Library Land Loves is a podcast produced by the Ontario Library Association or OLA. It is hosted by various OLA staff members past and present including Michelle Arbuckle and Emily Burns. The podcast began in early 2018, with a second season beginning from late 2018.
The concept of the podcast is simple – librarians are some of the most passionate people in the world and we love a lot of things, and love to talk about them. Most of the episodes are structured as Top 5 lists put together by a guest about a subject they are passionate about. These range from the light (Top 5 Ways to Use Your Job to Nerd Out Hard) to the more complex (Top Change Management Tips). Regardless, the episodes are short and fast-paced with the episodes of the first season around 10 minutes each. A good length for a quick lunchtime walk! The episodes increase in length in the second season and the conversations become more in-depth as a result, but they still generally stay under 30 minutes. Like any good podcast, the intro and outro music is also very catchy!
I particularly enjoyed the episode on YA reading recommendations for adults and added Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein to my reading list as a result. I also found the episode about sound in a library environment to be an interesting discussion and well-suited to the podcast medium.
The podcast seems to be targeted to members of the Ontario Library Association and there is a specificity to it – including an episode entirely in French! However, the podcast could also appeal to librarians from all around the world and in different areas of librarianship. Even an episode about OLA’s Super Conference was interesting to listen to as I could compare it to my own library conference experiences. I think some of the episodes would even appeal to people outside of the profession, especially the ones offering reading recommendations.
There are less than 30 episodes of the podcast, and it has not been updated since late 2019. Only three episodes were produced after Burns took over from Arbuckle. There is a sense that the podcast was beginning to experiment with its format. I would be interested in hearing more if OLA started producing it again.