Podcasts

I signed up for Podcast.com and started looking for library and book related podcasts. I thought The Washington Post Book World Podcast looked interesting so subscribed to that and listened to some interviews with authors and snippets of book news. A great way to learn what's happening in the book world - and something we should explore for our website. I'm sure our customers would love to tune in to Manukau librarians talking about new books - even if we couldn't run to interviews with authors. I couldn't find any New Zealand book sites, so we could be first in this field. Alternatively we could just have feeds from the professional podcasters. These podcasts can be accessed on cellphones and Ipods as well as computers, so are really versatile. It's good having the podcast playing in the background while I write in my blog. I then visited The Library Channel and tried to subscribe to the RSS feed to my bloglines account but unfortunately it did not have an RSS feed. My next stop was Nancy Pearl Book Reviews - Nancy Pearl is a librarian with a love of books so strong it has been officially classified as lust - and I found such a lovely mix of reviews. The first was a book on the Olympics, the next a children's book by Allan Ahlberg. Then I found a review of Dear American Airlines by Jonathon Miles and I have to read it. A traveller stuck overnight at O'Hare airport in Chicago writes a letter to the President of American Airlines demanding a refund, as he will now miss his daughter's wedding on the West Coast. As he writes he takes stock of his life and explains why it is so important to get to his daughter's wedding. It is recommended as a good trans-American flight book. As I'm off to Vancouver tomorrow, I'll be looking for it at the airport. On the technical side, I set up an RSS feed to my Bloglines account and now will be able to listen in regularly to Nancy Pearl from there.