YouTube

I was surprised by the different types of library videos found on YouTube. When I was in library school, I took a marketing class. For this class, we had to undertake a large marketing project related to libraries. One group of classmates created a video that they placed on YouTube to market the use of libraries in general. I thought that this video was very creative and well done. The other type of video that I was surprised to find (although I probably shouldn’t have been) was instructional videos FOR librarians. I was not surprised to find that many libraries were advertising themselves and their services (including video tours) on YouTube. I am a online TA for my alma mater, and the students were asked to evaluate library fundraising videos on YouTube. From the evaluations I read, the students believe that the video had to have an obvious purpose/agenda, needed to be fairly short in length, and needed to be put together well. This does not mean that they thought the videos needed to be professionally done, but done well enough that it was obvious there was care and thought put into the creation of the video. I expected to see more instructional videos that librarians have created for their patrons (for instance, how to search the OPAC or a database). I know that some libraries have started creating these types of videos (See the “Finding articles from a citation” video tutorial). I think putting more of these types of videos out there might be a better way to reach our patrons.

Thank you for reading!