Podcasts as Scholarship

As a tenured archivist in an academic library, I constantly think about what counts as “scholarship.” Traditionally, that means books and peer-reviewed articles. I strongly believe that while these are extremely valuable, it is necessary to push the boundaries beyond the traditional to include projects that require the same amount, if not more, work to accomplish. The intent of podcasts may not be for scholarly pursuit, but are important nonetheless.

Podcasts are one of those types of projects. Writing, directing, producing, and recording podcasts take a lot of time and skill. Although archivists have been creating podcasts for some time, recently I seem to come across more and more great work done by archivists. Further, at least to my knowledge, I have not yet found a place where podcasts about or created by archivists are compiled into one place.

So I decided to add a page to this site for podcasts. I prefer to not post ones that are reproductions of audio holdings, that are library-focused, or digital humanities projects. I will focus instead on podcasts where there are conversations and interpretations of archivists discussing their work, collections, institutions, researchers, and practices.

I expect that there are many I’m not aware of, so please let me know any suggestions!