Thing 8: Video

Video is something I am not very good at.  I can think of lots of ways that it could be used in libraries and archives, but since I am not very adept at it, I have not used it much.  I liked the David Lee King/Michael Porter video on tips for making a good video.  But how long did it take them to make it?  Michael Porter's shirt changes alone must have taken half an hour, not counting the time it took to gather the shirts and iron them!  (I do like the flowered ones, though.)  The rest of it is polished as well.  I like the suggestion to make short videos about your staff.  This may make patrons more comfortable with approaching staff members.  I don't know if this idea would get a good reception among staff members, however.  At my workplace, staff members don't even want to have their photos on our web site.  In public libraries, where staff are sometimes worried that certain patrons might harass or stalk them, there would likely be even more resistance on the part of staff about revealing a bit about themselves online.

Some of the library/archives videos I like the most are fairly simple in terms of graphics, sound and transitions.  The video below is from the University of Manitoba.  Watching this video would be a great homework assignment for courses that include work in the archives.  Students could watch it before visiting the archives, so more class time could be devoted to more substantive issues.  It would also give the students, most of whom have probably never visited an archives before, a point of reference.  The video could make students less intimidated by the archives, especially since it is narrated by one of them and not some scary archivist-type.



The next video is from the New York State Archives, and it features a College of Saint Rose professor introducing viewers to ideas for using primary sources in the classroom, especially at the elementary level.  The NY3R's should consider connecting this video to the New York Heritage digital collections web site.  Several regions of the state will be merging our collections, and we have many grand ideas for improving the user experience, including providing tools to teachers for using these digitized resources in their classrooms.  This video would be a good start.



What little professional experience I have had with video has been helping (and I use that term loosely) Ilka Morse create the screencasts on using CONTENTdm software that she discusses in her blog.  Even these very short videos (the longest is 5 minutes long) that did not involve any camera work took a very long time to perfect.  Part of this was due to our unfamiliarity with the Camtasia software and the process.  But it is also true that it is difficult to edit mistakes, and it is easier to look/sound goofy or fumbling on video than in writing or in person. 

The "non-professional" videos that I have embedded above are actually very smooth.  I would be curious to learn about how the people made them - did they write a word-by-word script ahead of time?  Did they memorize the script?  Did they shoot the video in very short segments?  How many times did they practice it?  Who critiqued it?

We have received very positive feedback about our screencasts.  It is much easier for people to troubleshoot when they can actually see what we are talking about "live" than on a static help sheet or over the telephone.  However, as mentioned above, these screencasts are very labor-intensive and time-consuming to make.  Once we are at the point where we can resume creating educational tools like this for New York Heritage contributors (we are currently in the midst of transferring things between servers), we will need to carefully consider which topics and procedures warrant the resources needed to create the screencasts.  If the issue is something that only a few people are having trouble with, it may be easier to work with people one-on-one using a tool like join.me,  highlighted in Thing 7.

Finally, I have a Flip camera at home that our family received as a Christmas present a couple of years ago.  This has been great fun to use, and it helped my Girl Scout troop earn their Audiovisual Production Badge (excuse me, Interest Project Patch, at least until September, when all the insignia change yet again).  However, I have found the software needed to edit, post, etc. the videos to be clunky and difficult to use.  I have never used any other type of camera, however, so it may just be my incompetence.  What types/brands of cameras do people like to use for their work-related videos?  How about software to manipulate the videos?