University lectures are now starting to become available in podcast form. According to the article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Lectures on the Go, universities around the United States (Duke, Purdue, American University, St. Mary's, etc.) are experimenting with offering podcasted lectures. Some professors are podcasting their actual class lectures, while others offer supplemenatry podcasts to support the lecture.

The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's School of Dentistry has been podcasting its lectures since January. The dental students tap into the lecture-hall sound system to record class sessions, and then they digitize the recordings and put them online. According to the Director of Dental Informatics, Lynn Johnson,"Over 80 percent of the school's 100 or so students say they listen to at least some of the coursecasts."

Unfortunately we libraries are behind yet again. According to the Chronicle article, "For years, students at Purdue who missed an important class headed off to the campus library, where up-to-date cassette recordings of more than 90 courses sat waiting to be checked out. But this fall, Purdue's podcasting project, called BoilerCast, is letting students skip the library: The project's Web site stores recordings made in about 70 different courses. Students can download the podcasts individually or subscribe to have a whole semester's worth of lectures automatically transferred to their portable MP3 players."

I went to Purdue library's course reserve area and I could not find any podcasts. Wouldn't it make sense that these podcasts would be listed in course reserves?! What are academic libraries doing? After all these podcasts are just like the course reserves that libraries collect. The only difference is that they are digital, but should that stop us!?

I honestly believe podcasts are the next wave in audio programs. The offer a ton of flexibility. Users can download them on their MP3 player, iPod, PDA, cell phone, and computer. People can listen to them in the car with the MP3 player/iPod, or they can download it to a CD and listen to it from from their CD player.

There are already some very good medical podcasts out there. Just look at my list or the list at Arizona Health Sciences Library. Additionally, I just discovered that Audio Digest features free MP3 downloads of 5 programs (PTSD as a Risk Factor for Medical Illness, Guiding Principles for Responding to an Emergency, Infectious Disease Issues, The Instant Management System, and Disaster Mental Health: Basic Clinical Principles).

Even though I am not in the academic side of things, I thought...Why wouldn't I want to add medical podcasts to my collection?!?! After all, the library subscribes to medical audio tapes and cds such as Audio Digest. Why am I limiting myself to one type of audio medium?

So I am gathering a list of medical podcasts to add to my collection. I would appreciate if anybody has any suggestions. I am looking at how I can easily add them to the catalog and feature them. I am also looking at promoting them as a new resource (like I would do with any new resource).

My question....What have other libraries done with podcasts? I would love to hear from other medical librarians, but I know I can learn from others like academic librarians, public librarias, special librarians, etc.