronic Resources Librarian, Evan Bend, coder extraordinaire, to develop an online form that would feed into a database where we could store all of the evaluations over time. But this week I realized I’m probably making it more complicated than it has to be.
I decided it would be better and easier to simply create a SurveyMonkey survey for each instructional tool developed. That way all of the results would be tabulated over time, no code would need tweaking when new tools were added, and each survey could be customized to more specifically evaluate each tool. We upgraded our monthly SurveyMonkey account to an annual version yesterday, so we won’t have any limitations on the number of surveys we can develop or responses we can receive. (Thanks, Rick!)
A survey will be linked to at the end of each tool we create. Easy peasy. I just hope people will take the time to tell us how we did!
In the grant proposal, one of the things on my to-do list is to evaluate online storage options for the ‘casting projects that will be created. I’ve collected some options in the ‘Casting Kit del.icio.us account. There are a wide variety of hosts included there, including some options for live, interactive programming.
It’s hard to really recommend one specific tool for podcasts or vodcasts, as some hosts are free and some are fee-based, some will reach larger audiences and some willl have less “junk,” etc. I think it might work better to evaluate a potential host when there is a project in hand and base a choice on a budget, audience, and other more specific criteria.
OWLS has a continuing education workshop scheduled for April 23rd. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) will be here in Appleton to present “Outstanding Books for Children and Young Adults.” More info is available on OWLSweb.
Why am I mentioning this on the ‘Casting blog? Well, because wonderful CCBC librarian, Megan Schliesman, has agreed to let me record the workshop and post it online! It will be my first vodcasting experiment (on a large scale). The CCBC workshops are very popular, but it’s hard for school library staff to get to since they can’t always get subs. This way I can record the workshop and post it online for anyone to view after it’s done.
I’ll need to become more familiar with our new camcorder, so I’ll be ready to go. I hope the tripods arrive in time! What a great opportunity to “eat the dog food” (as my friend Joy would say) and try something out that I’ll be encouraging our member libraries to do later in the grant period. Can’t wait!
After having to spend a week or so on Project Play stuff, I finally have the staff ‘casting workstation in the OWLS meeting room ready for business. The computer is zippy and the monitor is nice and big. Thanks to Julie for ordering the computer and getting it set up for me! She did a great job with the specs on the equipment.
I installed Audacity, ePodcast Producer, and Camtasia Studio and set up some quick launch icons to everything including Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Player, Quicktime viewer, a couple of browsers, etc.
While installing the software on the staff workstation, I noticed that the clock we have hanging above the desk makes pretty loud ticking noises when you’re sitting right underneath it. That’s gonna have to go! We’ll either have to move it or purchase a quiet one to replace it.
I’m excited about having the workstation up and running! Now I can begin to plan training for OWLS staff, so we can start some projects for InfoSoup. The more I tinker with all of the equipment that was purchased, the more ideas I get for what OWLS and our libraries will be able to do with it all. Fun ahead!
I finally took pictures of the equipment I have ordered so far for the grant and have loaded them on Flickr. Not sure how useful the photos will be for anyone, but at least they’ll satisfy the curious people tracking this grant and show the grant reviewers the goods.
Well, I pulled together all of the links I have been gathering on podcasting, screencasting, and vodcasting. I’ll need to do a bit more research to round out the collection a bit better, but I think there’s a good start now available at del.icio.us/castingkit. I’ve added the tag links to the Resources page, too.
I spent a good deal of time trying to feed in my link rolls or tag rolls into the Resources page and wasn’t having any luck at all. Seems like WordPress should be able to handle that kind of thing! Maybe I’m just missing something… If you have any clues, please let me know in the comments. So for now, it’s just hard-coded. I resorted to adding an RSS feed to the del.icio.us account to the right sidebar, but for some reason, that doesn’t seem to be updating properly either. Ugh. Maybe it’s just not my day! which appears to be working now!
Other than fleshing out the blog more, I have two things in particular I would like to accomplish today on this project.
Pull all of the blog posts, web sites, and other stuff I’ve collected about podcasts, screencasts, and vodcasts together and try to make a del.icio.us collection that makes sense out of it all. I’m going to post it all at http://del.icio.us/castingkit.
Start a Flickr account to post images of all of the equipment as it comes in. (It’s like Christmas every day in my office lately! )
The del.icio.us account will serve as a resource for the OWLS member libraries as they begin their own projects with the ‘Casting Kit once it’s ready (and for anyone else who is interested, for that matter). The Flickr account will allow others to get a visual take on the equipment purchased, in case anyone might be interested in making some purchases of their own.
I’ve been spending a lot of money over the last few days! Fun, but also makes me vaguely uncomfortable because I hope I’m making good choices with the grant funds. I did a lot of research online, so I think it’s all good. I’m sure there are different options for the kinds of things I purchased, but you can drive yourself crazy by digging around too much. I figured this is all a grand experiment to find out what works and what doesn’t and to just go for it.
I’m going to post a list of the equipment and software purchased on a separate page on this blog and will link to it here when it’s ready. Check out the equipment and software that were purchased. I’m also planning to take pictures of the equipment as it all arrives, so I can share details about the models chosen in a Flickr account. So stay tuned, there’s lots more to come!
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