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I think the pastime of chatting or candidly talking to people about anything or nothing is fading away. People don’t even want to leave voice messages anymore, let alone talk. We keep a distance from each other because we can. It’s odd and sad. Because just by talking to each other, we can put all the aspects and challenges and joys and horrors of life into perspective, even if that is not what we are talking about. It’s relieving, comfortable, and enjoyable.

-Marc Maron

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Earworms

for Bookworms

Podcasting

in the library

Prepared for Adult Reading Round Table, August 2019

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Hello!

WE ARE

Web Services

Charlie Crane

Tony Hahn

�Readers Services

Jami Lin

Joel Sawyer

Dave Steinke

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Part I - Lecture from panel

Part II - Round table Q & A

Learning objectives

What you need to start a podcast
How to develop your show
Practical production advice

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Our Podcast

Miner Recs Podcast

(formerly Pint & Click Podcast)

A roundtable review and discussion of recommended media from the Des Plaines Public Library.

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WHAT IS A PODCAST?
PURCHASE EQUIPMENT
CHOOSE A FORMAT
THE RECORDING SESSION
EDITING TOPICS
HOSTING AND DISTRIBUTING

Part I - Contents

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WHAT IS A PODCAST?

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What is a podcast?

Episodic
Audio files (or video)
Subscription
RSS
Hosting
Podcast Directories
Podcatchers

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Why do a podcast?

A new way to reach patrons
Give the library personality
On-the-go
Community conversation
What’s your interest? Talk about it!

Readers’ advisory
Local history preservation
Movies, games, comics

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PURCHASE EQUIPMENT

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Purchase Equipment: Pint & Click Podcast (Des Plaines)

Zoom H6 recorder
Shure SM58 microphones
Sennheiser HD202 headsets
5-way headphone audio splitter
Pop filters
Tabletop mic stands
XLR cables
Adobe Audition software�

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CHOOSE A FORMAT

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Choose a Format

Who is your audience? What do you care about?

Format�How many hosts?�Interviews? Roundtable? Documentary? Different segments?�How frequently?�

JAMI: Things to consider if you’re thinking about starting your podcast. Who is actually going listen to it? Who is your audience? This is very important to think about before you start tailoring your content and your format. Is your audience the patrons who come to library programs? Is it community members who may or may not already use the library? Is it book or movie or music lovers everywhere? It’s also helpful to do research to see what else is already out there. If there are fifty other podcasts doing the same thing, it might be hard to carve an audience. What makes your podcast unique? It’s okay if you don’t know all the answers to these questions right away, and it will change as you actually start creating. It’s important to think about how many hosts you want on the show (and this can vary a little show to show, but it’s helpful to have consistency). Do you want to have the same staff on every show, or do they rotate? Are you going to interview guests? Is it going to be roundtable format, or documentary or news style? Are you going to have one segment--one topic--or multiple? How frequently will you have it? All of these depend on the specific needs and interests of the staffers hosting the show, as well as the needs of the audience.

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Miner Recs Podcast Format

Four regular hosts with occasional appearances by other staff)
Roundtable-style
One themed segment (ties loosely into library materials or resources)
Monthly (formerly bimonthly)�

JAMI: For example, this is the format of our show, Miner Recs. It has changed a lot over the past three years, as you’ll see later. We have four hosts, which means we have a lot of perspectives, but isn’t overwhelming. Also, we only have four mic inputs, so this is our max right now. So a lot of the questions of format will be led by your limitations on the logistical side--also things like how many hours can staff use for this project? Are the powers that be okay with different departments participating? We’re lucky that our library is accommodating, and we’ve had people from all over participate, but the four main hosts are Readers’ Services and Web Services.

We now do a roundtable style, which works best for us--but that wasn’t what we initially started with. It was what we figured out worked best. We have one main segment per episode (which last around half an hour to forty minutes). And we do it monthly. We dedicate one Tuesday per month. We used to record twice a month, and then last year, we recorded two episodes back to back, but doing one episode per month is more sustainable for us. It took us a lot of time to watch or read all those things, since that was in our own time. Plus we have all our other programs, etc. So after three years, this is our format.

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Evolution of Our Format / Finding Our Niche

Recent episodes

Early episodes

Trying out different styles and formats

#60: Spider-Man�#58: Kindred by Octavia Butler�#56: Cooking/food potluck�#53: Academy Awards�#51: Stan Lee

#1: Apps (Individual)�#3: Part 1-Rocket League, Mr. Splitfoot, The Revenant (Individual) �Part 2-The Martian (Group)�#5: Wrestlemania (Viewing Party)�#14: Meta: The Garden of Forking Paths, Breakfast of Champions, American Movie, Part II: House of Leaves (Group)

Strong new movie/TV focus, sci-fi and fantasy
We all discuss the same topic or theme (conflict of opinion!)

We started off more tech-based, as we were an outgrowth of our Pint & Click meetup group. But we began doing more and more recent movies and TV shows, since that’s what we’re interested in. You’ll have the most engaged, interesting conversations if the hosts are invested in some level. We don’t all love the books we read or the movies we watch, but those can be the most interesting discussions--when some people hate it and some people love it. We had one on things we hated and it was really fun. Originally we had each of us bring one thing to the table and we would take turns. Often, the rest of us weren’t knowledgeable about each other’s choices, so each of us would talk about our thing, and the other people would ask questions. But there weren’t as many sparks in the discussion--it was more like one person teaching the rest of us. We also sometimes had special themed episodes where we all would talk about the same movie or book, and we discovered that those discussions were often more dynamic, as we all then had knowledge of the same topic. It was interesting to see different people’s perspectives. We could disagree! Having all our opinions mesh or come into conflict led into more dynamic discussions for us, so that’s something to think about when you decide about how you’ll shape your discussions. That’s another piece of advice--pick something that you as hosts care about. You don’t have to all love it (hating is really interesting) but it’s like book discussions. The worst discussions are when people just don’t really care, or they’re like “yeah, I liked it” but have no opinions. We also try to keep our tangents relevant to the topic--so we’re not veering too much off course. Tony brought this up, and I agree--we’ve listened to several podcasts that veer way off course to something totally unrelated. If your podcast has a long, dedicated following that is interested in your personality, then you probably can get away with it, but otherwise it might try the listener’s patience. �

We gradually started doing that more and more and now most of our podcasts are talking about media we’ve all engaged with in some way or another. (So for Spider-man--we didn’t all see exactly the same movies or read the same comics, but it was all related,versus talking about four different video games.) You can see some examples--our early episodes were kind of all over the place. Our current ones are more focused, but we don’t usually come to the table like “this is our podcast about new movies and TV! What fits with this?” it’s more that those are our interests, and afterwards, making this slide, i was like, oh, this is what our podcast is about. But we do this because we’re interested.

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Choose a format: Miner Recs Podcast

The format will evolve naturally over time
Figure out what works / what doesn’t work and adjust accordingly

Staff/time limitations
Changing interests�

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THE RECORDING SESSION

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Choose a format: Miner Recs Podcast

Intro (1-3 min)�

Theme music intro
Introduce guests and topic

Feature Discussion (20-30+ min)�

Off the cuff conversation (some notes)
Questions and answers
Episodes loosely organized into themes

Wrap Up (2-3 min)�

Re-state any titles
Connect to library materials
Theme music outro

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Recording Session: Miner Recs Podcast

A typical recording session

Prep sheet /w notes, questions, names
Structure and who’s going first
Record
Choose topics for next session

...then do it again in a month.

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Recording Session: Deerfield Public Library Podcast

Normal recording session:

Research & prep questions printed
Greet guest at front desk
Water
Test vocals & adjust
Record 30-45 min.
Save & upload
Picture
Swag Bag

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Recording Session: Cook Memorial Public Library Podcast

Sessions vary, generally:

Have your prep notes and questions
Make guests feel comfortable
Record

Remote Interview?

Check time zones!
Skype - built-in recording
Backup recording

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EDITING TOPICS

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Editing

Edit out ums, pauses, etc.
Remember to let speakers breathe!
Edit for content and flow/narrative

Check overall volume and sound
Fade in and out music cues�

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Place your screenshot here

(SLIDE CONTENT FROM DYLAN’S SLIDE)

FROM CHARLIE’S PODCASTING 101 CLASS:

Some people prefer their podcasts to be like a natural conversation and will keep any ums, ers, likes, you knows, coughs, throat clearings, farts in the final podcast. And there's definitely a charm to that, but I'm always of the mindset that people who are listening to your podcast, say, on a bus or a train, are doing it to alleviate boredom, so I try to keep things interesting and moving quickly.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - what software should you use to edit a podcast? There are plenty of options - Macs, for example, are usually preloaded with GarageBand, which has pretty much everything you need in one program. There are a few pieces of free software that work very well for audio editing, most notably Audacity, which I think works on Windows, Mac and Linux. But I am most comfortable working in Adobe Audition, which is a program in their Creative Suite, so you can try it out for a 7-day free trial, and then you can either subscribe to the program for $20 a month, or get access to it as part of the Creative Cloud, which can be subscribed to for $50 a month, although students and teachers can get a significant discount, and all the Creative Cloud programs (as well as GarageBand) are available on a Mac.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE AUDIO EDITING:

Speech patterns (you can get as deep into editing speech as you want, but remember - your speakers need to breathe sometimes!)

Crosstalk and room ambience - if multiple people are talking, it becomes a lot harder to edit just one speaker. Also, if you can hear the room ambience, like if you record in a room that's got a lot of reverb

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Editing

Edit out ums, pauses, etc.
Remember to let speakers breathe!
Edit for content and flow/narrative

Check overall volume and sound
Fade in and out music cues�

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Place your screenshot here

(SLIDE CONTENT FROM DYLAN’S SLIDE)

FROM CHARLIE’S PODCASTING 101 CLASS:

Some people prefer their podcasts to be like a natural conversation and will keep any ums, ers, likes, you knows, coughs, throat clearings, farts in the final podcast. And there's definitely a charm to that, but I'm always of the mindset that people who are listening to your podcast, say, on a bus or a train, are doing it to alleviate boredom, so I try to keep things interesting and moving quickly.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - what software should you use to edit a podcast? There are plenty of options - Macs, for example, are usually preloaded with GarageBand, which has pretty much everything you need in one program. There are a few pieces of free software that work very well for audio editing, most notably Audacity, which I think works on Windows, Mac and Linux. But I am most comfortable working in Adobe Audition, which is a program in their Creative Suite, so you can try it out for a 7-day free trial, and then you can either subscribe to the program for $20 a month, or get access to it as part of the Creative Cloud, which can be subscribed to for $50 a month, although students and teachers can get a significant discount, and all the Creative Cloud programs (as well as GarageBand) are available on a Mac.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE AUDIO EDITING:

Speech patterns (you can get as deep into editing speech as you want, but remember - your speakers need to breathe sometimes!)

Crosstalk and room ambience - if multiple people are talking, it becomes a lot harder to edit just one speaker. Also, if you can hear the room ambience, like if you record in a room that's got a lot of reverb

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Stay tuned for a sample

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HOSTING AND DISTRIBUTING

Libsyn, RSS and getting the show into podcast directories

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Hosting and Distributing

Get your podcast to the people!

Podcast hosting

Do your research!
Logo
RSS

Podcast directories
Promote!

Hosting: Podomatic / LibSyn / SoundCloud

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Round Table Q & A

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ROUND TABLE Q & A

1. Who gets to podcast?�

2. What ways do you measure growth or success?

3. What topics and guests get the most listeners?�

4. What is one thing you’ve learned from your show’s approach?

5. What kind of promotions have you done?

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Thank you!

ANY QUESTIONS?

Find us:

Des Plaines Public Library Charlie Crane, Tony Hahn, Jami Lin, Joel Sawyer, Dave Steinke,

Google Slides : http://bit.ly/arrt-dppl

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Resources

Lynda.com Courses

Creating a podcast logo

Producing Professional Podcasts

Garageband: Podcasting

Helpful Articles

Top 13 Podcast Hosting Sites in 2018

Best Podcast Directories 2018

Books

Out on the Wire by Jessica Abel (graphic novel)

Online Tools

Auphonic - automatic file converter and mastering tool ensures your episodes are at the correct loudness and applies final compression and filtering.

26 Resources for Royalty Free Podcast Music and Sound Effects

Thanks to Lindsay Barber-Peddycoart, Nate Gass, and Dylan Zavagno for their contributions to the ILA 2018 version of this presentation!