Lights! Camera! Action!
By Karen G. Schneider
American Libraries Columnist
Director of technology for the Shenendehowa Public Library in Clifton Park, New York.
kgs@bluehighways.com
Column for August 2001
My first real library-based interest in Webcasting began because we tape our staff meetings and share the tapes with staff who can’t attend. “Wouldn’t it be nice,” I thought, “if we could put those recordings on our intranet so staff could play them any time they wanted, from any Internet-accessible computer in the library?” Nice, yes, and easy to do—and it opens up a world of possibilities!
Webcasting can mean a lot of things, but if you can produce sound or video over the Web and make it available as a live, real-time recording (like TV) or provide it for download later, it’s a Webcast. (Additional features include the ability of the audience to interact during the Webcast, but that’s a column for another day.) The difference is whether you experience the Webcast while it’s happening or whether you are able to download it later. The advantage to “live” Webcasting is audience interaction (by phone or chat), while on-demand provides the convenience of accessing the Webcast any time after the event. As the Access Fort Wayne Web site of the Allen County (Ind.) Public Library (which has been producing Webcasts regularly since May 2000) says, “Watch City Council meetings on your own schedule!”
For those of us blessed with good bandwidth—for both us and our users—video Webcasting is a reality. Tulsa City–County (Okla.) Library has recently begun a project to incorporate interviews with authors into its online library catalog, according to Marilyn Loucks, the system’s division director for branch services. They only have four interviews completed at this point, but have plans for adding several more in the near future. Loucks explained that “these interviews are . . . edited and added to the catalog on the same page with listings of that author’s works.” Now there’s an OPAC with pizazz!
Webcasting and continuing education are a natural pair. Donald Barclay, Rene Salas, and Clarence Witson of the Texas Medical Center Library at the Houston Library of Medicine have been using video Webcasting to “provide distance education to medical librarians throughout the region.” Last year, the library Webcast the Houston Conference on Health Informatics; 40 people attended virtually. Think about 40 more librarians being able to attend the last continuing-education session you went to, and then multiply that exponentially.
Stir up a Webcast
Audio Webcasting is a relatively easy and inexpensive introduction to this new medium. To record audio—for example, an author’s book talk—you would need a tape recorder with an audio-output connection, a good microphone, and a cable to connect the tape recorder to your computer. Your PC needs a sound card, audio-input jack, and encoding software to convert the recording to digital format. You also need a Web site to host the recording. Believe it or not, the weakest link on this shopping list is the microphone. Borrow or buy a mike that is going to be sensitive enough to pick up voice and smart enough to screen out noises you don’t want.
If your computer isn’t more than three or four years old, it likely has a sound card and audio-input jack. As for the encoding software, you can download any number of freebies, particularly Real Networks Realproducer or Windows Media Producer, both of which can also be used for video production. Finally, on-demand Webcasts can be hosted on almost any Web server; however, if you are doing live Webcasting, or you get into Webcasting in more than a casual way, you’ll need to move up to the big time and get a dedicated server running media server software-an investment of several thousand dollars. (Real Networks does offer a very basic, free version of its Realserver.)
Video Webcasting requires the addition of equipment to make the video—such as a digital camcorder, or for entry-level Webcasting experiments, a simple Webcam—and a video capture card so the computer can process the Webcast (live or after the fact). The capture card nearly always recommended for Webcasting with Real Networks or Windows Media is the Viewcast Osprey 100, under $200.
Avoid the herky-jerky
Bandwidth issues at both ends of the Webcast will impact the type of Webcasting you can do, as Thomas J. Hennen (creator of Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings) recently discovered when he planned a Webcast for public library directors at the North Suburban Library System in Illinois. Hennen initially intended to broadcast his face and voice using a Webcam; but during a dry run—something he strongly recommends—the connection from his end (two 56k lines) was so slow that it looked and sounded choppy. For the actual production, his Powerpoint slides were “pushed” onto the Web from the system headquarters while Hennen narrated by voice using Netmeeting.
Quality Webcasting requires preparation and rehearsal. Steve Coffman of LSSI offered these tips to avoid slipping on a banana peel in your first “serious” Webcast: “Make sure the content is set up and ready to go well before you are scheduled to go live. Get the basic information into the slides and some ‘pre-scripted chat’ to begin with, and finally, either have the person presenting the content do the chatting. . . or get yourself a good typist.”
Are you ready for your close-up?
Look around: You may have enough equipment on hand to make your next staff meeting, book talk, or committee-gathering accessible to people who couldn’t be there. Think about your next outreach grant. Meanwhile, I’ll be at Radio Shack, drooling over the latest new Shure wireless microphone. . . .
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