Keeping Up with the YouTube Generation: Collaborating with Student Video Bloggers to Enhance Instruction

Undergraduates can make significant contributions as members of multimedia production teams for academic libraries. In this case, at USF Tampa Library, an undergraduate “YouTube video blogger” worked with library faculty and graduate students to create an information literacy video, “Databases!” The video was used as part of the USF instruction program during the fall 2006 semester. In addition to an information literacy video, the video team also created a humorous rap video that included an anti-anti-plagiarism theme and highlighted USF library services. The video, entitled “The Chronicles of Libraria,” is currently available at the YouTube Web site. This presentation would share with attendees how the videos were created and the extent to which student ideas, technology skills, and creativity made it work. It will also include our research about how the videos were used as part of the instructional program and the undergraduate student reactions to the videos. Presenters would share the videos along with a video presentation by the undergraduate who edited and created the videos for the USF library as a community service project. Discussions with attendees would include the rationale for including students in the production of multimedia applications as well as the need for librarians to learn more about the latest tools for creating them