YouTube, Animoto, and QR Codes

Libraries are faced with a challenge in today's world with technology being so present and accessible to a large majority of patrons. We have had to evolve and get tech-savvy to create a hook for people to want to come to the library. YouTube and other video platforms provide an eye-catching way to lure students into the library. There are so many ways in which we can use videos to get a message across to the audience from introduction videos, book trailers, group meeting announcements and more. Here are a few ways other libraries have used technology to increase student interest as well as a few of my own!

YouTube

NHS Library

The Norman High School Library page has some instructional videos to show students how to access their content as well as some videos students might find entertaining. I think they do a great job of having content on their page that is useful in many different ways and is eye-catching for both students and adults.

I find this video to be the most helpful as it gives students a way to follow along and visually understand how to reach their page.

I believe this is a great video that students might like the best as it shows their teachers reading excerpts from different books.

The Unquiet Library

The Unquiet Library (love that name!) was a very active site 7 years ago. It has everything from instructional videos to student work to reflection videos to club videos. It has many videos that are still relevant in today's library. I love the attention to detail and the broad range they covered.

A video students might find helpful is the one explaining what Creative Commons is and how it could be best used when creating projects for class. This also encompasses works created by students and how that affects their original work.

This video brought a smile to my face so I'm sure other students might find this enjoyable. While I'm sure this video dates me a bit, I can't help but remember when Rock Band was a huge hit and we would have get together's to "jam out" with friends. I love how this video defines their moniker of being the unquiet library!

Pikesville High School Library

This website has many, many useful videos. One I thought particularly helpful was the video showing all the tools the library had to offer. I love that it showed real-world pictures of students and teachers to back up each statement as well.

A video the students might like might be something you hardly ever see in the library. While I know this isn't the safest way to party, this definitely looks like fun! I love how the adults were interactive rather than being wallflowers!

BBSMedia

This particular site has more recent videos but I find it to be skewed to mostly entertaining videos about overdue books. That is important and they have found a creative way to get their message across, but I feel they need more instructional content added to add more validity to their channel.

One video I found helpful for students was the video recommending books in the library that had strong female lead characters. There are many amazing books out there that have a male lead character but I feel like this might be a popular video for those students who wish to live vicariously through the book they are reading.

While I myself am not into Star Wars (avoids ALL the lynch mobs I know are coming after me), I could see how this video would appeal to a ton of students and staff. It's an important lesson while managing to get creative and capture audience attention because of the medium used.

Animoto

A goal of mine this year has been to produce visual ways for students, parents and staff members to get exposed to more books. I am working on getting digital signage where I can loop book trailers of books for them to see. I would ideally like to keep them under 1 minute to keep the interest of my younger students.

Animoto is a free website that allows you to create short clips. If you have the educator log in, you can create slightly longer clips. It is very user friendly and extremely customizable. It is a great tool that allows you to input text, videos, pictures and more to get your creative vision across.

Creative Commons is a great website that houses pictures that have given permission to use for creative purposes.

QR Codes

In conjunction with the book trailers being displayed, I want to create QR codes inside the cover for students to be able to scan using library iPads to see the book trailer in their hands as well. This will allow students to view more videos targeted to their specific interests.

QR codes themselves are so versatile, I used to have QR codes made for each class to log into their Seesaw accounts, instructional videos posted on certain documents for parents to view an instructional video, and QR codes posted on my about me at the beginning of the year. It is a great, effective way to communicate with a more interested audience.

Below is the QR code to the book trailer video I created using Animoto over One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus.