Podcasting the other social factor

When the lesson on Podcasting was presented to the class, I at least felt that I was in familiar territory. I am an avid listener of 567 Capetalk radio (http://capetalk.co.za/) and make use of their podcast broadcasts. At times when driving in the car a certain interview is occurring or will still occur and you reach your destination only to miss out on it. Thank goodness for technology that one is able to go to a podcast and listen to a recording of this interview, how useful is that.
Now how can podcasting contribute to libraries? Libraries can utilize this technology in various ways, not that we as a library have done so yet.
Librarians can create their own podcasts for many different purposes such as:

* to promote the library (library tours, story hours, library news, announcing library events)
* to suuport Information Literacy instruction
* for library marketing (tutorials on how to use OPAC, various open source software etc.)
* to enhance librarians' professional development (tutorials, book discussions, interviews with authors,       successful librarians, presentations by other professionals etc.)

To listen to some podcasts by libraries you can access the following website:
http://www.libraryspot.com/podcast/othercasts.htm

Another useful website; http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Podcasting  provides links to various libraries using podcasts, links on “How to Podcast” and various other useful aspects of Podcasting. 

As a library we hope to make use of all this technology which is at our disposal. Social Media plays a very important role in taking the library beyond the physical space it occupies. This will only be possible once municipalities understand the importance of socail media to libraries and provide them with access to this platform.

Below is a clip of how one can create a podcast: