Podcast Publishing Partnerships
Columbia Libraries supports student and faculty partners who utilize podcasting as a form of research communication and open scholarship. Our podcasting partners use audio production and storytelling to develop new modes of scholarly conversation and to bring their research to new platforms and audiences.
On this page you can learn more about our partnership program and browse our list of resources for academic podcasting. Upcoming workshops can be found on the Columbia Libraries Workshops page.
To see our list of current partners and listen to their podcasts, please visit podcasts.library.columbia.edu.
While we are not actively seeking new partnerships at this time, you can contact us at publishing@library.columbia.edu with questions related to resources for Columbia podcasters.
Columbia Libraries will provide each podcasting partner with the following services:
- A branded Columbia Libraries site on which to host their podcast
- RSS feed and audio file hosting for no fewer than three years
- Registration of their podcast with Apple Podcasts and Spotify
- Monthly usage statistics reports from Columbia Libraries staff and live access to Spotify and Apple analytics dashboards (upon request)
- Annual archiving of their podcast content in Academic Commons, which includes assignment of DOIs for podcast episodes (optional)
- Inclusion of their podcast in the Columbia Libraries Archive-It web archive (optional)
Podcasting partners will meet the following requirements:
- Partners must attend an orientation session on how to use the publishing platform; new production team members must complete a training session before being granted access to the platform
- Partners must ensure that all speakers and hosts sign a Podcast Guest Release Form which the partner must keep on file in perpetuity; speakers and hosts must be over the age of 18; Partners must provide Columbia Libraries with copies of all signed release forms through a mechanism determined by Columbia Libraries
- Partners must responsibly and ethically use copyrighted materials and secure the necessary permissions if including copyrighted images or other copyrighted content on their website. Review the Securing Permissions page, and consult with the Copyright and Scholarly Communications Librarian as necessary.
- In the event that Partners decide to use copyrighted music, they must obtain licenses for the composition and recording as well as sync licenses; Partners must provide Columbia Libraries with copies of all sync licenses through a mechanism determined by Columbia Libraries
- Partners must include machine-readable captions in VTT format with all published episodes
- Partners must include accessible full-text transcripts as HTML and/or PDF with all published episodes
- Partners must ensure that all images used in episode transcripts are accessible and include alt text
- If Partners are unable to meet accessibility requirements, they must contact Libraries staff at publishing@library.columbia.edu stating their inability to comply; Libraries staff will work with Partners to develop solutions
- Partners must publish new episodes once per year at minimum to maintain an active partnership with Columbia Libraries that ensure accessibility compliance
- Partners must ensure that episode content is scholarly in nature and includes citations and attribution when appropriate
At times it becomes necessary for Columbia Libraries to sunset podcasts, such as in the cases when a podcast has not published an episode in a year or longer or the podcast partner is unresponsive. In the event that Columbia Libraries decides to end the partnership with a podcast, the podcast partners will be given 60 days notice.
If a podcast wishes to end its relationship with Columbia Libraries, the podcast partners must provide the Libraries with 60 days notice via email to publishing@library.columbia.edu, which will initiate a library sunsetting workflow.
Columbia Libraries will host completed podcasts and RSS feeds so that they remain accessible through podcast aggregators for as long as is feasible. In the event that Columbia Libraries can no longer host podcasts so that they are accessible through aggregators, the podcast partners will be given a minimum of 60 days notice to migrate their content to another platform and/or archive their content in Academic Commons.
- For instructors, Center for Teaching & Learning provides a recording studio to create course content
- The Slote Media Center at Barnard provides equipment rental and production space use
- Recording space is available through the Journalism School for a fee
- The CU Records Student Group offers a recording studio for music
Visit our Resources for Podcasters page, which has been compiled with the purpose of assisting Columbia affiliates who are considering launching - or further professionalizing - a podcast.
Explore how our podcasting partners use audio production and storytelling to develop new modes of scholarly conversation and to bring their research to new platforms and audiences by visiting podcasts.library.columbia.edu.
Columbia University Libraries provides the Podcast Partnership Program as a service for Columbia University affiliates and is not taking on any obligations as a part of providing this service.