Saturday, September 25, 2010

Thing 20: YouTube

Thing 20 is kind of a freebie for me, because I am well-acquainted with YouTube already. I don't see many downsides to YouTube. It's fun, and often informative, and provides a pretty good platform for people to get their quirky, interesting stuff out there. Until recently, I had mostly only been familiar with YouTube as a place to view funny videos friends sent me, but since my ten-year-old son started playing guitar I have learned that there is quite a bit more to it than that. He does actually take guitar lessons in person, but thanks to YouTube, he's been able to get video instructions on how to play many songs on his guitar. It's really a great resource.

Similarly, I could see a great potential for libaries to use YouTube to teach customers how to use some of our more complicated services like e-books. It is often very difficult for people to wade through a lot of printed instructions when dealing with a new technology, and I think that video instructions, with screen shots, etc. might prove very helpful.

Below I've embedded a video recently sent to me by a fellow librarian friend in upstate New York, but which features librarians from nearby Virginia. YouTube in particular, and the internet in general, can make the world seem very small indeed!

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