Skip to main content

Video Playlists

Does your library create videos for patrons to watch?  If so, and if you have more than, say, 25 or 30, you should organize them into playlists.  YouTube has a playlist feature that makes organizing your library videos easy.  Plus, YouTube is a free service.
 

 
Our YouTube channel playlists are divided into several categories, including:
  • Type of library video (e.g., promo trailers, local history videos, readalouds, singalongs, book trailers, etc.);
  • Genre of book (f0r book trailers) (e.g., biography, historical fiction, children's picture books, children's chapter books, humor, etc.); and
  • Most recent videos.
Patrons may then browse playlists for particular subject areas or video types.  For instance, suppose a patron is looking for books about horror or supernatural fiction.  We've got a book trailer playlist for that.



 Horror & Supernatural Fiction
(MPL Book Trailer Playlist)
Do you like romance novels?



 Romance Fiction
(MPL Book Trailer Playlist)
How about adventure and science fiction?



 Adventure & Science Fiction
(MPL Book Trailer Playlist)
Is your preschooler or early elementary student looking for read-along videos for picture books available to checkout at your library?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5bkxeYN4gOd-ykpDx10_T70tYb5LkBL

Story Time LIVE (This Week) Playlist
by Clinton (Indiana) Public Library




 MPL Readaloud
(MPL Children's Video Playlist)
YouTube does have a comprehensive list of each channel's videos, but when you have as many as we do (currently 770), that's a lot of screens to scroll.  Playlists help direct patrons to videos of interest, and they also promote other types of videos that viewers may not have known about.  While looking for one playlist, patrons may become interested in another.  In this way, your playlists cross-pollinate interest in your entire video collection.

Vimeo does not appear to offer playlist capability for its free channels.

If you upload videos directly to Facebook, you may organize them in a video library, which can be searched and filtered to find particular videos.

At my library, we paste video URLs hosted on our YouTube channel into our social media, rather than directly upload videos to Facebook Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. (although we have uploaded some video clips from our outdoor LED sign to Facebook and Twitter).

Our patrons seem to find our playlists reasonably easy to navigate.  We've offered programs showing patrons our YouTube channel and asked them to rate its ease-of-use.  It's not a large survey, but those who participated in the programs liked what they saw.

There's another advantage to high volume:  The more YouTube videos you have, the more likely they will appear higher in search results.  So playlists are essential to keep them all organized.

 Of course, if your viewers are finding your library videos using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., then they won't use playlists.  But patrons browsing your YouTube channel (or other video hosting site) would probably benefit from playlist organization.  It's all about making it easier for your patrons to watch.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

See All the Fun You'll Have Working at the Library!

For many years libraries have used videos to promote programs, resources, services, community connections, local history, and many other  activities.  There is often an underlying implied theme:  the library is a fun place to be!   Patrons and staff have known this to be true forever.  Consider, too, that the library is a fun workplace , and videos can share this side of a library's character. I work in a small township public library ( Mooresville [Indiana] Public Library ) where fun is not merely a daily expectation, it is a requirement.  MPL's YouTube channel has a fleet of videos showcasing the smiles staff wear while working.  Let's see some. Beyond Books Infomercial by Mooresville Public Library Go Ask Reference by Rachel Montgomery & Meghan Adams Librarians Do Taio Cruz by Suzanne Walker We Love Mooresville Public Library by MPL Staff of 2019 Libraries & Old Dewey by Suzanne Walker and MPL Staff & Volunteers It's even possible ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beyond Book Trailers: Using MARC 856 Fields for Other Online Promotional Media

In a previous blog post , we learned how catalogers could use MARC 856 fields to link cataloged books with book trailers (videos) summarizing their contents.  There are other digital media tools available that could be linked in 856 fields to promote cataloged books, such as: Podcasts; Readalouds; Blogs; Video Blogs (Vlogs); Video Book Reviews; Videos showcasing children's library craft activities related to specific books. Librarians use podcasts, blogs, video blogs (vlogs), and video book reviews to discuss library-related topics, including what they (or their book groups) are currently reading.  Podcasts may be audio- or video-recordings, while vlogs and video book reviews are filmed.  Blogs are traditionally online written content.  Podcasts, vlogs, and video book reviews may be done by a single librarian, or they may involve paired conversations or even group discussions.  Written blogs may have one or more authors.  URLs linking any of th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Avoiding Copyright Law Problems With Your Library Video Readalouds

For decades public libraries have presented readaloud children's programs to encourage reading and early literacy.  The photo (below) presents a typical scenario. Click Image to Enlarge Some libraries videorecord librarians reading children's books so that patrons may read along from the comfort of wherever they happen to be at the time.  Here are a few examples (click the boxes below to play the videos): Story Time Anytime!, by Clinton (Indiana) Public Library (see their Story Time LIVE video playlist ) Read Aloud, by Meghan Adams: Barn Dance, by Bill Martin, Jr., et al. Ms. Casey Reads a Chapter From Mr. Popper's Penguins , by Richard & Florence Atwater Videorecording someone reading an entire children's picture book could constitute copyright infringement, although some have argued that these types of videos fall within the "fair use" exception under Section 107 of the federal copyright act (17 U.S.C. §...
Post a Comment
Read more