For many, the concept of putting library videos on a social media platform like YouTube can be daunting. However, YouTube can be a powerful tool for increasing your library's visibility amongst students and parents. In this era of Distance Learning, we need all the resources we can get in order to connect digitally with our patrons and their families.
Why should we use Youtube?
- The kids are already using it! Think about how many times you've gone around to classrooms or had students in the library who were jamming out to some sick tunes on YouTube. How many times are students sharing a funny video with each other? Students love videos.
- YouTube doesn't (currently) have a storage limit. One 5-minute video file can be anywhere from 25 to 75MB! If you don't have unlimited Google Drive Storage or a hard drive in the terabyte range, you can be filling up your personal storage really quickly with videos! Lack of storage space could slow down your computer's performance.
- Keep generative views for years to come. When videos are posted to Facebook, Instagram, or other social media, they can be lost to the sands of time (which might be good in some cases!). If you or your students have worked hard on a book trailer or a book tasting, those videos are ones you'll probably want around for a while.
What are some things you can use a YouTube channel for?
*Check copyright for books in your Read-a-louds - SLJ has a great post on this!
Convinced??
If you're ready to start, head over to youtube.com and sign in with a Google Account (or create a specific one just for your library).
- Your channel - this is where your videos live, and where you can upload more videos. You can also create playlists in here and add videos to existing playlists
- YouTube Studio - another place to upload videos, but also where you can edit and change settings for videos previously uploaded.
- Settings - this is where you will find a lot of really great features, including:
- Notifications - control what emails/notifications YouTube sends you
- Playback and Performance - where you can turn on closed captioning and other settings
Tips for starting out
- 3-and-your-done. Your video will never be perfect. Why? because you're not a Hollywood actor with a cast and crew behind you! Give yourself a limit on retakes - 3 takes and you move on. Otherwise, you'll sit there all day trying to get it to be perfect!
- Make playlists like you would make a book collection. If you have many book talks in the same genre, make a playlist so your viewers can
- If you're using a phone or tablet, invest in a stand. Shaking videos are never fun to watch! There are a ton of great stands for under $20 on Amazon and other similar websites.
- Record in Landscape, not Portrait. If you're using a tablet or a phone, turn your device "sideways" aka landscape. This will ensure your video fills up the Youtube viewer, rather than having a strip of video in the middle and a bunch of black space to the left and right.
Things to consider about your channel
- Do you want comments on your videos? Commenting can be turned off on videos, which might be good especially for younger grades where there are more privacy concerns. Rather, invite conversation on other platforms or through email where commenting can be private and monitored.
- Public, Unlisted, or Private? There are three privacy settings for videos which can be leveraged for specific needs. Depending on what you're posting, you might want your videos to be unlisted (like with read-a-louds, where many publishers have asked for videos to not be publicly searchable), or public for virtual tours, interviews, or book talks.
- Public: anyone can find your video in the search, and these videos are in your channel
- Unlisted: viewers need the direct link to your video to view it. These won't appear in searches, or on your channel.
- Private: you invite others to watch your videos. They can't send the URL to others to watch it
Start posting!
Like many social media, YouTube is very much a "Build it and they will come". But you have to make it easy to find! Start posting your videos on your school or library websites, or connecting them to book collections in your favorite cataloging system. Share out on your other social media that you have a channel, and you might start getting subscribers! Send out links or QR codes to your videos in your School Newsletter.
Feel free to share out on Twitter using #4csla and tagging @cslainfo and yours truly at the address below! Happy YouTubing! 📹
Sara Smith, Teacher LibrarianSanger High School & Sanger High West@sm_wordsmith on Twitter
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