06/12/2006

By SONJA BARISIC  / Associated Press

Thomas Jefferson isn't about to start listening to an iPod, with telltale earbud wires dangling from beneath his three-cornered hat as he walks the streets of Colonial Williamsburg.

But people far from the restored 18th-century capital of Virginia can use their portable audio players to hear Bill Barker talk about the almost around-the-clock commitment it takes to portray Jefferson.

The world's largest living history museum long has utilized modern media to share its stories with audiences far beyond its 301-acre Historic Area, dating back to before World War II when it produced an educational film for schools.

That tradition continues with something that didn't even exist a couple years ago but that most any teenager today is familiar with: podcasts.

Colonial Williamsburg is creating free weekly audio programs people can listen to on computers as well as portable players to find out more about those who work there, plying old trades and playing historical figures.

"It's just another way to get the message out from Colonial Williamsburg," said Colin G. Campbell, president of the private, nonprofit Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates the museum.

"That's our mission, at the end of the day, to get people to know what happened here, why it's important, (and) to want to come here as well," said Campbell, who was featured on a podcast.

Robyn Eoff, Colonial Williamsburg's director of Internet, came up with the idea for the podcasts as the foundation was seeking new ways to reach audiences.

"History may be old but its presentation doesn't have to be," Eoff said in a phone interview.

Colonial Williamsburg has been posting weekly podcasts for just over a year. Other museums and historic sites, such as the Smithsonian and Monticello, Jefferson's home outside Charlottesville, also have podcasts, although Colonial Williamsburg may have been among the first, Eoff said.

Eoff doesn't know how many people are listening to the podcasts. Colonial Williamsburg's Web site includes other audio files in addition to podcasts, and the monthly download tally for all the files is 80,000 to 90,000, she said. Written transcripts also are available.

"I do not expect that someone's going to put down that iPod and say 'Off to Colonial Williamsuburg, we must get there,' " Eoff said. "If it's an 18-year-old who's listening to these and 10 years from now comes to visit, that's fine."

The podcasts fit in with Colonial Williamsburg's educational mission as well as its strategy to raise long-term brand awareness and build connections with audiences for decades to come, said Richard McCluney, vice president for productions, publications and learning ventures.

Colonial Williamsburg is the only museum in the world that is in the media production business full time professionally, McCluney said by phone.

In the late 1930s or early 1940s, Colonial Williamsburg started the school film industry when it partnered with Eastman Kodak to create a history film and test a then-new Eastman Kodak product, Kodachrome, McCluney said. Today, it publishes books and maintains a large Web site, among other things.

"So with things like podcasting, just in terms of adoption of technology, if it looks like the world might be headed that way and that that's a cool way to reach a larger audience, then we really want to be sort of ahead of the curve and not just trying to keep up with it," McCluney said.

The podcasts mainly consist of interviews conducted by former NBC News anchor and correspondent Lloyd Dobyns, who didn't know what a podcast was when Eoff approached him.

But he recalled thinking as he learned more about them, "All that sounds like is a casual radio interview, and I know how to do casual radio interviews."

Dobyns has talked to costumed interpreters, chefs, tradesmen, musicians, historians and curators, about topics as varied as barrel-making, religious freedom and slave life.

Most of the podcasts are recorded in Colonial Williamsburg, although Dobyns interviewed Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in Richmond as a preview to Kaine's inauguration in Williamsburg in January.

The programs are a unique beyond-the-scenes look at Colonial Williamsburg, Dobyns said.

A visitor to Colonial Williamsburg "won't get to talk to a chef in the kitchen, you won't get to talk to Bill Barker as Bill Barker," he said from his home in Tappahanock.

"All these people doing interpretation are not going to talk to you as they really are," he said. "Well, that's the people I want to know about — what would drive you to spend your life in the 18th century?"

Dobyns has fun doing the podcasts and has picked up interesting tidbits along the way, such as finding out from a weaver that in the old days purple dye was made from the inside of shells.

"How else would you learn that? Of course, there is the question of why you would want to know that, but it may come up in a crossword some day," he joked.

Colonial Williamsburg eventually wants to take the podcasts a step further, Eoff said, and produce video podcasts — or vodcasts.

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On the Net:

Colonial Williamsburg podcasts: http://www.history.org/Media/podcasts.cf