[WEB4LIB] Re: The Ur-Podcast

[Fiona Bradley]

>>> "K.G. Schneider" <kgs at bluehighways.com> 2/02/2005 10:20:47 am >>>
<snip>
>Will you be doing it again? Become the world-famous library radio
host? It
>wouldn't be such odd casting! 

I don't think I'd go back to regular broadcasting. The potential of
podcasting, however, is very exciting, especially for niche
programming.

One of the reasons I stopped doing my show is that it is really lonely
to talk to yourself! Sure, there's interviews, phone calls from
listeners, email feedback etc, but it's not quite the same as having a
co-host. The odds of me finding another librarian who wanted to do radio
every week in Sydney were fairly slim! But maybe VOIP will be able to
combat these limitations some day, and it wouldn't matter where a
co-host lived.

Also, it took a lot more preparation to do a half-hour program than to
blog about something. It took me about 2 hours to gather the news, an
hour to write the script, and then half an hour to do the show (plus
transport to and from the studio). 

The plus side of being part of a broadcaster was that publishers and
other contacts had some familiarity with you and so access to interviews
was not terribly difficult. I got the chance to interview some of my
favourite authors as part of my show and other shows that I co-hosted
on. I have a grab of Neil Gaiman saying "I may not be a librarian, but I
always listen to Between the Stacks!". 

cheers,
Fiona