I just had another thought while putting the finishing touches on my podcast article. Many OPAC vendors are talking about incorporating RSS feeds into the catalog as a sort of news update for patrons. RSS would allow users keep up to date on library offerings from their favorite author or on their favorite topic from any location without having to search the catalog. Users searching for Stephen King could subscribe and receive an automatic update in their feed reader whenever a new record entered the library catalog matched that search for Stephen King. So, the user would always know when another new Stephen King book was added to the collection. I think that is great from a user's perspective.

But wouldn't this be pretty cool too?
Currently podcasts are more like audio or video serial programs. Theoretically a library could catalog the main podcast like the New England Journal of Medicine's podcast, but the individual programs that are added weekly would not be in the catalog. Users would have no idea what individual program they might be interested in. What if OPAC vendor created a way for the library to create a main bib record for a podcast like the New England Journal of Medicine. Then using RSS feeds the catalog would update itself and add weekly program information as item records under the main bib record of the podcast. The user would have the benefit of searching for both the main podcast title and its subsequent programs. Users could then download the feeds from the catalog similar to the way they currently do through iTunes or Juice.

I am not a cataloger, so I am not sure exactly about whether this would work or not. But if it did I think it would be pretty cool to have an OPAC to function like this.