Friday, October 31, 2008

Podcasts - World Music And Beyond...

My initial reaction to all of the subject availability in existence with respect to the world of podcasting, is one of both overwhelment at the thought of trying to comprehend it all and yet excitement and delicious anticipation at the idea of sampling as much of this rich web-related audio content as I can realistically consume! Some of the subject areas which I have discovered through my podcasting exploits, so far, include: library industry news, world/local news and news analysis, arts, entertainment, personal finance, national/global economy, sports, research, religion, politics, general opinion, literature, health, gardening, food, business, feature stories, and the list goes on and on. There's even a podcast entitled "Anything You Wanted To Know Forum" which answers questions on well yes ... anything!

In searching for a podcast of personal interest, I decided to go with my passion- world music. Even though I was dealing with a specific subject focus this time, I still experienced similar feelings of overwhelment and yet enthusiasm as I perused the podcast offerings. Just to give you an idea of the variety of types of world music podcasts which are currently active, I present you with the highlights of what I found: current trends, concerts, featured artists, interviews, local club reviews, geographically/ethnically specific programming, radio shows, indie /avant-garde music, meditation/relaxation music, and world culture. I picked-up on NPR's The World's Global Hit Podcast.

As far as the actual search itself was concerned, I found Podcast.com to be quite helpful in the area of world music. I quickly retrieved a very comprehensive hitlist with entries that contained good content descriptions, reviews, the ability to create playlists, and instant subscription access. I think that access to some music podcasts on our library web site would be an attractive feature for our patrons and would encourage the use of our recorded music collection considerably.

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