YouTube for Blue 2.0

For Blue 2.0, my next assignment for the weeks I let pass me by is to write a review of a YouTube video created and tagged with the word “libraries.” My favorite is this one for the Cincinnati Public Library’s 2007 Summer Reading Program. This short (30-second) video was created to advertise the library’s summer reading program for children. It plays on the Mission Impossible theme with plenty of action. Since it’s primary audience consists of adolescents and families, it strikes just the right tone of mock-seriousness and crams plenty of information (how-to, timeline, prizes) into its 30 seconds. I found it an effective use of the medium. (I wouldn’t be surprised if it was created as a television commercial first, but it could just as easily have been created as an amateur video.) I think certainly librarians would get a kick out of it, and kids would enjoy it. As a matter of fact, my 9-year-old son was watching over my shoulder and he said, “That was a great commercial!” So, not only did he like it … he also knew what it was. YouTube can be a very useful tool.

I know I posted it all over the place earlier, but here’s a link to the video my staff and I created for the Second Life opening of University of KY Island. I posted it earlier this month on YouTube. It was fairly easy to create my account and upload, though it did take longer to upload than I expected. But having it on YouTube gave me much more control over its placement and distribution than did having it on my own website or on TASC’s website, because I could embed it in invitations and my blog.