Snap Your Joy

Great video from Soul Pancake on YouTube: "SoulPancake set up a giant camera on the street and captured people's expressions of happiness. How will you express yourself today?"

YouTube: Viva La Library

A video gem from Dr. James McGrath of Butler University: Viva La Library (The Information Literacy Song) ... enjoy.

Fun Book Store Video

I've seen this video, The Joy of Books, several places over the last few days. It's creative and very well done, definitely worth a look!

"After organizing our bookshelf almost a year ago (http://youtu.be/zhRT-PM7vpA), my wife and I decided to take it to the next level. We spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at Type bookstore in Toronto (883 Queen Street West, (416) 366-8973)." -- The Joy of Books, YouTube Channel crazedadman

The Future of Publishing

Voya Magazine, more specifically @voyamagazine on Twitter, shared this video earlier today. Posted by Penguin Group USA, it's a creative look at the publishing industry - backwards and forward.




An interview with the video's creator is available on the Penguin USA blog post, The Future of Publishing.

2-Weekly Reader

Teaching Search Engine Literacy with a Google A Day
"A Google a Day is a great new way to discover fascinating information about the world around all while learning how to use the wealth of the web to satisfy one’s curiosity. Moreover, it’s a great way for students and library patrons to build search skills that allow them to better put the power of Google’s search engine to work for them in researching for assignments and discovering untapped avenues for further exploration." -- Peter Murray, Disruptive Library Technology Jester, 7/27/11

71% of Online Adults Now Use Video-Sharing Sites
"Fully 71% of online Americans use video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, up from 66% a year earlier. The use of video-sharing sites on any given day also jumped five percentage points, from 23% of online Americans in May 2010 to 28% in May 2011.Rural internet users are now just as likely as users in urban and suburban areas to have used these sites, and online African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely than internet-using whites to visit video-sharing sites." -- Kathleen Moore, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 7/26/11


New Tools for Handling Copyright on Blogger
"In keeping with Google’s public commitment to make copyright work better online, our team has been working on improving the copyright environment for bloggers and copyright owners alike. As access to the web grows, bringing new content and services online, it becomes even more important to ensure the rights of everyone involved are protected and understood. To that end, we’re happy today to announce the release of two significant improvements to Blogger’s copyright handling toolkit." -- Brett Wiltshire, Blogger Buzz, 7/25/11

How to Force Subtitles in an Embedded YouTube Video
"It’s been about three years since YouTube introduced improved automatic captions for some of the videos; in a year they became more common and last year they were enabled for all English-language videos.YouTube captioning is the way to help hearing impaired people to understand the videos and, coupled with automatic translation, it can also help non-English people around the world to access the video content. The feature uses Google speech recognition technology to transcript any uploaded video." -- Ann Smarty, Make Use Of, 7/25/11

5 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Apps and Ebooks
"When it comes to physical books and materials, librarians are confident reviewers and collectors. We can distinguish between a so-so beginning reader and a truly excellent one. We know what makes a particular work of middle grade fiction absolute shelf candy versus a hard sell. We can appreciate what goes into the creation of a brilliantly designed picture book.  The good news is that many of the same critical skills used to evaluate physical media are transferable when evaluating digital media.  Ebooks and apps, however, do present new challenges as well as new possibilities.  It can be helpful to go in armed with a simple set of criteria for evaluation." -- Kiera Parrott, ALSC Blog, 7/18/11

Are We Representative? About the Four-Fifths Minority
"The opening session at any ALA-affiliated conference is always a great way to build anticipation and momentum for the conference. Although hearing Dan Savage speak about the It Gets Better Campaign and his personal experiences resulting from coming out and adopting as a gay parent were intriguing, the one element that stuck with me was Roberta Steven’s discussion of the Spectrum Scholarship. The mission of the Spectrum Scholarship is “Improving service at the local level through the development of a representative workforce that reflects the communities served by all libraries in the new millennium.” Upon further digging, I found that Spectrum Scholarship applicants “must be American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.” I can support this as well, as these racial and ethnic groups have typically been underrepresented in the LIS profession." -- Kyle Cox, Library Leadership, 7/18/11

The All-In-One on Humor and Public Speaking: 10 Ways to Make it Work
"Speakers love to inject humor into their talks and presentations, believing it relaxes the audience (and themselves) and puts folks in a good mood. But that's not always the case. Humor, like a banana peel, can result in something funny--unless it trips you up. Use these tips from the blog to find the right places and cases where humor in public speaking will work for you." -- Denise Graveline, The Eloquent Woman, 7/18/11

Revisiting Animoto

Last August I spent some time happily working with Animoto to update a library video (or two) and create a short technology Animoto video project based on snippets of information from CDWG's 21st Century Classroom Report 2010. The library video is happily living on my YouTube channel and embedded in a LibGuide highlighting library services. The technology video is embedded in my online class in Angel, or more appropriately it was part of my course. This evening, I received an email from the YouTube team announcing:

"Your video, 21st Century Classrooms, may have content that is owned or licensed by -----. No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information."

I spent time reviewing the information provided by YouTube's Copyright Overview Center, it seems the music accompanying my Animoto project was found to possibly be copyrighted and not available for use. I considered using AudioSwap and over-riding the audio track on the existing video, but ultimately went back to Animoto, remixed the video with a different audio track, uploaded the new video to YouTube, and deleted the offending video. I used the same audio track as selected for one of the library video projects; even though the other was more appropriate to the topic and images, there have been no problems reported with the library finished project. I am unsure how an audio track available to freely use with one entity causes copyright problems on another, but not naive enough to think it couldn't happen.

My librarian's heart is happy the potential copyright infringement has been resolved. Even better, the issue is resolved prior to working with video projects in class. Overall it’s been an interesting YouTube week for me; first I was contacted by Google Docs Community for permission to include my Google Docs videos in their revamped channel playlist - more on that later- and the second resulting in removal of a video.

From Common Craft: Project Based Learning

The Common Craft blog presented a new video yesterday, Project Based Learning - Explained: A Custom Video Project with BIE. It is a great resource for understanding what PBL is and what it can do for students in any classroom. The online education technology course I work with is project based and focuses upon 21st Century Skills for students as pre-service teachers. This is something that could be incorporated with information literacy instruction, especially when paired with active learning.

It's that time: The year in review

A plethora of annual year-end lists are being published, here are a few that made their way into my reader this weekend. In no particular order:

• The Top Twitter Trends of 2010
• The Horn Book Magazine's 2010 Fanfare List
• Time Magazine, The Top Ten of Everything 2010
• Time Magazine, The Top Ten Gadgets
• The Top Ten Quotes of 2010
• Yahoo! 2010 Year in Review
• Yahooo! 2010 Year in Review: Top 10 Searches

And, from Google and YouTube:

• The Year on YouTube: Double Rainbows, Annoying Oranges, and Bed Intruders
  
  

• Zeitgeist 2010: How the World Searched
  
  

YouTube Partnership Program

This morning I had the following email from the YouTube team:

Your video Google Docs - Creating Shared Link for Your Spreadsheet might be eligible for the YouTube Partnership Program, which allows you to make money from playbacks of your video.

If your video is approved, we'll start placing ads next to the video and pay you a share of the revenue as long as you meet the program requirements.

We look forward to adding your video to the YouTube Partnership Program.

Thanks and good luck!
The YouTube Team

Generally I would view this type of message spam, so I was hesitant, also known as highly suspicious, regarding its validity. The video in question is a 43 second clip created for my technology class; it illustrates how to create a shared link in Google Docs Spreadsheets. General stats reveal it has been viewed over 300 times, but considering four classes of 18 students each had access to the resource, if each of them watched an average of four times it would account for all the 'hits.' Oddly enough, YouTube Insight statistics ranks it as popular with 13-17 year old boys.

Mildly tempting, I am going to hold off on the opportunity at this time. The video is for educational purposes and while the bulk of my videos are embedded in Angel, I am not sure I want ads next to the content, especially when I do not know what type of ad may be optioned.

It's a book!

In the interest of full disclosure on a Friday afternoon I will preface the remainder of this post with; I love Lane Smith's books. Some of my favorite titles are John, Paul, George, and Ben, Madam President, and Big Plans. That list does not include his work with Jon Scieszka such as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Math Curse, and best of all, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. So it is not all that unusual It's a Book was recently added to the library's juvenile collection.

MacMillan Children's Books has a YouTube channel. Here's It's a Book:

It's a Book is a comical and accurate view of the books verses media debate narrated by a mouse, a jackass, and a monkey. A technology focused jackass consistently questions the monkey reading a book about its various "functions." The patient response to every question asked is, "No, it's a book." Illustrations are crisp, clean, and colorful; a double page spread detailing hours passing as jackass becomes fully involved reading monkey's book is classic. Mouse has the final word in this argument, and therein lie the questions this book seems to be gathering.

Reviews have been mixed for It's a Book; while School Library Journal listed it as a starred review (Gr. 3-5) in their August 2010 issue, others have disagreed. I've added it to the collection of titles to be used during a Mock Caldecott session after Labor Day. I am deeply curious how a group of pre-service teachers will view the book, illustrations, use of the word jackass (as opposed to donkey), and how or if it would fit into a classroom.

Other issues aside, wouldn't the video make a great ice-breaker for a library instruction session?

Life in a Day

Students in my section of EDCI 232/505: Introduction to the Principles of Instructional Technology finished their desktop movie assignment last week; it's the seventh of ten technology assignments required during the intensive Summer Y session at Ashland. Once videos are finished, they upload to YouTube for grading. As I mentioned to them after grading, finished products this term are some of the best I've seen; they creatively combined different media options such as web cam video, PowerPoint slides, personal digital images, and music (successfully using YouTube's Audio Swap) using Movie Maker and iMovie. Always a popular assignment, discussions on several blog posts this week touched upon different ways movies could be used in the classroom. This morning, YouTube introduced a "cinematic experience," Life in a Day, which could be adapted for classroom use (or libraries for that matter!).

Regardless, it is an interesting experiment ...

YouTube and the Guggenheim

Really, The Guggenheim Museum. This is an intriguing way to incorporate art, video, and the visual arts in museums; YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video.

"YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video aims to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of online video. Developed by YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum in collaboration with HP, YouTube Play hopes to attract innovative, original, and surprising videos from around the world, regardless of genre, technique, background, or budget. This global online initiative is not a search for what’s “now,” but a search for what’s next. Visit youtube.com/play to learn more and submit a video." -- Guggenheim News

Learn more about this collaboration on YouTube Play, the Official YouTube blog, or Google Blog.

VHS Domino Train

A film by:

Benjamin Wheal, Symon Williamson, Carly Reimann and friends

City of Tea Tree Gully Library

"To celebrate the demise of the video collection and the now unchallenged reign of the DVD, staff felt that the remaining videos must go out with a bang. One weekend staff came in on their own time to film the final stand of the video in a giant domino train throughout the library space as a fitting homage to their service. May the videos now rest in peace. Long live the VHS!" -- TTGLibrary's YouTube Channel

It's a bit lengthy, but worth the time as the VHS trail gets increasingly complicated towards the end (you can fast forward).I had three distinct thoughts once the video was over; how long did it take to set-up, how long did it take to clean up, and I need to post this video.

Changes to YouTube

Yesterday YouTube announced the second phase of their page redesign described as "one of the largest redesigns in YouTube's history: we're simplifying the look and functionality of the video page." I have not used it enough yet to form a strong opinion either way, but admit it was more challenging to find a video embed code earlier today; something I will look at a bit more closely as I upload, and embed videos for use in LibGuides and Angel.

Just for fun, and because today is April Fool's Day, here's a new release from the Muppet Studio YouTube Channel (wait for Statler and Waldorf at the end).




In case anyone's interested, here's a link to PC World's Top 10 April Fools' Fake News Items for 2010.

Library of the Future In Plain English

Making it's way through cyber-space today via tweets, Google alerts, Facebook, and blogs, is Library of the Future in Plain English.

If you are a fan of the Common Craft Explanations In Plain English videos, this production by Mal Booth, Sophie McDonald and Belinda Tiffen, from University of Technology, Sydney, Library, cleverly presents their view of a future library utilizing "ideas and concept for the video format that were borrowed from the Common Craft website" Plenty of food for thought and discussion exhibited here.

Collingswood Library Promo

What fun! Posted on Library Garden yesterday, this video is a clever marketing tool for Collingswood Library.

This video does twice the work for me; I am able to pass along one more posting of the fundraising idea here and at the same time illustrate to any students in my technology class (who are conveniently preparing a video assignment due later this week) that may be reading this blog (they share their blogs and I share mine) an example of how video may be used for purposes outside of the classroom.

"To know the future - return to the past"

It's here, the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (though the official Harry Potter site at Warner Brothers links to Order of the Phoenix). Wired reports that Harry Potter has teamed with MTV, in much the same way as the new Batman movie had done recently, for promotional purposes.

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer Unveiled - Telegraph.co.uk
• What Does the New "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Trailer Mean? - MTV Movie Blog
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer Shot by Shot - MTV Movie News Story
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - MTV Movies

The movie release date is November, so I have time to re-read my copy of Half-Blood Prince!

Annual 2008 Wrap Up

"Live" from YouTube, the ALA Annual Conference wrap-up video featuring Mickey, Minnie, Doc, Grumpy, and the gang, as well as a few librarians and notable speakers. Special thanks to the ALSC Blog (Association for Library Services for Children) for posting about the video.

Now, if only I could find video on YouTube from this year's Book Cart Drill Team competition!

YouTube: "The Librarian Song"

I read, actually read and listened to, two very different things regarding librarian's and searching this morning. The first was an ACRLog post There's More to Finding Than we Thought that discusses a Pew Internet & American Life Project study concerning search engine users.

The second, a YouTube video featuring "The Librarian Song."

"First she, showed it to me
Then she, did it with me,
And she smiled so happily when I could do it for myself."

"She's the interactive kind,
When there are things to find,
My librarian, she's so fine!"

"Song from the Joe Uveges - When Freedom Calls concert on November 2, 2007 in Colorado Springs." (YouTube - The Librarian Song)

Shut Down Day 2007