I wonder about using videos on library web sites. Many libraries have video virtual tours, but I’m not sure if they ever help anyone find their way in the library. I don’t think that using videos for library instruction works all that well, although I do like the idea of using screencasts that show an animated search in a library database. I haven’t developed many screencasts, although I do have Macromedia Captivate, and I’ve used it for some very short tutorials.
I’m not sure what purpose tutorials like this serve. Although it is always nifty to see libraries experimenting with technology on their web site, I’m not too crazy about the content of the videos. There are a couple amusing bits (like the professor appearing in a cloud), but most of it looks like a skit that someone might act out to show future librarians how NOT to do a reference interview. This video triggered one of my big pet peeves - if you give your library catalog a cute nickname and joke about how people can’t understand the cute nickname, why not just drop the nickname already?! The most informative parts of the videos were the animations of how to use the library web site, and the image was too small to actually see any of the search examples.
Okay. Agree with you. Sort of. Wanted to strangle that libarian-from-Hades from time to time. On t’other hand, I did find myself trying very hard not to laugh out loud, not really wanting my cubicle colleagues to know I might have strayed off the path of cataloguing this #*($#^$%@ serial. (Gods forbid I ever become a serials cataloguer. Mad, the whole bunch of ‘em. Gotta be!
) And I did find myself enjoying at least the two segments I took the time to watch enough that I ended up learning the lessons they wanted to teach.
In short: if that had been a real librarian / patron encounter, oh, the horror, the horror! But. Given that it’s a tutorial, intended for students, to be watched at their leisure, and assuming these films amuse them as much as they amused me … Well, yeah, I think they work pretty well.
As for Josiah … once I learned after whom it was called, I sorta kinda cottoned to the name. And I suspect so will the students.
I know I’m probably being too picky
I guess I wish the librarian-from-Hades was portrayed as a little more helpful and less lectury, because even though the skits are parody she seemed to conform to all the worst expectations someone might have about the “help” they would get at the library.
Whereas I, librarian to the bone, assume the students know better and that it’s a parody. Including a parody of the student himself. I guess the only way to find out is to ask them. [shrug] Who knows …