I recently enjoyed Robert Mitchell's post Vine Offers Boundless Creativity for Libraries, which rounds up some ways libraries have begun using Vine, an iPhone app for creating 6-second videos you can post to Twitter (or elsewhere, linking to Vine, where they're stored). I love art born of limits--trying to figure out the best way to put something when you're limited to 140 characters, or the form of a sonnet, or 6 seconds of video--and downloaded Vine last night (about a minute after I bought my first iPhone). See Mitchell's post for examples of Vine being used to generate excitement for library exhibits and programs, or capture a few moments in the daily life of a library.
I want to offer up an additional idea for libraries interested in Vine: using it to create 6-second tutorials on how to better use (save time, get more out of, etc) your library. On the public desk, I find patrons are often shocked to learn that you can limit a catalog search by format (just Large Print, just audiobooks on CD--even when they've been using the catalog for years) or an Overdrive search to just Kindle books on Computer Science that have been added in the last 14 days and are available now. Features of your library's website (how to find certain book lists, the benefits of a subject guide), database tips (from how to find Consumer Reports to advanced search techniques), etc--most of these can be demonstrated in 6 careful seconds. And learning about how to better use your library in the occasional 6-second chunk that shows up in your Twitter feed is likely to be a lot more appealing to folks than even suggesting they watch a two-minute YouTube video on any given tip. Vine videos automatically loop, so if you don't catch everything the first time, a few more views are immediately on hand to cement the steps in your mind.
Here are two quick-&-dirty examples I put up early this morning (when no one was really on Twitter to see 'em, as a test). They could easily be made more nicely with sound or voice.
Use Overdrive for #ebooks? Go straight to advanced search to narrow by subject, format, & immediate availability:vine.co/v/bg1qTTj3XFv
— Emily Lloyd (@PoesyGalore) February 24, 2013
.@hclib users: quickly search HCL's catalog for audiobooks (or any other format) only: choose 'Search by Format' vine.co/v/bg150rV9PrK
— Emily Lloyd (@PoesyGalore) February 24, 2013
What do you think? Other ideas for libraries using Vine?
UPDATE: See also: Jacob Berg's post on Vine for library instruction at BeerBrarian, and Lucky Magazine's 6-second tutorial on layering (my favorite video from Simply Zesty's 15 Brands On Vine That Are Getting It Right, and another example of Vine's potential for instruction)
