David H. Rothman writes “For some months, the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center has been experimenting with audio chatcasts on books.
Now here’s a brave twist–the posting of informal notes from chatcast moderator Tom Peters for the program on My Antonia starting at 7 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, September 21. They’re just that–his reading notes, nothing more. I pestered Tom at the last minute to let me put the Word document online. More and more reporters are sharing meeting notes and other once-private material with colleagues and maybe in a few cases with the public. Should librarians follow the reporters’ example? That’s what Tom has just done.
David H. Rothman writes “For some months, the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center has been experimenting with audio chatcasts on books.
Now here’s a brave twist–the posting of informal notes from chatcast moderator Tom Peters for the program on My Antonia starting at 7 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, September 21. They’re just that–his reading notes, nothing more. I pestered Tom at the last minute to let me put the Word document online. More and more reporters are sharing meeting notes and other once-private material with colleagues and maybe in a few cases with the public. Should librarians follow the reporters’ example? That’s what Tom has just done.
Along the way, you’ll appreciate the careful thought that Tom, a veteran academic librarian who was dean of libraries at Western Illinois University, devoted to his preparation for the program. Perhaps other public, academic and special librarians can systematically build on his Antonia notes. Open-source reading notes? The start of wikis, perhaps–with more content and refinements to come from other librarians?
In fact, consider another wrinkle. Librarians possibly could originate book-oriented wikis and let patrons–either everyone or those with a demonstrated interest in the books–work with them on improvements. A new kind of book club? Perhaps combined with audio chatcasts for the writer-editors and the public at large? Here’s to the gods of interactivity! And the cause of engaging patrons and strenthening their ties with libraries! Needless to say, official versions of the wikis, fact-checked and edited by librarians, perhaps even with names and qualifications listed, could exist alongside the ever-evolving ones. Hmm. Maybe librarians could work on this concept with K-12 folks and help lit classes and others create their own wikis, which in turn could be fodder for library wikis. Moreover, collaborations could exist between public and academic librarians to create extra-authoritative wikis that were accessible to ordinary patrons and included grassroots insights but took advantage of the academics’ specialization.
Meanwhile, for more on Tom’s chatcast scheduled for Tuesday night, see details in David Faucheux’s Blind Chance Blog. You’ll find easy log-on instructions in an article we’re reproducing from a local Nebraska paper, the Hastings Tribune, which ran the news story over the weekend. Tonight’s program even includes graduate-student experts on Willa Cather from the University of Nebraka-Lincoln, which the novelist attended.
While Tom’s “Meting of the Minds” chatcasts (“Meting” as in to “mete out”) are primarily for the blind and other print-challenged people, everyone is welcome to log on.”
Additional thoughts
1. Tom himself believes very much in interactivity–including the ability of readers to add annotations about individual books.
2. The new twists mentioned in my above posting would be (1) the systematic sharing of librarians’ own reading notes as starters for other librarians and readers, (2) the addition of the wiki approach, and (3) the mix at times of the wikis with audio chat
3. I’d welcome knowing of real-life situations of wikis in use for the study of individual books. I’m at [email protected].
Passing notes
Heck, I thought librarians already shared notes back and forth about books and the like. After all, why do you think so damn many of us have blogs? If I could figure an easy way to put everything I write down in my “journal” on the web, I would. I use quotes around journal because I don’t really write about my feelings or what happened to me during my day and how I felt about it. I write stuff like reading lists, potentially good books, hot movers, lists of stuff that would work on a website, worthwhile authors, and things that, even without context might be useful to a librarian. After all, if someone noticed something, and bothered to take time and energy to write it down, it might be useful to someone else.
I suppose I could make it a PDF, but jeez, two or three pages per night plus upload, plus server space, etc. That’s not exactly “easy.” Neither is trasncribing it all since I use lines and arrows and diagrams to connect stuff together.
Thanks to CBS News and Dan Rather’s circus-like display of journalistic integrity, I think it’s going to become even more important for journalists to share notes in the future. As librarians, all of us know that information is only as good as its source and the authority backing that source. Millions perceive the talking heads on TV as good sources of information without asking “Hey, wait a sec. Where did that talking head get his information from?” Now it may be more prudent to share. Names need not be mentioned all the time, but if a source was a paid informant, that’s different than an anonymous source in the White House.
Anyone try it?
I had really wanted to check it out, as I’m working with David and Tom on a project, but couldn’t connect to the server. Tried turning off firewalls and such, but no luck. Please post here or email me if you tried and couldn’t participate in the chatcast. rochelle at lisnews dot org
Re:Anyone try it?
Thanks, Rochelle. Sorry about the technical difficulties. I’ve let Tom know.
Tom and the Cather people did a great job. Recording is online at http://www.opal-online.org/MyAntonia.wma .
People who want to put on an email list for news of future chatcasts can email Tom at [email protected]. – David