Podcasts, Podcasts and MORE podcasts

I have this growing problem - I am severely addicted to podcasts. I podcast EVERYTHING!! Yet, regardless of how much I have sitting on my sweet 60 gig iPod, I need more. Behold, I've found a couple gems.

Government Podcasts
The first is actually sort of surprising. As there is an ongoing moron-a-thon happening at the White House, the last place I expected to find podcasts was in our government. To my shock, I found a whole bunch at firstgov.gov (an excellent resource for those tricky government resources). You can see the entire listing of podcasts at http://firstgov.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Libraries/Podcasts.shtml

I checked out a couple of parts of this government podcast to see if it was worth anything. The first one I subscribed to is called "Profile America" where it's just a bunch of little facts each day. The one I listened to was about the first telephone directory and it was a mere minute long.

The next one I downloaded was called "Healthcare 411". This one was a bit out of date (Feb. 15), but not too bad. I actually really liked this second one. This one was about primary care and how patients can get the most out of meeting with their doctors. It was excellent, actually. Sure, the actual language is very plain and simple, but it's a government podcast so I think that is appropriate. It was a very, very informative little treat. I am definitely going to check out more of these.

Library School Podcast - InfoSpeak
After poking around through some of the government podcasts, I wanted to see how academic libraries are utilizing podcasting. I found a brand new library school podcast called InfoSpeak. It starts with an interesting little bit, one that proves Sweden is awesome. The podcast talks about "The Living Library", a new program in Sweden that you can actually check out a person for 45 minutes to sit down and talk to them one-on-one. This is REALLY interesting. What better way to learn about other people!?! Imagine some racist sitting down with an African American. Imagine a Jew sitting down with a Palestinian. Imagine a conservative Republican sitting down with a homosexual (yeah, right, that'll happen...when pigs fly!) The possibilities for understanding are endless. This is the only podcast so far, but it's on a really cool topic.

Medical Library Podcast
I actually did not listen to any of these podcasts, but was extremely impressed with their selection! If you are interested in the health sciences or medicine or anything along those lines, I highly recommend you check out the University of South Carolina's School of Medicine Library's podcast collection, which can be found at http://uscm.med.sc.edu/podcasts.htmVery good stuff, as well as more podcasts to quench my thirst for more.