I have to admit to not knowing the strict differences between a podcast, vodcast, webcast etc. I’m thinking it’s not that big a deal! It appears that ‘podcast’ encompasses both sound and vision. Or as wikipedia puts it (click here):

“A podcast is a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.”

As part of the ‘More’ section in the new TRIP (launch early October) we’ll be adding podcasts alongside all our wiki material, clinical calculators and a number of other ‘bits and bobs’.

I approached the acquisition of podcast content with some nervousness as I rarely (or should that be never) use them myself, so lacked ‘appropriate’ experience. There are a number of sites out there giving pointers to podcasts (e.g. krafty librarian and UBC Health Library Wiki) and they have proved invaluable. I still feel that I have much to learn about the podcast ‘landscape’ but have been impressed with much of what I have seen. For the time being I appear to have exhausted the available** content and have 2215 podcasts ready for searching come the launch of the new TRIP. These 2215 are all clinical podcasts aimed at clinicians (as opposed to patients).

Findability is a concern with these podcasts, as, typically, the only available information is the title. I’m not sure how to get round that. But as mentioned above with time the experience will come and solutions will present themselves.

** When I say available, I mean content that I have been able to locate via the various podcast lists and also from various blogs I ‘frequent’. If the inclusion of podcasts proves popular I’m hoping people will send me links to other clinical podcasts.