This last winter, I introduced my future mother-in-law to the wonders of podcasts. “So I no longer have to stand outside on Saturday afternoons, holding the radio antenna up in the air to hear a scratchy version of This American Life?” she asked. Realizing she could now listen to most of the NPR catalog along with multitudes of podcasts on writing, she promptly subscribed to 40 feeds. I felt that same excitement when I discovered podcasts a couple of years ago. I commuted via BART and on foot 2 hours every day and needed something to do with my time. I enjoyed reading on BART, but found it a little difficult to read and walk. Once I got a taste of what podcasts were out there, my subscriptions exploded. I currently subscribe to around 75 podcasts. Thankfully, some of them update infrequently. Podcasts are great not only because they are free, but because they can be portable with an mp3 player. Now that my commute time has been whittled down to only 1 hour of walking each day, I have fallen a bit behind with my podcasts. Yet, I can still listen to podcasts when I fold the laundry, wash the dishes, clean up the house, and occasionally as I try to fall asleep at night.

Of the podcasts I subscribe to, many come from major media outlets like NPR, but others are individuals who are interested in a topic and have decided to broadcast their thoughts and ideas. I like having this mix of professional and amateur. A few of my favorite podcasts and video podcasts include: CRAFT, Cooks Illustrated, NYTimes Mark Bittman, Amateur Traveler, The Treatment, Good Food, All Songs Considered, Planet Money, Style.com, and of course, the Cool Tools series and SJSU SLIS Colloquia podcasts. I also love the variety of educational podcasts that are available–in particular, language learning courses. I’m afraid I have subscribed to podcasts teaching French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, Hindi, Catalan, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, German, and Danish (because you never know when you need to say “Get that donkey out of here!” in Danish). Yes, I have a problem. I guess this is my version of hoarding. Hopefully it will never expand beyond the podcast level.

But what I have been sorely lacking in my podcast subscriptions (outside of Cool Tools and SLIS Colloquia) are some good library related podcasts. This week, I decided to listen to a few:

• Booktalks Quick and Simple–this is a delightfully short and sweet podcast by a school librarian Nancy Keane, who gives brief synopsis and recommendations for recent childrens books.

• The Library of Congress: Music and the Brain series–the Library of Congress has released a series of podcasts that follow research in neuroscience and music. Because of the relatively long run-time of the podcasts, I have only been able to listen to one, The Music of Language, but I look forward to episodes such as “The Brain on Jazz” and “Dangerous Music“

• LibVibe–unfortunately, it looks as though the producer of this podcast has decided not to continue with new episodes. The last episode of LibVibe is dated June 3, 2008. Even so, this is a wonderful podcast full of library news published by a former radio broadcaster turned librarian. Consequently, the podcasts have a very professional feel and are a worthwhile listen for budding library podcasters.

• SFPL Word and Performance–This podcast, produced by the San Francisco Public Library, provides audio excerpts of author readings.  Most are between 5-10 minutes long, but there are some longer conversations (over 30 minutes) on the creative process.

Outside of this week, I have never used my RSS aggregator to subscribe to podcasts.  iTunes has been my podcast aggregator of choice (except for a brief affair with Miro).  Because I listen to most of my podcasts on the go, I don’t know that subscribing through Google Reader works best for me.  But I am happy to know that is another option to listen and subscribe to the podcasts I love.

Next up, becoming a podcast creator. Stay tuned….