Saturday, October 6, 2012
Podcasts and Libraries
The use of mp3 and podcasts in libraries can have a positive affect in a world of decreased funding. As staffing of libraries become smaller and smaller, podcasts offer a means of sustaining some of the services associated with librarians. This is particularly useful when considering young children's use of the library. Podcasts of picture walks, like the one I demonstrated in my podcast, could be made available to patrons to help parents and early childhood and elementary teachers with early literacy instruction. Also, an archive of storytime podcasts could be maintained by libraries. This way, parents and early childhood educators could choose from an array of stories tailored to specific children, in the library, at home or in school. Therefore, the library is able to reach beyond its physical walls. So while we should not treat podcasts as substitutes for librarians, they do help deal with budgetary realities.
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The idea of a storytime archive for parents & educators to have access to is brilliant. This would also be extremely helpful for ESL learners (both for young children and adults). They could check out the book at the library and read along with it, thus improving their reading and language skills.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about staff reductions and the ability of MP3s to allow libraries to do less with more is well said. I think that a variety of podcasts can be useful to a library. Not just children like to be read to. I won't go so far as to suggest we have models reading 50 Shades of Grey on our library website but maybe we can take story time past the popup book and reach a wider audience!
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