I thought that I might take some time to talk about the Spoken Word Project that I was involved with for five weeks at the beginning of 2005. The are a JISC funded project set up to digitise relevant items from the BBC’s archives (relevant at present being political and economic based materials). This material is being integrated into undergraduate teaching and a number of software applications have been developed to enhance this. It really is a very interesting project, and in a number of ways transgresses from the typical debates surrounding electronic resources in the library and teaching environment (which typically focus on electonic access to text or image based material) and opens up a whole new way of teaching undergraduates (and in theory, absolutely anyone…).

There is also a strong focus within the project upon social software and encouraging students to collaborate and use the resources provided by the internet (e.g. blogs, collaborative software etc.) to enhance their learning. Indeed, it also allows students to study just about anywhere as audio clips can be downloaded onto mp3 players such as the iPod. The access granted to them by the BBC is ground-breaking as this has never been allowed to an outside party before. I recall also that the BBC have recently provided access to their archives of news footage.

If you are interested in reading about my experiences of working with the Spoken Word team during my project placement from Strathclyde University Information and Library Studies Masters course, you can visit my blog that I kept whilst there.

Indeed, I do believe that it was back then when I was first learned about blogging, rss feeds and a whole range of other technological developments which are of relevance to the library and information profession. I have to admit that this was not mentioned in any of my university teachings, so it was a real bonus to me. Indeed, they have become a virtually indispensable part of my continued professional development as an information professional (albeit, a fledgling one :) ).