Podcasts - Turnin Pages (Secrets of the Shelves)

    My partner and I used a variety of tools to create our podcast including Zoom, Podbean, and Garageband. We wanted to record our own voices for this podcast, but we live pretty far away from each other, so we thought Zoom would be the best option. The great thing about Zoom is that after the meeting is recorded and it downloads, it downloads as a video and audio file separately. This was perfect in our case because I took the audio file only and edited in Garageband. I had never used Garageband before, but I have a Mac and it was easy to understand. I'm sure I could've done a better job if I had known more, but it was easy to cut out audio and add music where need be, and I would definitely recommend it to people with Macs. Lastly, I sent the finished file to my partner where she then took it and uploaded it to the Podbean platform, which provided the HTML, making it an ease to imbed here in the blog. 

    Out of all the platforms, Podbean was perfect for us for this specific assignment of creating one podcast. One of the benefits is the fact that it was completely free. The other one is that it is very user friendly and easy to get the hang of, which is especially nice when just beginning something like this in order to get a basic understanding. I think that if we continued our podcast or made it into a regular series, then a different platform should be used. The free version doesn't allow for many uploads and doesn't provide great statistics, which is needed for growing the show. There were better paid platforms available for relatively good costs. 

    One of the paid websites that stood out was RSS because they have a deal that allows students and teachers to subscribe for only $4.99 a month. This is a super budget friendly option that gives the subscriber all the benefits of a full plan. The other feature that I liked about this website was the fact that it will automatically upload podcasts to Spotify and Apple Music. Spotify is my preferred platform, but I know a lot of people also use Apple Music and having it set to automatic uploads allows for more ease with getting content out in a consistent manner. Consistently sharing information is a key factor in gaining followers and spreading information, so this feature is high on the priority list for me. 

    The last platform that I looked at was Captivate because it is a professional podcasting site. Though it is pricier at $17 per month for individual use and $44 a month for team use, I do think it was one of the better platforms when it comes to gathering data and learning how to grow a podcast. They have AI integrated into their website to help understand the statistics that it provides and then suggest the next steps in order to reach certain goals. Furthermore, for the $17 a month unlimited podcasts are allowed whereas on a lot of the basic plans of other platforms they set a limit. There are no free plans, but that's not necessarily a bad thing considering all that is included.

    All in all, which platform should be used is determined by the need. Learning how to get started is great on Podbean because it's so simple, but growing in the longterm might be difficult. Captivate has all the cool gadgets, but is for the very serious podcaster. RSS might be the best for librarian and school purposes as it is budget friendly and has features that easily integrate the podcast with social media. 

    Podcasts in the library could engage patrons in a way that they might not have tried before. Podcasts are continuing to grow in popularity, so staying on trend and not being afraid to try delivering information in new ways could keep the library relevant. This could also work on building the school and library community. Having students speak their reviews or have them act as "guests" on the podcast could be a fun way to promote books. They could also write in questions and then have an episode where the librarians answers those questions and explains things about the library. Podcast episodes could even be used year to year that way information can continue to grow instead of being repeated. Finding time to dedicate to creating episodes might be challenging, but in the end worth it in order to help the library and the students.

Check out the podcast below! Turnin' Pages brings you the episode: Secrets of the Shelves where we talk about strange and crazy things that can be found in various library archives and why they're important for us to keep and learn from, no matter how weird.

References:

Free podcast hosting and monetizing platform. podbean. (n.d.). https://www.podbean.com/

Garcia, J. (2022, March 16). Best podcast hosting: 13 free and paid platforms tested and compared. Tooltester. https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/podcast-hosting/

James Walker 16 May 2023, Steven Webb 16 May 2023, Juliette DARGAND 16 May 2023, Seth Creekmore 22 November 2022, cairp dream team 12 October 2022, Sarah M 14 September 2022, Andrew Ware 18 August 2022, Bree Carlile 4 April 2022, Victoria Bennion 14 February 2022, Jenn | Virtual Summit Search 3 February 2022, & Dodd, B. (2025, February 1). Unlimited podcast hosting • best podcast platform • captivate.fm. Captivate Unlimited Podcast Hosting & Analytics. https://www.captivate.fm/?ref=ywzknwf&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_Yq-BhC9ARIsAA6fbAgsAbeJobeU30-Zs0w9uWvPGxw19jTxpzsGCBalgAXJOzC64v3ejpoaAi-zEALw_wcB

Podcast hosting made easy - start a podcast today. RSS.com. (n.d.). https://rss.com/