Week 7: Mid Week Question
Now that you’ve found all of the funny videos on YouTube, listened to your favorite radio show as a podcast, its time to reflect and figure out is any of this stuff useful for libraries or is it just fluff?
Imagine posting instructional library videos on YouTube. Now imagine you have many instructional videos. So you make a channel and your patrons can subscribe to these videos and receive them as they are made. Is this a viable use or still fluff? Even if it is not fluff, is the video quality good enough for instruction?
April 24th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I think instructional videos would be great except for a couple things. The first is that I think most people would rather click around for 2-5 minutes to figure something out before they would sit and watch a 2 minute video for that one bit of information they need. After they have clicked around themselves, they are more likely to ask someone they know or ask a librarian if they still need assistance.
The other problem with the instructional videos is that the database interfaces are constantly changing these days. How many videos would you have to make to explain “how to print an article”? The answer is different depending on if you are using ScienceDirect, MEDLINE, PubMed, etc…
The only use I can think of is to create professional development videos. We, as librarians, are interested in the nitty gritty of how some of these things work. For example, I am at an academic library with lots of allied health students. I don’t need to use MeSH subject headings very often so it would be great to look at a refresher video before I need to search.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Your question is interesting re “Is it good enough?” I experimented last summer in a distance course I taught and actually added narration to my PPT files. Students told me they either 1) can’t stand listening to lectures, so just downloaded the transcripts, or 2) didn’t like the poor quality audio. Now, I’m not a sound engineer and just used my little Altec headset to record the narration. One student sent me all kinds of links to free or inexpensive sound editing software, but I know I’ll never use anything like that. If I can’t produce what is “good enough” in my little one-person shop, then it’s just a detractor, right? How do we know what’s good enough? Folks in academic libraries may have multimedia production facilities available to them. Most of us probably won’t.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:59 am
In my opinion, the question misses the mark.
Is it faster and easier for me to pull down a quick reference sheet from the web and direct my eye to the answer I want than it is to watch a video - definitely.
Could I make a point that while books are sequentially read and the web is accessed in a non-sequential order - and the later seems a wave of the future ? Yet even short videos are sequentially accessed and therefore in some ways seem to be a return to the “old days.” - I could.
In general, does producing documents take less time than planning and producing a video (although the tools are improving) ? - Yes
Do videos have the advantage of showing motion ? - Yes.
But the trump argument is that the learning style of the next generation of learners has already decidedly shifted to the high-visual style and videos. So the question is do we sit back and complain or do we go with the flow.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
There is a wide range in quality in Utub videos, but I believe most will improve as time goes on, just as people’s web pages have evolved, mostly for the better.
I do believe there are alot of effective Utube teaching videos, and teaching without video support to generations which were raised on TV, surely fits with what they know.
April 25th, 2008 at 6:55 am
If YouTube is a blocked by the IT department - and the blocking is done because of organizational rules - then it doesn’t make any difference how good the instuction is if it cannot be seen.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:02 am
I think Doug hits the nail on the head…
“But the trump argument is that the learning style of the next generation of learners has already decidedly shifted to the high-visual style and videos. So the question is do we sit back and complain or do we go with the flow.”
Yes, WE think it is easier to just print out a PDF/Web handout but do the millennials think it is easier and more importantly, do THEY learn that way? This reminds me of when we first started using PDAs in around 1999-2000 and a medical student came and asked me how he could get a copy of the journal article on his PDA. I was puzzled and wondered why anyone would want to read an article on a PDA but the point is that he saw a need and way to integrate this information into his workflow so who are we to argue with that?
My general philosophy is that if it does not take too much effort or retooling of content then why not give it a try?
April 26th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Videos are great forms of instrution, entertainment, music, previews, and information sharing. They appeal to many senses. I listen to Enya and Loituma on Youtube. I listened to Loituma performing Ieva’s Polka many times. I found a song called “The Mary Ellen Carter” by Stan Rogers years after I heard people singing it at a restaurant. Youtube appeals to sight and sound and since it can be referred back to many times, it allows information to be free and easy to remember.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Yes, it is a viable use and not just fluff. The video quality varies depending on who made it and how well it was made, but most videos are good and they allow instruction from a distance. Instruction in person has to be remembered immediately after the presentation, but no two presentations are identical. Podcasting allows instruction to be referred to as long as the videos are available. The subscriptions allow people to find what is easy to understand and not be embarrassed to refer back to it. Students can refer back and not have the instructor repeat anything five times with “I JUST TOLD YOU WERE YOU NOT LISTENING????”
April 27th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I could not use this in the hospital since it is blocked.
I like Podcasting for myself and am in the habit of using it. I can direct patrons to sites but have no contol over their use of them.
I agree that this is the modality that the new generation will expect to use but, since they are not in control of the hospital’s IT department yet, I can not make any use of it.
April 27th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
And of course, don’t forget distance ed students. These kinds of technologies can be very useful for delivering information and instruction to those folks. Seeing the faces of people (instructors, fellow students) on a video adds a new dimension over just communicating via a listserv or IM, or just referring to handouts or PowerPoint slides. And a video can be powerfully moving and far-reaching. For example, Prof. Randy Rausch “Last Lecture” was put on YouTube by Carnegie Mellon for those local folks that just couldn’t make it that day, and it’s since become a cultural phenomenon, spawning TV coverage and a book. (look it up if you missed it)
– Theresa
April 28th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I found the discussion about how individuals prefer print or video or only good audio interesting. I don’t think it is a “one size fits all world.” Some folks want print and others would prefer audio or video. That is part of the reason public libraries have so many formats of the same item. I don’t think it is either “one or the other” being right. It is much more this one likes this and that one like that.
Pat
May 7th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
i’ve learned that if our incoming students are learning in these NEW ways we have to keep up with them or we will be relegated to archival status only.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I am less concerned about the video quality, then I am concerned about the video forum, YouTube. There are so many types of videos on the Tube, I feel responsible for sending someone there to a channel to see a library video and they discover something that is not credible. (I guess a couple of the filters is to see if the video is produced by a non-profit organization or look at the category of the video.) I would rather not sanction the Tube forum, though I realize that it offers an effective way of sharing information quick with users. Also, I am concerned that students may not be able to view the library videos on a campus with slow bandwidth. Podcasting is more of a viable option for libraries to me. I can see users subscribing to certain audio podcasts or using library kiosh’s on campus to take casts to put on various players. The multi-task, on-the-go learner may not always want to see an instruction video. Regardless, both videos on either YouTube or through podcasting allow users to learn-no demand–something most reference librarians want for their users. Also, audio podcasting is a way to slow learners fast paced imagery filled world; you have to listen to get at the content and you have to develop your own imagination which fuels a quiet, lasting connection with content in a different way. There are no pre-developed images to make it easy for you, you have to work up the images yourself. For students in the health sciences, the buzz word behind the preceding is “critical thinking.”