Just One Word...Video | From the Bell Tower
It is emerging as the most powerful global communication medium, and we need to get better at using it Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA Dec 9, 2010At the fall program of my regional ACRL group, the Delaware Valley Chapter (I hope you are still supporting your Chapter), I had the opportunity to chat with some newer-to-the-profession academic librarians. I was pleased to learn they had found good positions, and it was refreshing to bask in their professional enthusiasm. It's even better to find them getting active in professional associations early on in their careers—smart move.
One of them asked me what skills I thought were the most important for a new academic librarian to obtain and achieve proficiency. My response: "I want to say one word to you. Just one word...video."
Just how do you mean that, sir?
The puzzled look on my new colleague's face signaled that we needed to talk further. Over the last five years I can point to numerous significant trends, social networks and crowdsourcing among them, but video is emerging as perhaps the most powerful medium for global communication. Early on I believed that video stood out as a great marketing tool for libraries. Digital video cameras that are easier to use, along with editing software for the rest of us, make it simpler than ever to create video quickly and inexpensively.
I explained that academic librarians needed to add more than just the technical skills of shooting and editing video; more importantly we need to develop a sense of how, when, and why to use video to promote, advocate, educate, and connect with the user community.
Power to influence and connect
What was once simply a form of entertainment has morphed into what may be our most powerful medium for global communication. Two recent presentations document how video is changing the world by making it easier to spread new ideas and bring kindred souls together to accomplish incredible projects.
I recommend you start with a presentation by Michael Wesch at UX Week 2010 in which he discusses mediated culture. Wesch is the cultural anthropologist who became a worldwide sensation with his "The Machine Is Us/ing Us" video. In this more recent talk Wesch demonstrates incredible insight into how new media, particularly video, can shape and define our culture—and provides great examples. Video, says Wesch, moves us from individual pursuits to collective action.
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and owner of Ted Talks, picks up on that theme with his own Ted Talk about "Crowd Accelerated Innovation." In short, the power of web video, according to Anderson, is its ability to connect individuals who are geographically dispersed to work together on joint projects. Individuals can more easily share their ideas and locate collaborators with video. Not only does the crowd make this new type of innovation possible, but it actually increases the speed with which it happens. After watching these two presentations you'll be thinking about video in entirely new ways.
Let us count the ways
To my way of thinking, the most obvious use of video in an academic setting is instruction. Media services units are growing by leaps and bounds as more faculty integrate all types of videos into their courses. The coming transition from physical media to virtual streaming of content is well on its way with products such as Films on Demand and Digital Campus, and it's likely the next film you buy on DVD will come with options for streaming rights.
These trends suggest that academic librarians need to become just as comfortable searching and manipulating video content as we are with text. Along with this shift, our academic libraries are transitioning from supporting media consumption to enabling media production. Academic librarians are producing video as well, everything from simple screencasts to more elaborately produced marketing video.
I've also noticed more librarians incorporating video into their presentations. The dynamic power of video, used properly, has the capacity to enhance a presentation by reducing the "telling" and increasing the "showing." It can also demonstrate we have much to learn about using video to its fullest advantage. There's quite a difference between navigating to YouTube to show a video and seamlessly incorporating a well-edited video into a presentation. It's one more way in which we need to acquire new skills and transform ourselves and what we bring to our communities.
A dual-edge sword
While our enthusiasm for video needs to grow, let's keep in mind there is a dark side. For some of us it's any video that features librarians lip synching to pop tunes. Video is also being used in academia, primarily by students, to share what happens in the classroom, and not always to good effect. The first of two incidents recently in the news involved a faculty member who was captured berating his students after widespread cheating on an exam was discovered. The video was taken from the lecture capture system used at the University of Central Florida. A video with more entertainment or shock value was recorded by a student with a phone camera most likely. He or she captured video of the faculty member losing his cool over an unknown student who was yawning too loudly. It quickly became quite popular, even getting a few remixes.
These two incidents demonstrate that video will increasingly be used in ways which we couldn't possibly have imagined. With thousands such videos being created at colleges and universities, one must wonder in what ways will they be used for purposes for which they were never intended-cause for both anticipation and worry.
Now is the time to start
So what if you have paid little attention to the video revolution? Is it too late to acquire some of the skills that will help the library take advantage of it?
The good thing about using video is that it's easy to get started with some experimentation. It could be something as simple as making a short screencast just to get a feel for creating something you or others can share and watch on their computers. The more ambitious may want to try using a video camera, even just a Flip or Bloggie to create some simple footage, perhaps an interview with a colleague or student. Take the next step and use some basic editing software to enhance the video. When help is needed, check the Internet for advice or ask a more experienced colleague.
As the day went on at the ACRL program, my new colleague and I observed several different examples of how video is being used in libraries and by academic librarians to promote services, educate users, or drive home a point made by a presenter. Some were better than others, but all served to reinforce my rationale for why academic librarians, both new and not-so-new, need to pay more attention to video as a communication medium. As we parted later that afternoon she turned to me and said, "Video. I get it."
Steven Bell is Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. For more from Steven visit his blogs, Kept-Up Academic Librarian, ACRLog and Designing Better Libraries or visit his website.
