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MuseumPods
A Museum Podcast Newsletter
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April 2006 - Vol 1, Issue 3
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In This Issue |
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Quick Links |
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Greetings! |
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- Museumpods now has a Museum Podcast Directory
- Museumpods has a Best Podcast Freeware page
- This newsletter now offers streaming audio of podcasts
- Visit Museumpods.com and complete an academic survey
Click to visit MuseumPods.com
All articles are submitted exclusively for the Museum Podcasting Newsletter. |
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By Jamie Alonzo, Coordinator of Education Special Projects,
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
The EVOLUTIONS After School Program (EVOking Learning
& Understanding Through Investigations Of the Natural Sciences), housed at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
opened its doors to students in the spring of 2005. Focused on science literacy, transferable skills and career and college
awareness, it targets middle and high school students in the New Haven, Connecticut, school system who are traditionally underrepresented
in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
This program was developed in response to research
that shows that, despite substantial growth in STEM- related careers in the United States, the inability to attract adequate
numbers of students to these careers is hampered by poor academic performance - both nationally and internationally - in mathematics
and science, and by the often misinformed perceptions students harbor regarding prospects for higher academic pursuits in
these areas. This is of particular concern for women and underrepresented minority groups, who are projected to be a majority
of the school-age population in the coming years.
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By Buster Ratliff, Operations Coordinator Panhandle-
Plains Historical Museum 2503 4th Ave. Unit 60967 Amarillo, TX 79015
Having a diversity of viewpoints in a podcast is extremely
important - at least it is to the Panhandle- Plains Historical Museum. For those that read my last article you know that we
view a podcast as a marketing tool. With a podcast, our goal is to reach a different audience than we traditionally seek.
That is all well and good but to achieve that, we have to have a viewpoint that will reach that new audience. The first step
in getting viewpoints is to look at who your target audience is. For us, the target audience is the group that would own an
iPod (I do not want to discriminate against any age group here); and they would traditionally be a part of Generation X, Y,
or whatever they are now labeled.
The easiest way to add to differing viewpoints was
to get participants that would fit those generations. For us that meant student workers (hey they are getting paid anyway
so why not use them?). With each exhibit we try to include the curator who set up the exhibit and mix in the student workers.
We like to do this because the curators have a definite theme to their exhibits and definite points they want to get across
but, by adding the student workers and therefore a younger voice, we get to see if the curator’s vision is acknowledged
by the student. The interactions between the curator and students on each podcast make each unique because no one truly knows
what the students will say. The air of uncertainty also reaches a high point with the curator’s responses.
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By Jill S. Stover, Undergraduate Services Librarian,
James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University (Photographs courtesy of VCU Libraries)
Can museums and libraries learn something from one
another about podcasting? The answer is, absolutely! As stewards of society’s cultural and intellectual heritage, museums
and libraries share common responsibilities and strategies for bringing people and collections together. Like museums, libraries
are also seizing upon the exciting potential of podcasting to bring added value to their services and to reach out to new
and existing patron bases.
Podcasting is one of a number of technologies considered
to be a part of the “Web 2.0” phenomenon such as blogging, tagging, wikis and social bookmarking to name a few.
Web 2.0 manifested itself in the library world in the form of “Library 2.0.” The exact meaning, significance and
relevance of Library 2.0 is a subject of great debate, but there is some consensus that it entails fostering greater interactivity
between patrons and librarians by making the physical and virtual aspects of the library more inviting and collaborative.
To this end, librarians apply Web 2.0 technologies like podcasting to a wide range of marketing, instruction and service purposes.
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Jim Olson, Coordinator of Technology, Davis Museum
and Cultural Center Wellesley College
jolson@wellesley.edu
Interview with artist Xu Bing
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Museum Podcasting Tem
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