News at Newsweek
Posted by Linda W. Braun
The cover story in this week’s Newsweek is titled, “Putting the ‘We’ in Web.” The article is worth reading as it talks about some of the technologies and sites that teens currently use and does a good job at providing an overview of what community building on the web is currently all about.
I thought the opening paragraph that reads
“Why is everyone so happy in Silicon Valley again? A new wave of start-ups are cashing in on the next stage of the Internet. And this time, it’s all about … you.”
Provided some good food for thought from the teen librarian perspective. The “you” that they talk about isn’t just about your customers who use the web but the you is also us and how we can start to think about integrating these technologies into our programs and services for teens.
One of the sites/technologies discussed in the article is YouTube and I was reminded again about a podcast I listened to that included an interview with one of the founders of YouTube. In the podcast one person mentioned that his teenagers basically have given up TV and only watch videos they find on YouTube. Downloadable video/TV is the next big frontier on the web. Have we started thinking about how teens are using it and what we can do to support them in their use of downloadable video?
Hi Linda. I think one of the ways we can support teens and their interests in video media, is to provide them with a forum to make their own films.
At the University of Pittsburgh, the library marketing students created a video to promote libraries as a fun place. I was involved with the project, and the experience taught me how to use video technology to create a fun, short film. It isn’t exactly easy to create a polished film with multiple scene changes, music clips, and other fancy editing. In fact, the process can be very time consuming. However, I am still optimistic that librarians can use digital media to connect with teens by allowing them to make their own films in the library, provided that the videos are not overly elaborate. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be blogging about the experience of creating “Rock n Roll Library” on the yalibrarian.com, from a teen librarian perspective.
PS the video is can be viewed on YouTube, if you are interested in seeing the final result.
You know until I read this comment I never searched YouTube for library. Wouldn’t it be great if libraries started working with teens to create short videos and uploaded them to YouTube? There could be some really great learning and community building going on with that.
Thanks for the link.