YouTube, Cookie Monster, and the Wizard of Oz

Ah, the infamous Youtube. That place that has hilarious, crazy, and often asinine videos posted by everybody and their grandmother! So, what does YouTube have to do with libraries? I initially thought "not much". I began by doing a search for the word "library" itself and that yielded 1,030,000 results. Yikes! Given the nature of the beast though, not everything in those search results is going to be worthwhile or even mildly informative! Yet, browsing just that initial page of results led me to some videos that seemed promising.

There is a silly but quite funny video called "Sesame Street: Cookie Monster in the Library" in which a curious Cookie Monster visits a library for the first time. The librarian has a rather difficult time explaining to Cookie Monster that the library has "just books, no cookies!" Finally, Cookie Monster seems to get the message: he asks for a book about cookies…and a glass of milk (the poor, overexcited librarian passes out!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWq_6s-lJY

On the same results page, a few entries down, I found an excellent video called "The Wizard of Oz- A Tale of Library Circulation", uploaded by slcountylibrary and presented at the 2007 ALA Conference. At 2:10, it was an entertaining and informative little video about all the things one can find at the library- "movies, music, and books—oh my!" The librarian in the video then shows the patron where all these things and more can be located, thus thwarting the wicked witch. This video is just short and clever enough to grab the attention of any young person who’d like to learn more about what the library can offer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ZHPJT2Kp4

So in essence, Youtube is the perfect web site for sharing vital information in a quick and entertaining manner. Want to share that interesting author visit? Want to create a quick tutorial of research techniques? All you need is a little creativity, a camera, and a Youtube account to share information, news, and more with the World Wide Web of potential library patrons.