Production Log - END
Approximately 12 weeks, 3 (and ½) podcasts, several blog posts and copious-amounts-of-late-nights-filled-with-caffeinated-tea-drinking later, we’ve reached the end of term!!!!!
I certainly had one hell of a time working on this project – which admittedly there were a few times where things were getting a little too much to handle. But the experiences I’ve had during production of each podcast was so much more fun than I thought it would be; and given with the responses I’ve been getting so far from listeners, I do hope to continue working on this next term. (Though hopefully with a few of other people to help with to the whole process, rather than just by my lonesome.)
I’ve been fortunate though in not having to struggle too much with the whole recording and editing process. Due to my experiences working at the Western Radio station, I already knew how to go about doing that kind of stuff – so it was pretty easy for me to pick up the basics again. Otherwise, it would have taken a lot longer just to learn everything again.
Posting audio, on the other hand was a different story. Because there’s so many hosting platforms out there, it took a bit of time trying to hash out which one would be a suitable choice. And even then, there’s still a number of things that aren’t quite ideal with the current setup I’ve got for the podcast.
If there’s any overarching thing I’ve learned while working on this as a whole, it’s the fact that podcasting isn’t just about recording, editing, and posting it up online. If you want to do it well, and to try and guarantee that you have some kind of returning listener base – there are so many other parts out of the production process that you need to be aware of and engaged in while making each podcast.
The way I see it now is that there’re two major components to when creating a podcast series:
Podcast production – which encompasses creating the overall narrative/theme, developing the content for each episode (which may be divided into segments or not), recording the audio – then editing said audio, compiling additional content as a companion piece to each episode (optional), and finally creating a transcript of the episode (if time permitting)
Communication and Social Media Presence – this is where things start to pile up in terms of work; because there’s a ton of stuff that can fit under the umbrella of “Communications & Social Media” – which is something I did not account for when I first started working on this project back in September.
(And all that is just the stuff you need to worry about after the initial setup.)
Luckily for me, I’ve been rather fortunate in having several of my guests make posts via Twitter, Facebook and other websites about their appearances on the podcast – on their own volition. A large proportion of podcast listeners probably found about LIS Annex through word of mouth - and being a team of one, there was only some much I could do on the social media front without burning out completely. (Plus, there was also the issue of getting non-audio related posts out consistently over the course of the term…)
So I can definitely understand why Emily Burns and Lola Wong had opted to work together during the run of the Pocket Librarian. Having more people to manage different parts for this kind of project would definitely help with maintaining some kind of flow in the long run. It’s also very important to have some kind of contingency plan for training incoming people who’d be interested in doing something like this – which, unfortunately I didn’t have the time to get around and work it this term.
There’s a lot of things I wasn’t able to get to do for the podcast this term. Developing a succession plan for one, actually have transcripts for each podcast episode is another, having avenues of community engagement – and actually having a system to host the podcasts on the website instead of on SoundCloud would’ve been nice. Though of course, there’s a fair number of things I’ve been quite happy though – especially with the production quality I’ve managed pull off.
As laborious as audio editing can be, I actually had gotten used to doing rather efficiently. Of course, having a good recording setup certainly helped with elevating the amount of work that was needed – which for some reason, a number of librarians who are currently making podcasts don’t seem to realize the impact of not having a decent setup can do.
“T Is for Training”, run by Maurice Coleman from Harford County Public Library, certainly comes to mind – mainly because of the graininess of the audio quality. Which is unfortunate, because the conversations on leadership and management that they bring up during their discussions are hugely important since they talk about these things from a librarian’s perspective. That being said, not all librarian-made podcasts are that bad – and it does depend on the kind of narrative structure you’re trying to achieve.
Some of the ones I’d been trying to model LIS Annex on are Circulating Ideas – created Steve Thomas where takes the interview format with various prominent LIS professionals in the United States; and NYPL’s The Librarian Is In, hosted by two librarians from NYPL and which runs as an informal discussion on a wide variety of topics – such book talks, local events and the occasional guest interview. So a lot of what these podcasts does is what I hope LIS Annex could eventually become at some point in the future.
I think the most important thing that makes both of these podcasts popular is how the interests and enthusiasm of each host are conveyed through the audio. Because from a listener’s perspective, you tend to stay more invested in a podcast when you can hear the energy coming out from the voices. And keeping things informal and encouraging that kind off the cuff discussion reduces the stifleness that can sometimes happen in an interview.
I think the one thing I loved doing the most while working on this was the recording sessions. Mostly because – not only the easiest part, but you get to learn so much about the person sitting across from you; and for that 1 hour or so, you start to a rapport with the other people in the room. And – I personally like listening to people talk, especially when they’re talking about things interest them.
But the interviewer – that was definitely a learning experience for me. Something of which was a bit of a learning curve during the first time. But if you’re the one doing all the editing – as well as interviewing, then you tend real quickly where your areas of improvement are.
There’re so many things that still need to be done for this, despite the fact that the end of term has now come and gone. And frankly, I’ll probably keep working on blog posts, production documents, audio editing and the like, during the winter break.
But in my opinion, I think it’s certainly worth doing. Our program has so much untapped potential for this kind of media – and a lot more people who are interested in actually something like this. Heck, I’ve got a couple of people currently in the program who’ve asked me how they’d be able to get involved with this.
So despite this being the end for the term, this is definitely not the end of LIS Annex.
And before I go, I’ll let you in on a little secret.
I never thought that this would go as far as it did when I first came up with the idea of doing a podcast back in June. This has been a project of so much work – in a semester with ridiculous amounts of stuff for me; but for all the things that’ve happened during this term, I’d be thrilled to do it over again.
Til the next one,
- V.