LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

This week's edition of LISTen is helmed by the show's audio engineer, Mike Kellat, and brings two interviews as well as a feature. The Shadow Minister for Education in the Australian state of Victoria, Martin Dixon, talked to Stephen Kellat about recent literacy initiatives there. Participants from Uncontrolled Vocabulary spoke to Stephen about their views of podcasting. Mike presented another edition of Tech for Techies about the mechanics of production. Contributions were also sought in the episode.

This week's episode includes an interview and a commentary. Josh Neff of Johnson County Library spoke with Stephen Kellat and Connie Crosby about Library Camp Kansas. The commentary was presented by Stephen Kellat relative to recent news and contained his analysis.

Links referred to:
Library Camp Kansas
Library Camp Syracuse
OPAL - Online Programming for All Libraries
Twitter
The Daily Telegraph
Josh Neff's site
Connie Crosby's site
Site of Michael Sauers

This week's episode brings interviews with Great Western Dragon and Don Reisinger. Great Western Dragon, otherwise known as Dr. Daniel Messer, related his experience with the Virtual Conference part of PLA 2008 National. Don Reisinger chatted about tech issues in society. Although a commentary was planned it was cut due to time.

At the end of the podcast a specific invitation is given. There is discussion of having a live call-in segment be taped in the week ahead. The night for such is tentatively set for April 4th. Five listeners at a minimum must call LISTen's production team to signify their willingness and intent to participate. If at least five listeners are heard from by a specific point then details on how to participate will be posted to LISNews. Time conversions will be available in the links to find out when things are set to happen even if not in Las Vegas. Contact numbers include:

+1 702 425 8547 (United States of America)
+61 03 9018 6749 (Australia)
+64 03 669 0425 (New Zealand)
+44 02895 81 2554 (United Kingdom)

(Skype for anybody who does not want to or cannot call by phone)

Links to things referenced:
Twitter of Great Western Dragon
Twitter of Don Reisinger
PLA 2008 Virtual Conference
An example from Jeff Macpherson of a "Rickroll"
How to determine what Stephen means time-wise for the call deadline
How to determine what Stephen means time-wise as to when he plans the live call-in segment taping

This week's episode bring an interview with Liana Lehua of Fittorrent.tv, a commentary, and another installment of Tech for Techies. Lehua's efforts at Podango include producing shows like The Apple Phone Show as well as contributing to the Girls Gone Geek podcast. She provides a unique perspective in this episode of how Web 2.0 tech can be used in today's world.

Related links:
Fittorrent.tv website
The coversheet for reaching the LISTen production team
Full details for contacting the LISTen production team
Link for donating to support LISTen production

Recognizing that Computers in Libraries 2008 just ended, this episode of LISTen brings a little lighter fare. The production engineer brings a new installment of Tech for Techies with a subject of showmanship. Two musical numbers by the Breakneck All-stars are presented. The episode finishes off with an audio essay entitled, "Define 'Anglosphere'."

A live segment recording session is planned for the morning of April 19th at 10 AM Eastern Daylight Time. A time zone converter is available online to help determine what the time is where you are for participating. Further details will be posted later in the week.

Donations to support LISTen are appreciated. Goods are available for purchase through Lulu to support podcast production. A recent blog post by the show's writer/presenter helps explain some of the behind-the-scenes matters in producing the podcast.

This week's episode was an attempt at recording live with a chance for listener participants. Some times it helps, though, to remember to actually hit record on the audio recorder even if the live stream itself is recording. The recording of both takes can be found at: http://lisnews.org/node/29852. This week's episode was a live discussion of bridging the digital divide from the perspective of the United States.

The episode served as a test for libraries who wanted to see how such technology could be utilized without investing a ton of money. While not easy, this might provide a practical example for consideration.

To donate support funds in a one-off manner, clicking the relevant link below will take you to PayPal where all you need is a credit card:

US

Canada

New Zealand

UK

To spread out support over a three month period, the links below may help:

US

Canada

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EU

For those interested in supporting LISTen and getting a physical item out of the deal, the online web outlet has new items being added over time.

This week's episode, while having somewhat of an AM radio feel due to the compression happening, brings an interesting mix. Interviews with librarians K. G. Schneider and Kathryn Greenhill are included in the episode. A commentary about Twitter comes in near the end with a unique suggestion that perhaps OCLC should buy Twitter out. Even though posted slightly late, this Memorial Day weekend edition of LISTen has plenty packed inside.

Related links:

Blog of K. G. Schneider
Blog of Kathryn Greenhill
Australian Library and Information Association website for Library and Information Week
Blog post about Twitter systems failure
Post by Ariel Waldman referenced in the commentary

This week's episode talks about television, Usenet News, and online video-sharing.

The audio file contains a special message relative to the podcast this week.

Interviews!

Yes, there are interviews this week. We rarely are able to fit in three but we did this week. First up was author David Michael Slater who discussed his writing career. Following Slater was the CEO of search engine Mahalo, Jason Calacanis. Calacanis talked about his company as well as the search engine field. Rounding out our session of interviews was Tim Darlington, Digital Services Manager at the library of Massey University. Darlington spoke about Massey University being the first of the academic institutions in New Zealand to have its library adopt a discovery layer such as Encore from Innovative Interfaces.

The close to the podcast notes that further answers to the question about choosing librarianship are no being sought. The answers received will be presented by the program's engineer next week. The new question posed was: "Why do you stick with Twitter?" Replies are needed by 0700 UTC on Sunday, August 10, 2008. Folks outside the United States wishing to provide an MP3 recorded answer can use the drop.io powered tool below:

Folks within the United States can also use that tool in addition to being able to call 646-495-9201 and entering when prompted extension 61340. Materials can also be sent as an attachment via e-mail to erielookingproductions@drop.io. A link to Blake's post about how the process of replying to the question is shown below.

Referenced links:
Blake's HOWTO
Mahalo, the human-powered search engine
The personal website of Jason Calacanis
The new Encore interface to the catalog at Massey University
A sampling of books by David Michael Slater shown in Worldcat.org
Website of David Michael Slater

This week's episode brings a mix bound by the thread of "borders". The program this week brings an interview with Amy Kudwa, a spokesperson at the United States Department of Homeland Security, as well as a commentary looking at how history plays a role in the way we look at borders.

The engineer put forward a new question for folks to answer. That question is: "What is Web 2.0?" The deadline for answering either by leaving a voice mail or sending an MP3 file is 0700 UTC on August 24th. Talk To LISNews remains an audio project so while text-based replies are appreciated they are not likely to be read on-air.

Related links:
Fixed time converter showing local equivalents for the deadline
The Secretary of Homeland Security speaking to Wired

The thirty-third episode of LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast is unavoidably delayed due to circumstances beyond our control.

This week's episode brings a shorter than normal commentary as well as interviews from New Media Expo 2008. Interviews from the exhibit floor at New Media Expo 2008 will be aired this week and next. This week's thread was hardware while next week's is software and service providers.

Related links:
New Media Expo site
MXL Microphones
Shure
Mackie
Sony

This week's episode brings the remainder of coverage from New Media Expo 2008. Topics covered included service providers and software.

Related links:
Podcast Tune-up
VideoJug
Wizzard Media
Seesmic

Considering the hurricane situation in the Gulf of Mexico as well as the normal slow-down to news at this time, this week's episode has no interviews to it. A new installment of Tech for Techies is presented relative to interviewing for podcasts and gives some advice for librarians and teacher-librarians who may be involved in such. The program's engineer presented a brief bit about BlogWorldExpo 2008 (e-mail about that can be sent too). A commentary is also presented.

If you want to learn more about the situation with Hurricane Gustav, you can add this URL to your podcatcher to receive audio reports directly from the National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/audio/index_podcast.xml. As of the time of posting, updates were being issued regularly by the National Hurricane Center. An expanded listing of resource links can be found at LISNews here.

As an experiment in light of recent discussion, a transcript of this episode is available for purchase. The options exist to secure copies in either print form or electronic form. Pricing was intentionally kept on par, to the extent possible, with that asked by programs hosted by Oprah and Dr. Phil. This is a test to see if there is sufficient interest to back future transcript efforts as such involves diverting time and resources from other efforts.

This week's episode features an interview with new media strategist Tommy Vallier talking about Google Chrome, an installment of Tech for Techies discussing how to build a telephone bridge for recording interviews, and a commentary.

Related links:
Website of Tommy Vallier
Twitter stream of Tommy Vallier
Google Chrome

This week's episode brings an interview with Jessamyn West as well as a commentary by the program's audio engineer under the heading of "Patron Perspective".

Related links:

Jessamyn West's post: On Fact Checking and Sarah Palin and Book Banning
Jessamyn West's post: Sarah Palin, VP nominee
Worldcat.org holdings of the Piers Anthony book cited in the commentary
BlogWorldExpo site
Post by Blake about BlogWorldExpo
Post by Stephen about BlogWorldExpo

This week the production team had the opportunity to visit BlogWorldExpo. The event was packed with vendors showing off tools and products to help bloggers produce even more effective content. With the rise of Library 2.0 and the growth in the use of blogs as well as other social media tools, much of what was on display was quite relevant for librarians. Interviews included in this episode involved chats with representatives of: PodBoxx TV blogtalkradio Pajamas Media Photrade PicApp Sony Pro Audio Since we have so many interviews we are dividing such up. Special episodes will be released on LISNews on Tuesday and, if necessary, Thursday. Keep an eye on LISNews for additional episode posts. Our goal is to keep the episodes around thirty minutes in length and we have still more to share.

Related links:
Website of Edward B. Driscoll, Jr.
Piece by Rick Moran of Pajamas Media on BlogWorldExpo
Flickr photos tagged from this event

This week the production team had the opportunity to visit BlogWorldExpo. Many vendors there will not be at Internet Librarian to exhibit and had not ever heard of its existence prior. Interviews included in this episode involved chats with representatives of: Mindtouch Sodahead CrowdScience Precisenews ClipSyndicate PRWeb CoolConferenceLive disqus CoComment Server Beach The final part to our BlogWorldExpo coverage will be released Thursday night Pacific time. That part will be different as some of the extended interviews will be aired. The list of speakers will appear deceptively short but there will still be plenty to listen to.

Related links:
The first part to LISTen's coverage of this event

Wrapping up this week's coverage of BlogWorldExpo 2008, the program's engineer edited down the interviews. Interviews included in this episode involved chats with: Six Apart Lisa Bettany Southwest Airlines Woopra

Related links:
The first part of BlogWorldExpo coverage
The second part of BlogWorldExpo coverage

This episode breaks away from the usual mold. With so many events coming up, the team put together a bit of a calendar of upcoming events. The next few weeks may be busy in areas that impact the IT infrastructure of libraries. There also seems to be quite a few elections coming up that might be of interest.

Following the calendar review there is an interview with Library Journal Editor-in-Chief Francine Fialkoff. In the interview the matter of the Annoyed Librarian was discussed as well as changes in the media landscape. Following the interview a commentary is presented in the matter. At the close of the commentary a unique proposal for change to LIS education curricula is pitched.

Wrapping up the episode was the review of stories you might have missed. Also included in the wrap-up was an apology to the person who uploaded an MP3 file to the team that was corrupted and otherwise unrecoverable.

Related links:
New blog home of the Annoyed Librarian
Annoyed Librarian via RSS
Profile page for Ramesh Ponnuru at Washington Post's site
OpenOffice.org version 3.0 (Release Candidate #4)
OpenOffice.org Launch Party Announcement

This week's episode brings an interview cross continents about censorship. The censorship case happens to be happening in Australia. An anti-censorship activist, Michael Meloni, was interviewed about the matter as inquiries to the Australian government department concerned went unanswered. Electronic Frontiers Australia has presented online a background review of the issue.

A book also received a brief review.

Technical troubles didn't censor the podcast this week. This week's episode brings a chat with Blake, a chat with an artist about the business of art, and a commentary.

Although we have had video releases accompanying audio releases, such is delayed until a later day this week.

One could blame it on the holidays. One might blame it on the news being slow. In the end, this episode is a brief one. Computer complications delayed the post to where it could not post on-time either.

The episode begins with a recap of the top ten stories of the past week at LISNews. Following that the sixteenth installment of Tech for Techies is presented discussing some recent remarks by the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Homeland Security as they might relate to libraries. A review of openSUSE 11.1, which is available for purchase as well as download, is then given. Wrapping up the episode included a note that a Christmas special may or may not happen. Decisions have not been taken yet on that.

There will be an episode released at the usual time on December 29th. It should be remembered that CNET as well as the TWiT Network will not have podcasts coming out at that time with current coverage as they are on holiday breaks. A LISTen special for New Year's Eve is under discussion as to its specifics. Further details will be announced once they are available.