Val's Blog: The Use of Web 2.0 Tools in Libraries: Photo and Video Sharing Sites

Friday, April 19, 2013

Photo and Video Sharing Sites

Photo and video sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube are popular with academic libraries. Flickr (2013) is an online photo management and sharing application whose main goals are to help people provide photos to people who matter to them and to enable new ways of organizing photos and video. YouTube (2013) was created in February 2005 and allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube also provides a forum for people to connect and inform others in various locations and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. Research done by Power (2012) discusses how academic libraries can create different types of videos and upload them to YouTube to reach their users. Videos using various services such as ILLiad, finding course reserve materials, self-service circulation, and most importantly library tours are the types of videos academic libraries upload. Photo and video sharing allow patrons of academic libraries to “see” what is happening at the library.

Below is a Library Tour YouTube video I created about the academic library I work at. Check it out!

Flickr. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/.

Power, J. (2010). Online library videos. Journal Of Access Services, 7(3), 186-190.

YouTube. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/.

2 comments:

p.sparrowApril 19, 2013 at 12:06 PM
Just wanted to point out that Flickr (owned by Yahoo!) is also a community based forum where professional and amateur photographers connect with each other to share tips and offer advise. I have also seen some Flickr users create pretty good how-to's in the comment section. Unlike YouTube though, Flickr has a paid user tier and while the photo-encoding used is better than Facebook, social media sites have caused a decrease in use over the years. Also, unlike YouTube, who only has one real "competitor" (Vimeo), there are several other photo hosting sites such as 500px, Google+, etc.
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UnknownApril 23, 2013 at 7:15 PM
The library system I work in uses YouTube to share monthly videos that showcase different branches and what's going on at each of them to keep in touch with the community and also celebrate the people who work at and use the libraries. It's fun to watch and if I didn't already work there, those videos would probably make me want to visit!
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Introduction

Libraries are forever changing and require technologically savvy professionals to assist patrons with new resources within the library. Many people who work in libraries today did not need much technological knowledge when they first started in the profession. Today, a working knowledge of existing and emerging technologies is a must for librarians and staff. Hence, the need for continuing education programs for current library employees as well as changes to the teaching of technology in the library and information science curriculum. These issues need to be addressed so staff and future information professionals can keep pace with the changing needs and expectations of their users. The different types of Web 2.0 tools, social networking, wikis, blogs, social bookmarking and picture and video sharing sites can all be used by libraries to reach its users and provide important information on the various services that they offer.