Renowned classicist Mary Beard asks this question on her TLS blog. She is responding to the frequent request that a lecture/seminar is recorded. I don’t especially like the term ‘podcasting’ – basically it means audio or video files being made available online. In general terms she agrees it is a good idea –

On the face of it, yes of course! It opens up what is being said, and the discussion, to anyone anywhere in the world. It’s freedom of knowledge and information etc etc, and one of the real benefits of the internet.

But she raises some times when it isn’t necessarily such a good idea. The first is hard to argue with – where discussion is open and unscripted, and people don’t want remarks from a particular time and place available in other contexts. Fine, this should always be with agreement. The second is more complicated – the idea…