Thing 18: YouTube and Other Online Video

I chose this video because it's a good interview with Rebecca Vargha, last year's national president of SLA. She talks about current issues that SLA is working on, including recruiting more members and the big centennial we have coming up next year. Plus, I sat next to her during a session at the midwinter conference in Louisville so now I feel important by association (no pun intended).

I started looking at the suggested library/librarian videos, took a quick detour to some with titles along the lines of "Sexy Librarians" which didn't really live up to their billing, and then ended up here. YouTube is fairly easy to search. In fact, we used it as a family last night to settle an argument over what Christmas movie the song "The Last Toymaker to the King" is from.

In a library setting it would be great to have short, fun videos on the website to show people how to search for books and articles and other popular requests. In a previous Thing we learned productivity tips with e-mail. One suggestion had been to have a template for questions that get asked all the time. If there were questions in a library that got asked a lot and could be answered through a simple visual demonstration, a YouTube video on the website would be perfect. If done right, they can also make librarians seem more approachable. 

We should all be getting more videos on YouTube to combat the stereotypes we face. March of the Librarians was funny, but, wow, does it do that much for our image? It hit a little close to home. I won't be able to shake those images when I'm in Seattle in June for SLA's conference.