The University of Alberta Library currently hosts and preserves 10 podcasts by students, staff, faculty, and alumni on our audiovisual digital curation platform Aviary. Some examples include series like Happiness Reflected: Creative Expressions, SSH: the Podcast, Better Than the Cure, Accessing Home, and Ski Like a Girl as well as several upcoming series set to be released later this year. We are able to not only archive audiovisual content with Aviary, but can host podcasts using an RSS feed along with their supporting media!
Aviary has tools to increase listener accessibility with helpful features such as transcripts or reference lists and external links. Using the RSS feed, podcasts can still be released to major distribution platforms such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts to maximize listenership. You also gain the added benefit of stable, long-term preservation of your podcast series and the use of permalinks to embed your work elsewhere or even link to in your CV.
Have a look at our Audio and Video Curation page on our library website.
Podcast Production
The Library has spaces to help you create your podcasts, such as the media studios in the Digital Scholarship Centre (DSC) or the Geoffrey & Robyn Sperber Health Sciences Library – Media Lab, which was featured in a recent library news blog post. You can book a spot in the media labs and use the state-of-the-art audio and video recording equipment. Depending on the location, some of the available equipment includes headphones, microphones, and webcams for recording.
Library Workshops
In addition to recording spaces in the Library, there are also media production and podcasting workshops held in the DSC. Our annual Podcasting Bootcamp usually takes place in the Winter semester and is organized by the DSC, the Sound Studies Institute, and the CSSH Research office. It’s a 3-day workshop that focuses on pre-production, production, and distribution of podcasts. If you are interested in the Podcasting Bootcamp or any other Library workshop, keep an eye on the workshop calendar!
For any questions or to express interest in archiving or hosting your podcast with us in Aviary, please contact aviary@ualberta.ca
This content is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons licence.
