Penfield Library opened its new Podcasting Room this fall. Students, faculty, and staff can reserve the room through the library’s website.
But what is this room like, how does it work, and who finds it useful? Assistant Library Director Emily Mitchell set out to learn more by creating her own interview podcast. She talked to:
- The person who put the room together: Technology Support Professional Dustin O’Neil
- A student who runs a podcast: Eason Lee (human resource management)
- A professor who assigns podcasting in class: Celinet Duran-Jimenez (criminal justice)
Listen to the full story here or check out the transcript below.
Emily Mitchell: Hello all, Emily Mitchell here. I am SUNY Oswego's very own assistant library director. And I am here today to tell you all about the fabulous new podcasting room we unveiled at the library this fall. So how better to do that than with a podcast? This summer, I set out to interview members of the campus community to try to learn more about how this room works and why it's so important to student success. As a result, over the course of this recording, you'll hear from the technology support professional who put the room together, a student podcaster with a very cool sounding podcast, and a faculty member who assigns podcasting to her students.
So one word of warning before we go any further: the library's podcasting room is very cool, and it can make your recordings sound great, but what it can't do is edit audio for you, as evidenced by the fact that it has taken me several months to assemble these interviews into an actual podcast episode. You'll hear some things in this recording that refer to the way the podcasting room will be when it's done. Well, good news. The room is already done, and I'm just really behind on getting this episode released. So with no further ado, let's get started.
Dustin, could you introduce yourself to our listeners please?
Dustin O’Neil: Yeah, I'm Dustin O'Neil. I'm the technology support professional here in Penfield Library.
Mitchell: And we are here today in the brand new podcasting room on Penfield’s second floor. For our listeners, can you tell them: what is the podcasting room?
O’Neil: This is a brand new space we've just developed with lots of fun new podcasting equipment. We've got some soundproofing on the walls to kind of reduce echo, and we've got a brand new RODECaster Pro II mixer which will help kind of reduce the background noise here. And we've got a brand new Macintosh that it's hooked up to. There are four stations here for people to sit at and record a podcast together.
Mitchell: And I'm just adding to that because my next question is about what equipment is in this room. I think the only thing I didn't hear you say were these fabulous microphones that make me feel super fancy.
O’Neil: Yes, you will feel like a professional just by being in here. There are 4 microphone, microphone stands that are adjustable, headsets so that everybody can listen to the audio mix that's coming out of the mixer.
Mitchell: It's very cool in here. I'm super impressed. I also–I keep saying it and I'm going to say it again. I love how glowy the RODECaster Pro II is.
O’Neil: It's got a lot of fun colors going on.
Mitchell: If you walk past this room with the lights out, you just see this rainbow of lights in the corner. It's amazing.
How is this room different from the other multimedia production room or the multimedia production rooms we used to have?
O’Neil: I think it's probably easiest to kind of compare it to what we had previously, where we had some nice microphones, we had some Snowball mics in here and a Mac and a PC. Now we are really dedicated towards just creating podcasting content in this particular room.
Mitchell: OK. And we do still have one of the multimedia production rooms left, yeah?
O’Neil: Room 208 is still around. We have the film equipment for the Cinema Studies courses over there and we will be putting some new, gently used computers in that room so that folks can work on just a more of a broad range of–of multimedia activities whereas this room, room 210 here, is devoted for podcasting, the other room will be for more miscellaneous use.
Mitchell: And I think we still have the Snowball mics down available for checkout, if anyone is attached to those.
O’Neil: We absolutely do. There will be–the Snowball mics will be back in room 210 here. We're kind of in the middle of setting these things up this summer. But you know, none of this equipment's really going too far. If anybody had something that they were really attached to, they can, they can find somebody and we'll get that available for them.
Mitchell: How will people learn to use the podcasting room?
O’Neil: That's a great question. We will be developing some guides that we will place in the room and on the computer here. When you use this Macintosh here in this room, you can log in using your Laker NetID and password, the, the typical credentials that you would use to log in to any other computer here in the library or on campus. And on the desktop, we'll have some guides and videos about how to make some adjustments on the mixer and tailor things to create your best podcast.
Mitchell: That sounds great. I know that just sitting here today, we've been through a lot of fiddling to try and filter out the background noises of the room, which I think it's doing really well. I'm very impressed.
O’Neil: Yeah, absolutely. That's, you know, the mixer is working really hard for that. When you come into this room, you will hear a hum of some of the mechanical equipment in the building. We can't turn that off, so that's just part of life here. But this mixer does have lots of functionality to cut that sound out, and you'll just hear your voice crystal clear.
Mitchell: Yeah. And I'm super excited to not have to try and take that out and post production, so.
O’Neil: [laughs] No kidding.
Mitchell: This is amazing, I love it.
My last question for you today was just how are you hoping that this, this room will get used?
O’Neil: I already know that there are some folks on campus that are producing podcasting content. I hope that they can find a home here and you know, perhaps use this space to create, you know, maybe take their podcast to the next level. I would like to, to use this space personally. You know, this is really cool, cool thing to have–a really great opportunity. We'd like to make this as easy for folks to use as possible.
Mitchell: Is there anything else that you want people to know about this fabulous podcasting room?
O’Neil: Off the top of my head, no, but my office is in room 209 here on the 2nd floor. It's kind of just, uh, on the mirror side of the building. So if you just really walk out the door and take a left, my office is right over there. And if I'm in and you have a question, come ask me.
Mitchell: Excellent. Thank you so much, Dustin.
O’Neil: Thank you, Emily.
Mitchell: OK, so that's what the podcasting room is. But how are people using it? Time for me to find someone else to ask.
Could you introduce yourself please?
Eason Lee: Yeah, I am Eason Lee. Back home, people call me Dee Sheng. And I'm from Malaysia, which is 10,000 miles away and it's summer all year round and I truly love it there. My hometown specifically has a nickname called Food Heaven, so definitely love it. And another side of me is coming to United States, specifically in New York. I've been here for about four years now and it really brings the best out of me and allows me to truly be myself and also find myself.
Mitchell: Could you tell me a little bit about your podcast?
Lee: So I've been working on this podcast since the beginning of the year of 2024, and it's a truly amazing journey because I knew nothing, zero about podcasting and I decided to dive in to this podcast and it's called “Your Story Helps.”
Mitchell: OK.
Lee: And just like how the title is explaining, we talk about the guest’s story and hopefully that helps other people too, because I believe storytelling is one of the most powerful tools in the whole world.
Mitchell: That sounds really amazing.
Lee: Yeah. And hopefully it gets to help more people too, because I feel like a story is a very entertaining thing. At the same time, it is the one thing that can truly inspire other people. So hopefully that made a contribution.
Mitchell: That makes a ton of sense to me and I am going to have to go out and hunt down your podcast because that sounds fantastic.
Lee: Totally. Thank you, thank you.
Mitchell: So you said you've been doing this just since the start of the year?
Lee: Yeah. And honestly, like I said, right, I know nothing about it because I am a human resources management major. So a lot of what I do is relating to business. So I knew nothing about podcasting. So everything I do was the first time doing it.
Mitchell: OK.
Lee: And was all very freshly new to me, like inviting the guests, picking the guests, having a conversation, recording. With video and audio, it's two different things and you get to combine them as well. And after you combine them, you have to work on a lot and a lot of editing. What I want to be is an inspirational speaker one day.
Mitchell: That's amazing!
Lee: And I hope to learn from every one of the guests.
Mitchell: Uh-huh.
Lee: And learn by doing what I’m doing, and hopefully get to be an inspirational speaker on the stage one day.
Mitchell: That's fantastic.
Lee: Yeah. And I also believe this: When you wait until you're ready to do something, that's already too late.
Mitchell: [laughs] I, I hear that. I know I've definitely been learning a ton – well, with this podcasting room, but also in general I would say I learn a ton just by jumping in and trying to do something.
Lee: Yeah, you never know what you're gonna learn until you actually do it.
Mitchell: This is true.
How did you hear about the library's podcasting room?
Lee: I'm an international student from Malaysia, so coming here, I did not really have a stable house to stay at. I'm always moving from places to places in this four years. If I give an estimation, I moved about 10 times already.
Mitchell: Oh my gosh.
Lee: Yeah, and it's totally normal for international students. It's not even out of the box. And so I do not have much to make my recording for podcasts.
Mitchell: Right.
Lee: And honestly, I'm not a very rich person too, so I only have a laptop and a iPhone and barely a stand to make the recording.
Mitchell: OK.
Lee: So when I found the multimedia room in the library, it truly made every process easier because in this library they have a lot of equipment to keep things going and even like microphone and the computer with a lot of special applications that is needed for podcasting and it's all available for us, as the community of SUNY Oswego, get to use it.
Mitchell: It's so good to hear that you've been using it and it's been helpful.
Lee: Yeah.
Mitchell: So you have been using the multimedia production rooms since before this remodel that Dustin did to make the fabulous new podcasting room. Can you tell me a little bit about your thoughts on the change?
Lee: Yeah. So with this new change, it truly looks amazing right now because now it has been a very suitable podcasting room with four different microphones, and headphones to hear ourselves. We have soundproof blocks around the room that are well placed and it captures the sound to avoid from bouncing off the wall. And we also have a computer that has a sound board right beside it to play with the sound mixer so it truly is a huge transformation from before to after. And I'm so very excited, even just having this conversation in here right now.
Mitchell: [laughs] And it's been a learning experience as I forgot to unmute your microphone the first time.
Lee: It is a learning experience for everyone, including myself and yeah, without doing this, we wouldn't learn how to.
Mitchell: This is true. Having done it now, I'm not going to make that mistake again.
Lee: It happens. It happens to the best of us, but that shouldn't stop you from going though.
Mitchell: Oh no, I'm having a blast. This is great.
Lee: Yeah.
Mitchell: And this is an example of that whole learning by doing thing.
Lee: Yeah, totally right. And SUNY Oswego is all about that. So why not have this room to innovate that experience too?
Mitchell: Yeah, 100%.
Thank you so much for coming and for sharing your story and I really–I need to go find your podcast because that sounds fantastic.
Lee: Yeah, “Your Story Helps.”
Mitchell: I love so much that Eason has such a fantastic podcast and he's doing it all on his own time. But I also wondered if I could find a faculty member assigning podcasting in class, which leads me to my next interview.
Mitchell: So could you introduce yourself please?
Celinet Duran-Jimenez: I'm Celi. I've been here at Oswego for, going into my sixth year with the institution overall, starting my third year in the tenure track. I'm in the Criminal Justice Department. My areas of focus in the classroom are looking at race, ethnicity, understanding the different aspects of disparities that exist across all levels of the system, from the ways that we generate laws through enforcement, courts, sentencing, post sentencing, recidivism. And then I spent a lot of time working with students on understanding the ways that the criminal justice system is embedded into every single social institution here in the U.S., if we really think about it. So everything from food, to climate control, to education.
Mitchell: What have you done with podcasting in your classes in the past?
Duran-Jimenez: I just completed a semester with my crime and media course and for that class I intentionally teach it differently every semester even though it's the same course code, because I want to meet students where they are. So something that I've noticed since I've gotten here, you've probably seen this too is: generally there's this widespread–I guess you could say obsession with true crime documentaries, true crime TV shows, true crime podcasts.
Mitchell: [laughs] Yes, definitely.
Duran-Jimenez: So I got to thinking and I go, OK, what's a way that I can have a course that the students will genuinely be invested in and also probably help of students who are not as comfortable with their oral skills in front of the classroom, but it can still help them develop that skill because it's going to be very important for them when they leave here.
Mitchell: That’s an interesting take on that, I hadn't actually considered that.
Duran-Jimenez: Yeah, and I’ve done podcasting before for my own personal ventures. I found it to be a lot of fun, and I figured this could be a good way for students to also see what goes into developing a podcast, and the differences between producing one and actually listening to one, and how as producers of this type of content, we need to be very careful and mindful on the language that we use, how we describe certain events. But I also wanted them to be smart about it. So the way that I had the class structured is for the midterm project, they created a manuscript of sorts where I told them: think about the topics that you would like to cover. What is it that in this episode you want to discuss?
Mitchell: OK.
Duran-Jimenez: What do you find to be the most interesting? If you're doing a topic that's already been covered pretty heavily in the media, what new spin are you going to take on it? Or is this a more obscure topic that possibly hasn't gotten a whole lot of widespread information? I had 10 groups, three students per group, so with the exception of two groups that did the exact same topic, even though they did it completely differently, it was really great to see where students’ interests are and what they consider to be a really good, interesting podcast.
The other thing is that it gave them an opportunity to understand, because I gave them a 30 to 40 minute time cap. So some of the feedback that I got from the students at the end of the semester was, you don't realize how short 30 minutes actually is. I also made it as part of their grading rubric that they had to meet a minimum of three practice times before they actually recorded.
Mitchell: Ohh.
Duran-Jimenez: Because I didn't want anyone to come in just like, cold, and not realize: OK. Do I speak too fast? Do I speak too slow? Am I the type of person that's a nervous talker? And then I use a lot of uhms and ahs, a lot of filler language and that's where the manuscript and the practice sessions came in handy, because a lot of students would tell me, “I had no idea that I spoke so fast.”
Mitchell: I feel like it took me a lot past undergrad to learn some of those things about myself and to learn how easy it is to fill up 30 minutes. So I'm kind of amazed that you got undergrads to that in a single course.
Duran-Jimenez: I have a lot of students that are very shy.
Mitchell: Mhm.
Duran-Jimenez: And I think a lot of that is also based on the fact that this generation does not know how to live without a screen. So that has an impact on their ability to pay attention. It has an impact on their ability to have conversations. You know, even just holding eye contact for them is very difficult, but I want them to be more comfortable with being able to learn something and then discuss it and explain it.
Even with me, my best friend and I had our little COVID show. That experience I felt made me a much better face-to-face instructor, because having to do all of the audio editing, listening to ourselves, I go, OK, I know I'm a fast talker. I'm Dominican. I'm from Brooklyn, so I–and this is what I tell my students all the time. I'm like, listen, my people, we speak like we have a time limit. And I tell them do not feel shy to tell me to slow down.
But doing the podcasting stuff and having to listen to myself and realizing how much different my speech speed was in comparison to my friend–where I go, “Ohh wow, this is bad.” So I have to slow it down.
And I also recognized in the beginning when we were doing our episodes that I use a lot of filler words. I had a lot of pauses, so it made me more intentional in terms of my planning and being more mindful because we don't recognize how when we use a lot of pausing, we use a lot of ums, a lot of ahs, that that detracts so much from the point that we're trying to get across that eventually, that's all the audience will pay attention to.
So in doing that assignment with the students, I recognize that for a lot of students that are going into criminal justice, they need to understand how to work in a group dynamic. I'm definitely going to be doing this more often, if not in the crime and media class, possibly in some other classes. And I keep thinking about what are the ways that I can have students understand the letter of the law, but also give real-world examples that they're interested in. So one of the things that I want to do is I want to teach this criminalization of hip hop class, but I also want to do it through the podcasting aspect because there are so many podcasts of either former artists or artists that are still creating music that also have their own podcasts that these students are listening to. So I'd like for them to also see how they can contribute to the conversation while also learning something about the ways in which we socialize or we generate crime here in the U.S.
Mitchell: I love that and I really, I love the piece about having the students feel like they're joining the conversation because I know that's a thing. Librarians have a list of standards and one of our big things is scholarship / research is a conversation.
Duran-Jimenez: Yeah.
Mitchell: And everything published, or content created, because it's not just articles, right? All of it is in conversation with the things that that person learned and took in and the sources that they've absorbed and how they're combining them and interpreting them and really getting students to understand how they fit into that.
Duran-Jimenez: Yeah.
Mitchell: I'm so excited. Thank you so much.
Duran-Jimenez: Thank you.
Mitchell: And I hope that you and your students get to use this room.
Duran-Jimenez: Same.
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Mitchell: Hey all, Emily here again. I hope you've enjoyed learning about some of the cool podcasting things going on around SUNY Oswego as much as I have. Everyone I talked to cares so deeply and is accomplishing so much. I hope that you've enjoyed hearing about it, and I hope that you come on in and make something cool in our superbly glowy podcasting room here in Penfield 210. Thanks for listening.
O’Neil: Maybe we could get some LED lights for along the ceiling or something to really set the mood in here.
Mitchell: [laughing] I would love to. We'll tell [Library Director] Sarah [Weisman] she needs to add it to the budget.
-- Submitted by Penfield Library