RA FOR ALL...THE ROAD SHOW!

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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

RA for All Guest Post: A Panoply of Podcasts

Today I have the first of two guest posts by Jenny Reid. Jenny is the community engagement librarian and a proud member of the R.U.C.K.U.S. committee, which stands for Readers Using Common Knowledge for Ultimate Service, at the Indian Trails Public Library in Wheeling, Illinois.

Today Jenny contributed a post about podcasts and how to help patrons discover them. Podcast Advisory?!?! Tomorrow she will be featuring the aforementioned R.U.C.K.U.S

Here’s Jenny....

A Panoply of Podcasts
by Jenny Reid

I have recently discovered the wonderful world of podcasts and never want to go back! I listen to them in both my personal and professional life and have found them to be immensely useful for learning more about readers’ advisory and the library profession in general. I wanted to take this guest blog post as an opportunity, therefore, to briefly discuss how to listen to podcasts with a goal of upping your readers' advisory skills. They’re also fun to suggest to patrons, so if you have a couple ready at your disposal, you can start sharing the podcast love with your community as well.

With that in mind, here are a couple types of podcasts that I like to listen to as well as ones I've been wanting to check out.

​Look for podcasts . . .  


By your favorite authors! 
It's a great way to connect with authors in addition to reading their books. One that I really enjoy is Happier with Gretchen Rubin. I’ve read all of her books about happiness, and now happily listen to her and her sister share advice for a more content life on a weekly basis (sometimes more, when I binge-listen to archived episodes!).





About your favorite tv show! 
Who doesn’t want to continue a tv show obsession off screen? For those of you looking for more ways to geek out about your favorite series, you should definitely try the podcast route. For example, one of my coworkers recently recommended a new podcast called The West Wing Weekly. Joshua Malina (Will Bailey on the show) and Hrishikesh Hirway (a composer and known podcaster) co-host this weekly podcast, during which time they discuss one episode of The West Wing. They hope to have other former castmates on the show in the future, and my coworker is currently eating it up.

To ​learn about a specific genre.
One that I have been listening to lately to improve my romance readers' advisory skills is ​D​ear ​Bitches, S​mart ​Authors, which is part of the blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I’ve learned a lot not only about current romance authors but also about gender, sexuality, and sensuality. The ladies who host this blog and corresponding podcast really do abide by their taglines of ​”all of the romance, none of the bullshit” and “where we talk about romance novels and cause all sorts of trouble.”


About the ​library ​profession in general.
Podcasts about librarianship are a great way to learn the ropes outside of your library’s four walls and to hear about the work being done not only in other libraries within your sector but in different areas as well (in my case, learning about what’s new in academic and special libraries). A great podcast to check out for all things library is Circulating ​I​deas​. I’ve listened to several episodes and learned very useful information about networking and learning opportunities, such as the Library OnConference, and the inner workings of the American Library Association. Additionally, their Circulating Ideas website also has a nice list of Podcasts ​of Interest​. Now that I am totally hooked on this media, I already see other podcasts from here that I’d like to try, such as Beyond the Stacks and Cardigan Rippers.

That’s a wrap for my brief, introductory list of different podcast types for your listening needs. Now, I’d be interested to hear about the podcasts you rave about to your co-workers, friends, and family. Feel free to comment below and put your podcast readers’ advisory skills to work!

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