YouTube Library Videos
1987 – Betty Glover Library Workout Tape Ad
A Librarian’s 2.0 Manifesto
Library Welcome Video
I wasted some time watching a number of “library” videos. Some of them were just silliness that we all enjoy but won’t help us with our work. I watched an old one that depicted a library workout video, and the Library Dominoes video. Good for a laugh, but not helpful. Some videos could provide the basis of an examination of the image of librarians, which seems to be a perennially favorite topic for our colleagues to agonize over.
Which thought brings me to the Librarian 2.0 manifesto. The comments were interesting. And there is a sense of treating one’s colleagues as dinosaurs in it. Now, I have met the occasional librarian/dinosaur, but the obstacles for adopting 2.0 apps in the library are real and have little to do with being mindlessly wedded to “how we’ve always done it.” Any new app that will allow me to do more with less time and money is something I am willing to adopt. Any new app that will allow me to effectively reach my clientele, likewise. In my hospital the new students and residents have grown up with the Internet, but many of my users still don’t realize that they can click on the “FullText” link to the right of their Ovid citations and click through to the full text of the article.
I found a video that is apparently an intro to a library skills game for incoming college students. I always wonder how these things are received by their intended audience. Do the students say “this is really lame” but secretly think that such a video is a fun intro to what might otherwise seem a tedious topic? Or do they just think it’s really lame?
I don’t see an immediate use for podcasting or YouTube in my libraries. If I worked in a university library I could see the library as the repository for Grand Rounds and other teaching AV resources. In my hospital that “honor” lies elsewhere, although I could probably fight for it if I wanted to commit the resources and the political chits. My hospital blocks the use of YouTube out of fear that employees would goof off on work time. Sigh.
My hospital has purchased Camtasia so I have made short instructional videos posted on our intranet library web site. I am also developing a few videos for our public consumer health library web site. If I had the time, I would do more of these. If I had the time, I would also podcast book talks–for example, I would highlight a few books on ethics of cosmetic surgery in children, or on assent/consent of children to medical treatment by reading a couple of passages. This would require reading the books, or at least enough of each of them, to select passages that would juxtapose well to present the arguments, then framing them in a podcast. There was a time when I had the wiggle room in my regular work schedule to explore new tech and develop programs on work time, but now I squeeze in a lot of my education and development into the evenings and weekends, even as the pace of new things (Web 2.0, etc.) increases. I have to be selective about where to put my time, and I tend to select whatever will have the greatest immediate payoff. I sometimes have great ideas for things that could be done in my libraries, IF I had three more staff, or another $50,000 in the budget, or 48 hours in the day. I make do with the ideas I can implement with the existing staff and budget and time, with maybe some help from a volunteer or partner. Partners in other departments or organizations have similar pressures. When did work get so hard? How did we get into the position where we expect to produce 12 hours of work in an 8 hour work day? It wasn’t always this way.
