Tapping Into Media

Some people learn better through viewing and listening, and some people simply don't like to read. In our society, there seems to be a general move away from text, or, at least, text as we have defined it in the past. Moreover, mobile devices such as laptops, PDAs, and cell phones make video and audio incredibly easy to imbibe. So how do libraries compete for attention in this environment? According to the 2005 OCLC report Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, the library brand is books. If our communities think we're all about books while people are used to getting their information from places other than books, how do we stay relevant?

Most libraries now have a web presence that is an online extension of their physical space. At those institutions, we no longer have to argue that the library goes beyond the walls of the building. Just as libraries added video and audio to their physical collections when albums and videocassettes became popular, we must enhance our virtual presence with cutting-edge and popular audio and video features.

Some libraries already tap into this desire for visual entertainment and education, this love of all things fun and audiovisual. The New York Public Library makes available on its web site some of its past programming, often in more than one format. There, online visitors can read transcripts as well as listen to audio or video recordings of author readings and other performances.

The web site of Boulder Public Library, CO, has podcasts created by teens. Visitors can listen as the teens provide news from the library, interview artists, and review books, movies, or music. They do this in-house using the free service Gcast, which allows them to record messages by cell phone or computer and mix the recordings with an online playlist manager. The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, NC, similarly delivers videos created by its LibraryLoft teens through its web site as well as through its dedicated YouTube channel.

Content like this isn't just for teens, either. At the “Over 50 and Not Dead Yet” session of the media-focused South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival 2008, panelists reported that the boomer generation responds to video outreach, too—not necessarily general YouTube content but things like instructional or informational online videos about cooking and health.

A good example is the popularity among seniors of Florida's Orange County Library System's wide range of live and recorded online training sessions, author events, and book discussions, which they and anyone else can access from the comfort of their home computers.

Together, these examples signal a significant trend for libraries hoping to extend the reach of their content. As John Blyberg of the Darien Library, CT, noted recently, enterprising libraries like these are hoping to redefine their role “as not just the content provider but also the content creator.”

While libraries have been very good at looking to one another for best practices, the most innovative online resources and services are being developed and delivered outside the library world. Library staff members must seek out and use these tools for their own virtual multimedia projects.

On the web, the lines of media are blurring. Traditional print resources such as journals, magazines (including this one), and newspapers are using audio and video on their web sites to enhance their text content. The New York Times site is loaded with video; in fact, on any given day it has hundreds of video stories users can access via a tab at the top of the site. Much of this video content is very powerful, providing information and news in a way that text alone cannot.

Traditional radio is changing, too. Before, it was just sound; now, online, you get the sound component as well as pictures and text. National Public Radio® (NPR) has an amazing music site offering easy ways for users to access new songs and performance pieces, complete with video. This takes NPR well beyond the realm of radio.

If you still aren't convinced, consider the five most popular web sites according to Alexa Internet Inc.'s web-traffic rankings, which all prominently feature audio and video elements:

1. Google has a dedicated media search in Google Video linked from all search results.
2. Yahoo directly links to Y! Music and Television and Movie pages, giving users access to streaming music, videos, and film trailers.
3. MySpace lets people (and libraries) embed music and video directly into their profiles.
4. YouTube—what is there to say? It's all about audio and video.
5. On Facebook, users can automatically sync music to their profiles via a simple software application like Last.fm. Using social networking tools such as iLike, they can also listen to new performances by their favorite artists and even dedicate songs to their Facebook friends.

A logical way to begin is to extend a service your library already provides. That's how we at the Denver Public Library (DPL) started down the audio and video path. For years, children's librarians have been reading stories to kids in person and through recorded phone messages (Phone-a-story). Taking it online seemed like the next logical step, and in 2006 we launched our children's story podcasting service.

While we started with stories in the public domain, we sent out queries to publishers selected by our children's librarians for copyright permission. (Yes, reading, recording, and distributing the audio of a copyrighted story requires permission from the publisher and author, unless it is a clip less than three minute in length.) Most of these publishers simply ignored our request, but Harvest House actually contacted us after reading about our service in an audiobook trade publication. So far, we've gotten permission from four publishers: Harvest House, Candlewick, Harcourt, and August House. Each required that we request specific titles for approval (they had to research copyright for every title) and also required specific attribution on our podcasting site.

We invested in decent equipment, a professional digital recorder, and several good microphones. If you can't afford that, it's easy enough just to use your computer and a microphone. We use free editing software and invested in a sound-dampened studio where external noise isn't a problem, but even that's not a necessity. The studio is essentially a closet with foam on some of the walls. Once the recording and editing are done, we host the audio files off-site so they don't tax our bandwidth.

As a result of these efforts, our podcast audience is growing by the week. At the moment, each podcast has averaged 546 listeners (as measured by downloads), which is far more people than would fit in a branch's physical space for story time.

What about video? YouTube has made it both easy and cheap for users to share video content with the world. For libraries, it's a particularly great way to promote services and events, share resources, and tell their stories. Edmonton Public Library, Alberta, has taken advantage of YouTube's services by posting 11 videos of puppet shows for its patrons—and anyone else. Some libraries have even called for video submissions that they ultimately post on YouTube, e.g., through the Gale-sponsored “I Love My Library” contest.

Not only can you easily host content on YouTube, but you can create your own customized and branded space there with its channels feature. You can even post YouTube videos directly on your library's web site using the simple embed feature.

Of course, there are other ways to serve up video besides YouTube. You can create and then host videos right on your site. Maybe you have some beautiful artwork in your library, and you'd like to exhibit it online. Our team put together a Flash video using still images spliced together to show off a 130-yard Edward Ruscha mural that spans the entire length of the Central Library atrium. “A rolling historical landscape” of Colorado and the West is how Ruscha describes this panoramic artwork, which unfolds in epic fashion on 70 painted panels high above the main hall. Though standing directly beneath this mural is one way to view it, being able to see it all seamlessly online is wonderful both for those who have seen it in person and for those who haven't or wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

Temporary exhibits can also have new and lasting life online. At DPL, we created a web companion to a temporary exhibit based on local author Rebecca Benes's Native American Picture Books of Change. The text draws on picture books for use in Native American schools created under the auspices of the federal government in the late 20th century. This exhibit features the original illustrations from these books, drawn from the collection of the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture.

To create the digital companion, our team used podcast recording equipment to do a formal seated interview with the exhibit creator, then combined still images in Apple's iMovie using the “Ken Burns effect” to pan and zoom, generating movement and interest. The result is a long-term life for this temporary exhibit as well as added depth and richness that only audio and video can bring. Supplementing textual information with audiovisual dimensions brings virtual exhibits to life.

Author visits are also perfect occasions to get out the AV equipment. When children's author and illustrator Chris Raschka came to our library, our content developers combined some of his book illustrations with photos of children attending the event, along with music and recordings of Raschka talking with and reading his books to the kids. The end result is a delightful video that captures many of the best aspects of the occasion.

To create this project, we used Adobe Captivate, a product originally designed to develop tutorials, and we have used it for that purpose as well. Libraries have all sorts of reasons to develop and make available online tutorials—we have produced them to demonstrate how to place holds in our catalog in English and Spanish and how to use WorldCat.

So, what's next for DPL Online? We are planning soon to establish a YouTube Channel to aggregate our video content in one place. We just purchased two digital video cameras, a good one for the web team and a cheaper one to lend to staff for experimentation. The web team is planning to create a short (and hopefully clever) video to market virally our library's largest annual fundraiser, the Booklovers' Ball, which will also be getting its own Facebook page later this year.

We're also interested in making short, quirky spots to promote DPL's services and resources, possibly along the lines of the “public service announcements” for the Comedy Central TV show Reno 911. This is just the type of viral content people often email to others, post on their Facebook and MySpace pages, and route to friends via their cell phones.

In general, we want to move away from publishing copyrighted material online since it is time-consuming to get the rights from publishers. Instead, taking a cue from one of our web site's most popular sections—text reviews of books, movies, and music—we want to produce podcasts of fair-use material, such as a short music clip or a paragraph from a book, then add original audio content (e.g., reviews) on top of that. Since many of our staff have, through their online text reviews, developed a following, we have a great opportunity to capitalize on that by having them do regular podcasts. We also want to get teens involved by having them podcast their own reviews, or expand upon written ones found online.

As with most new endeavors, the first step is sometimes the hardest, but the payoff will be worth the investment. By widening the breadth of your online offerings to include audio and video, you are meeting your customers where they are, anticipating their needs, and enriching their lives. And you'll have fun, too.