Week 12

Well it's that time of the semester when I regret leaving my assignments to the end... Consequently I also regret blowing through my holidays. With that being said I was still quite happy reading the articles this week as I found them both interesting and informative. I have very limited experience with flicker and have never posted on youtube although I do enjoy watching videos for information and enjoyment.

The "seven things" article really pointed out just how powerful youtube really is, any medium that can generate 100 million views daily represents a significant mechanism for information exchange.  I would have had no idea how to go about harnessing this power though. Luckily the Good article presented some very useful and interesting techniques to maximize your impact and presence using this relatively new medium.

I think a Guru account would suit me just fine, as would the format of keeping things to a snappy, short and super informative video... The only problem is my lack of expertise in anything useful. I have personally taken advantage of the videos posted by "guru's" a number of times, in particular I like a "guru" who does short videos on learning Gaelic, I've also used you tube Guru video's when I cook, I find having the visual really helps when I'm trying to cook things beyond my comfort/skill level.

I think this could be a very valuable tool for libraries for a number of reasons, the most evident of course are that it is free and that it has a huge potential audience. The library where I did my coop for instance produced a number of video pathfinders on using legal information sources. I thought it was a terrible shame that they were being kept internal when it would have been very simple to post them on youtube where I'm sure they would have benefited a great number of people.

Grant