Week 9, Thing 20 You Tube

I found a lot of You Tube videos about librarians, most of them demeaning, ridiculous, and unrealistic. The public must have a very low opinion of librarians and what they do. I saw a British-made video in which the librarian stamped books all day long, and an American-made video entitled "Sexy Librarians," the content of which I will not comment. There was one titled "The Angry Librarian," which depicted the librarian as nervous, neurotic, and overly concerned with book shelving. The video about Conan the Librarian was actually funny, and March of the Librarians was cute, even though it made librarians look like a National Geographic subject. Librarians definitely need to do something to improve their self image.

The website itself can be extremely useful in an educational setting. Students can make their own video about science, math, or literature and post it to YouTube with parental permission. And teachers can use some of the videos to teach content.