Week 8: REFLECT -- What is the role of podcasting, online video, screencasting or slidecasting in libraries or information organisations? Do you see them as enhancements to the existing work, or services in their own right?

In this digital age, we need these mediums in libraries. What has been pressed in this degree is that libraries are falling behind with their old image of being book-centric and a means of simply borrowing books. A library is a community hub today, and these mediums enhance the activities already being conducted. Podcasting, online video, screencasting and slidecasting are integral to helping illustrate a problem, or how to use a database and search, or helping someone with a community activity.

 Even in these university subjects, the role of screencasts (especially) and the like have helped present assignments, illustrate an idea or as a means of showing how to use certain program. Podcasting is a means of talking at length about a topic, and these typically have others on the podcast to bounce ideas off. The best known podcast is arguably Ricky Gervais’ podcast which has been downloaded over 300 million times and has spawned two seasons of a cartoon TV show on HBO to visually play the podcast. His podcast consists of three radio people discussing inane topics from their lives. This speaks to the versatility of podcasting, that they don’t require rehearsal or any kind of stringent format (putting a slideshow together for example) to get information across.

Podcasting is simply a platform for people to talk about what they’d like to talk about. This would work in a library context as a means to conduct community discussion and make it available to the public for download. Online video is a cost-effective way to put together a presentation. Numerous sites exist to upload video for linking online, and the benefits to reaching a wider community are self-explanatory. A presentation can be given once and then posted online for more people to view instead of using up resources and money needing to repeat a presentation in the library.

Topics can be explained in online videos, and I see the library’s online presence becoming far more prevalent as more people use library services from home. Screencasting and slidecasting lead on from this idea. These two services can be used to explain library services, thus saving the time of both a librarian and a user. Why explain how to use a search or borrow a book at the front desk (which still should happen, the difference is there needn’t be as many people on the front desk with online tools available) when there are screencasts guiding the user through how to use a database?

Week 8: PLAY -- My Screencast - Allmovie

Here's my video for screencasting. Apologies for Dropbox that I had open during its duration! You can see I don't use Dropbox much anymore, I've moved on to Google Drive for the cloud files.

I used Screencast-O-Matic after seeing Anita's glowing review of the program. I have to agree. Super easy to use, all that's required is a click of a button to record and another to upload to YouTube.

This database is not as expansive as IMDb, but Allmovie is definitely more professional in presentation and much better at linking and providing ways of viewing movies, and in essence more beneficial for a user. There's also less user edited information on the site, so Allmovie is a more trustworthy database than IMDb for movie information.

Also, Dennis HOPPER, not HOFFER.