Tuesday, January 20, 2009

PR Hint for Jan 2009 - Do YouTube?

Do YouTube?

Promote your library online by joining the ranks of millions who are posting and viewing on YouTube! You can take advantage of this free resource to both promote your library and utilize a potentially valuable reference resource. YouTube isn’t just for entertainment any more! It’s a valuable teaching and learning tool, too, depending on what you’re researching.

While the many of his colleagues were attending the MLA conference and he was staying behind to staff the reference desk, Brian Rossmann, Associate Dean of the MSU Libraries, created a short library tour video, which he posted on YouTube and to which we point from our library webpage; find it here: http://www.lib.montana.edu/about/
New and prospective students, visitors and donors can get an introductory glimpse of the library through this dynamic PR tool.

Here are just a few testimonies of the reference uses of YouTube, as noted recently on the DigRef_L discussion list:

*A librarian in Maryland noted that she has used YouTube to answer “how to” questions, including one from a patron who was learning how to knit and one who wanted to solve a Rubrik’s Cube.

*An Illinois librarian used YouTube recently to research marketing in a recession and was pleasantly surprised at the quantity and quality of short videos that contained worthwhile information about marketing in general.


Brought to you by your MLA PR and Marketing Committee


Mary Anne Hansen, MLS, M.Ed
The Montana State University Libraries

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