Academia and Podcasts 2

I sent Rich Edwards an email asking how his presentations on podcasts have been received by his peers. Where I have been looking at podcasts only, Rich is looking at the broader issue of new media authorship, of which podcasts are a part along with blogs and wikis.

He sent the following response.

Hope you had a nice Labor Day Weekend. I wanted to respond to your last email. Yes, you can repost my comments at your blog, and if you don't mind, I am thinking about starting this as a blog comment at MediaCommons as well where we are talking about issues related to peer review and new media authorship, and the role of libraries is quite central to that discussion as well I think.

The response to our presentations has been overwhelming positive, but then in practice, we run up against more conservative tenure and promotion review policies. Also, I gave a presentation last year at a regional New Media Consortium conference where I discussed what makes scholarship scholarship, and I made the following four points:

1. contributed to collective knowledge
2. peer reviewed
3. filtered and organized
4. preserved and archived

I feel all four conditions must be met for new media work (such as a podcast) to achieve an equal footing with peer-reviewed articles, since journal articles are able to achieve points #3 and #4 easily due to existing pipelines, standards and scholarly apparati (such as research indices). A podcast has trouble being taken serious as scholarship if it doesn't go through the same filtering and preservation steps as journal articles and yet no new mechanisms have really appeared that tackle those two areas in my opinion. Professional organizations and academic communities have some responsibility to adapt to the challenges created by these new forms of scholarship. Digital repositories like Merlot ( merlot.org) help get us to points #1 and #2, but I have always felt librarians and libraries are critical for #3 and #4.

As you can see, this is a topic I am very interested in, so if you want to continue the dialogue, I am happy to do so.

Libraries are concerned with all four of Rich's points. One of our jobs as librarians is to guide researchers to appropriate scholarly materials and certainly peer reviewed sources are preferred. Database vendors such as CSA and the Thomson Gale academic OneFile feature access to peer reviewed content. These are all geared to print materials. Rich mentions merlot.org which is a start but not in the league of the indexes that libraries feature. To be really accessible these new media scholarly materials are going to have to appear in the major indexes that are the lifeblood of library research.

Institutional repositories using tools such as Fedora from the University of Virginia combined with interfaces like VTLS' VITAL are make it technically practical for libraries to organize, preserve, and archive new media scholarly materials along with print. Budget is a matter for another discussion.

Librarians at my library are not tenured and do not have a publishing requirement so I tend to put the problem of acceptance of new media authorship within academia as outside our scope. Blogs such as MediaCommons are addressing this subject. I've just added another item to my to-do list to check with my colleagues who are on tenure track to see if their institutions are giving consideration to new media scholarly authorship. Certainly blogs have become a major means of professional communication in our profession.

The challenge is accomplish several dependent tasks:

• collect and organize the products of new media authorship
• get them indexed and included in citation indexes as well as the major databases to which libraries subscribe
• get them accepted by academic departments as scholarly contributions

What I have written is mostly ruminations on my part at this time. I'm just getting started looking into the issue of media authorship in academia so these are my "take off" points. Our media production center has quickly become a vital campus resource and one of our students used its resources to produce a film as her honors thesis. Another of my "take off" points is that if these students start moving into academia we will see a broader definition of what constitutes scholarly authorship.

Academia and Podcasts 1

I started this blog - both as a librarian and an dedicated user of libraries - because of my interest in podcasts and belief that podcasts can be used in library collection development and readers' advisory services.

As a reader, the mystery (including crime, detective, and police procedural stories) is one of my favorite genres and when I was given an iPod as a birthday present I started looking for podcasts that furthered that interest. I was pleased to find Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir because it combines my enjoyment of film and noir/hardboiled fiction. Genre terms are tricky to describe and the Wikipedia articles on film noir and noir fiction provide a good overview.

I emailed Richard Edwards and Shannon Clute asking if they would consider allowing libraries to use Out of the Past to supplement the collection. I envisioned that a library could bundle a video of a film with an Out of the Past podcast discussing that film.

Rich Edwards' response opened an aspect of podcasts that I hadn't considered, that podcasting "would force re-considerations of how academic work is produced and circulated." Also, should libraries have a role in preserving podcasts. Rich gave me permission to include his email response.

I love the issue you raise, since it is something that Shannon and I have been discussing this topic since we launched the podcast. We have always considered our podcast as a "serialized academic audiobook," and have given presentations on the topic at both our schools and at national conferences. We recognized that as podcasting grew--especially among academics--it would force re-considerations of how academic work is produced and circulated. In terms of producing new work, the topic that gets the most interest is the role of peer review. But in terms of the circulation of knowledge, which I think has garnered much less of the critical discussion, you have problems arising from publishing in Web 2.0 forms. And one of the central issues is the role of libraries in the disseminating and archiving of academic work.

This is a topic that interests me because you can argue that unless libraries get involved with archiving (and indexing!) Web 2.0 work, a lot of contemporary academic discourse will be lost. You will have work produced and disseminated for a period of time, but then once a website, or a podcast, or a video, or a blog, goes offline, it will be difficult for future scholars, teachers, and students to access that material (if access is even possible). Moreover, while libraries have traditionally had the responsibility for keeping or archiving academic work, another very critical function is the role of libraries as indexes and information services. It can be hard to get academic recognition for a podcast if it doesn't show up in the same scholarly indices as peer-reviewed journals. How are future scholars supposed to build upon this work if they can't even find it in routine database searches in libraries? I argued in a conference presentation last year that more than peer review, more attention should be focused on how we are going to index some of these new forms of digital discourse and include libraries and information specialists in that conversation. Right now, absent a move by libraries, Google (and other search engine entities) function as defacto librarians, and that is not a good situation in my opinion.

Regarding our podcasts in particular, I have always intended to brand our podcasts with the "Creative Commons" label so that individuals felt free to use them. Shannon and I have never spoken in particular which restrictions we would place on the re-use of our podcasts (if any), but we both feel it would be fine to archive them on CD in a library for patrons to use. We did create them as an audiobook and as an original act of scholarship, so if it ends up being housed in your library, please let us know so we can use that as part of our defense of the podcasts as scholarship.

-- email dated 9/4/2007 from Richard Edwards, PhD, Assistant Professor, New Media, IUPUI Co-host, Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir http://www.noircast.net

From noircast.net
Shannon Clute has a PhD in Romance Studies from Cornell. He currently a freelance writer with one mystery to his credit (The Mint Condition) and another in the works.

Richard Edwards is an Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at Indiana University's School of Informatics in the Division of New Media.

Lack of Posts

If anyone stumbles upon this blog and notes the lack of posts, please check back later. I had to leave town unexpectedly for two weeks. Posting will resume this week.

Science Fiction 1 - Escape Pod

Science Fiction is a popular print genre and you will find that many of the fiction podcasts are science fiction oriented. Horror and fantasy are also popular podcast themes but will be discussed separately.

escapepod.org is the premier, short story, speculative fiction, podcast and it has features that should make it attractive to libraries:

• High production values (voices of narrators, clarity of audio, etc)
  
• High quality stories
• Licensed under Creative Commons
• Stories are collected on CD
• Escape Pod Classic collects the stories that do not have mature or adult only content. This would be important to libraries because many of the stories will have great appeal to younger listeners, Squonk the Dragon for example.
  

You will find stories by well known science fiction or fantasy writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Mike Resnick, and David Brin. Many of the writers will be new to you which might prompt you to look for them in print.

The authors are paid for their contributions through donations.

The supporting website is well done. Stephen Eley gives a rating for the story with a description of the type of content. Here are a couple of examples of the ratings:

Rated G. Contains gender role stereotyping, but no strong sex, language or violence.

Rated G. It’s a children’s story about a dragon raised by a bluebird. Set content expectations accordingly.

Rated R. Contains strong themes of violence and terrorism, strong language, and some sexual content.

He provides a summary of the story as well as links to any web site mentioned in his commentary before and after the actual story. These show notes are a very nice feature that many podcasts provide. If you are driving down the road you don't want to be scrabbling for a pencil because Ely has just mentioned another podcast that sounds really interesting.

Escape Pod has spun off Pseudopod, a horror podcast and soon there will be a fantasy podcast as well.

I give Escape Pod an A+, five star recommendation. Any library looking to promote podcast fiction will be well served here.

Where to Look, Part One - Podiobooks.com

The is the first posting that will highlight sites that discuss and/or distribute podcasts. The podcasting community is very dynamic and you will need to identify sources that cover the latest podcast content.

Podiobooks.com is an excellent site with which to begin your search for podcast content. Their site is easy to navigate and the titles in their catalog may be browsed by category or in an alphabetical list. As of this instant, they have 142 titles with 3,048 episodes available. Fiction is the major form with science fiction, fantasy, horror, and crime the dominate sub-genres. Some nonfiction is available in categories such as business, history, spirituality, and travelogue. Most of the podcasts are for adults though there is a selection of titles for children and young adults.

I will be discussing specific authors and works in later posts. The titles I subscribe to are listed in the right column so you will have an idea of what is coming (and my listening preferences).

Most of the titles are covered under the Creative Commons Non-commercial, No-Derivative, Attribution license which means that they could be shared in a library. While these podcasts are free, donations are accepted and 75% of the donation goes to the author. The suggested donation is $9.99, which is a bargain considering book prices and I hope that a library featuring any of these titles will pony up.

The content and production values of the podcasts available here are excellent if not superb. Their authors are well represented in the Parsec Award which are presented for "both Sci-Fi & Fantasy Original Content, podiobooks and a variety of other categories dealing with the new frontiers of Portable Media."

Listening Librarian Wiki

My primary reason for starting this blog is because the subject interests me. I love reading and the wide range of content available in podcast form fascinates me. I want to connect the two.

The secondary reason is that looking at looking at technologies to deliver and promote library services is one of my jobs. Actually, it is a job for everyone but I work in Library IT and feel a particular responsibility. I thought it would be interesting to start integrating as many of the freely available social software/networking tools as I can around a common topic. What better to try this with than something in which I am interested. To that end I have started a wiki over at zoho.com. You can find it at The Listening Librarian's Wiki. I have added several pages to get started and the text needs to be fleshed out. I encourage visitors to edit the entries.

If you are not familiar with the Zoho suite of applications I recommend you check them out. They are free and rich in features.

A. F. Harrold

The Curious Education of Epitome Quirkstandard.

An Irregular Miscellany: A selection of essays and lectures from the Common University.

Both works are available from Podiobooks.com.

Right. I've gone on about about podcasts and how I believe they can be integrated into library collections. Let's look at two examples. I've picked particularly easy ones with which to start.

Many readers are fond of, if not addicted to, that peculiar sub-genre of literature known as British Humour. I don't know if the British use that term but I suppose not since it is only British from our perspective. Anyway, it is distinctive. To us. The British probably see it as rather commonplace.

A reader comes to the desk and says that he or she has read all of P.G. Wodehouse, several times, and can you recommend anything new along those lines? Yes you can. A. F. Harrold (pictured above) has produced two podcasts that will remind the reader of P. G. Wodehouse flavored with Douglas Adams, Jerome K. Jerome, and Monty Python.

I haven't found much about A. F. Harrold except that he was born in 1975 and is referred to as a performance poet. He competes in poetry slams and has a comedy rock band. He also "does things that aren’t quite normal on the stage and on the page and in the bath." Fans of Douglas Adams will doubtless remember that he did much of his work in the bath or took baths to avoid work. He, A.F. Harrold, has a website at www.afharrold.co.uk and a Myspace account.

Warning, spoiler alert - plot points will be described.

Epitome Nebulous Quirkstandard is a 26 year old, affable, and immensely ignorant aristocrat who finds himself without a staff as a result of the Great War. Epitome left university labeled "a dunce of fairly significant proportions." He was beaten out as the biggest dunce by Nigel Spiggot, a schnauzer and his great friend. Nigel is treated as an English gentleman by everyone. He finds himself unable to manage the "buttons, buckles, hoops, hooks, fasteners, lengths of elastic, and sleeves" required to dress himself and goes to his club dressed only in his hat and boots. At his club he finds the other members in similar states of undress. He observes the doorman instructing the young men in the art of self-dressing and is astounded to learn that there is practical knowledge to be gained.

The doorman refers Epitome to the pamphlet shop of Simone Crepuscular as a place where he would be able to educate himself in practical matters. Simone (a man in spite of the feminine name) is the author of many instructional pamphlets including the autobiographical series: What I did in India; The Behavior and habits of the mountain dwelling cattle, gorses, and monks of the Himalayas; and Things I did in an Outer Mongolian yurt. Other examples of his pamphlets are:

• Gravity: What it is, where comes from, goes to, and what colour it would be if you could see it
• How to make friends with influential people or be happy not doing so
• Fastenings of all descriptions and colourations
• The goodness of bread and other French cheeses
• The birds of Hyde Park and South East Iceland: A Spotters Guide.

The episodes switch between the present and the past of Epitome and Crepuscular. How Crepuscular came to own a pamphlet shop is a highly entertaining part of the episodes. For example, he was once married to a female pirate who was fast-tracked through pirate college after she lost a hand in a tavern fight over who had the biggest ship and subsequently acquired a prosthetic hand. Her hook was made by the Swiss Army and included many useful attachments.

Another major character is Epitome's aunt, Penelope Penultimate, a highly independent woman for the time, which is the 1920s. Penelope raised Epitome after his parents died.

The story has a decidedly non-Wodehousian climax involving,death, lesbianism, and accidental incest. The final episode in which Epitome meets the end he imagined his father suffered has a poignancy about it. Only the last two episodes have elements that might be objectionable to the humor impaired.

An Irregular Miscellany: A selection of essays and lectures from the Common University is not a sequel to The Curious Education... but has its origins there. Epitome uses Crepuscular's pamphlets as the basis for the Common University which is intended for those who can't afford it. Anyone showing up to a lecture who can afford a ticket is asked to remain in the lobby until the lecture is over then asked to help put up the chairs. Degrees and certificates are acquired by accumulating lecture tickets.

The episodes in this podcast are examples of the lectures offered in the Common University.

I found both The Curious Education.. and An Irregular Miscellany... to be original, well produced, and very, very funny - laugh out loud, snort a beverage through the nostrils funny. Any reader who enjoys both Wodehouse and Monty Python will enjoy these podcasts.