This is a reference question I've been holding onto for awhile, hoping I'd have an answer to share. I don't, so now I'm hoping someone else might.
A patron came to the desk asking for help with YouTube. He's one of our regulars, and has a bit of a compulsive personality. He's also a big fan of The Doors: he's working on a book, buys whatever merchandise he can from eBay, and watches any related video on YouTube - or rather, tries to.
One day, he came to the desk and said:
When I search for "the doors" on YouTube, there are over 79,000 videos. However, It only shows the first 50 pages of search results, which is only the first 500 videos. How can I watch the rest?
I had never clicked this far into any search returns in my life. So I tried it out, and sure enough, he was right. I played a bit, but couldn't find any way to get past this barrier to the rest of the videos.
I searched their Help Center with no success, and so sent in the question via their Contact Form. I also searched the general internet, but couldn't find anything relating to this issue.
This was on April 25th, 2008. So far, I haven't heard anything back from YouTube or Google. I resubmitted the question a couple weeks later, but again, no response.
I've played with this search limit again recently, and it looks like now YouTube cuts off the returned videos in the 540's, which is on page 28. The pagination shows out to page 31, and implies there is more, but when you click beyond page 28 the pagination and video numbering starts over at 1.
I can understand the technical limitations and the necessity of an upper cap on returned search matches. But with no explanation or message that there is a limit, and this confusing/resetting pagination, this patron feels YouTube is teasing him personally, and cheating him out of these other 78,500+ videos.
Does anyone have an answer I can pass on to the patron? Thanks.
A librarian in Maine recently posted to MELIBS-L that one of their local patrons was a finalist for the 2008 StoryTubes contest. I had never heard of this contest, but I like projects where patrons get involved, so I checked it out. I loved it.
Kids make a video of themselves reviewing a book on a particular theme (that week's was "Facts, Fads and Phenoms") and submit it to StoryTubes. Finalists get posted on the website (via YouTube), website visitors vote, and four winner win $500 in books (and their sponsoring school or library receives $1,000 in books).
This year's contest is winding down, and I'm sorry I missed it. It's sponsored by publishers and libraries, and the finalist videos are great (my two favorite are below, and more here).
But even outside this contest, I think this would be a fun thing to do in the library. All it would take is a basic digital camera and a YouTube account, and I can see parents, kids and librarians getting really into it. It gives kids an opportunity to create, and in a public way. You always hear the phrase, "it'll be something to tell your grandkids about." This gives kids something to be proud of and tell their grandparents about.
Your Chickens: A Kids Guide to Raising and Showing
Something I've been seeing a lot of lately are websites with free television shows and movies. I mentioned hulu.com on a previous post, and it's also been talked about elsewhere.
(I tried it out this weekend, and watched quite a few shows and a couple feature movies - all for free, with no problems, and very minimal commercial interruptions. This is the first time I've watched television or movies online, so I guess this is something for my Tech-YES list. But it did occur to me that, come Feb 17th, 2009, instead of buying a new set or digital cable box, I might just get rid of my television entirely and rely on the internet for shows and movies [then I could add "no television set" to my Tech-NO list])
Another free source, reported on Boing Boing, is the South Park Studios website. They just announced they are making all South Park episodes available free (but I noticed a few are not, due to contractual issues). According to creator Matt Stone, they're doing this because "we just got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time. So we gave ourselves a legal alternative."
A slightly different approach is AnyTV, discussed by LibrarianInBlack. I haven't tried this, but it looks like you download and install their AnyTVplayer on your computer, and then can stream a large number television channels, radio stations and video clips - free. Sarah also bring up the idea of installing this software on public library computers, to allow people to use their internet time to watch television. Hmm.
Finally, LifeHacker offers a long list of free online resources for online videos. I checked out a couple, but none seemed as easy to use as Hulu.com. http://tv-video.net did seem to have more episodes of certain shows, but that might just be because Hulu.com is still new.
Of course, this is all in addition to what the networks themselves off on their websites: ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS. These, like the South Park guys, have the edge because they are the source. If all information is free and legal, the only reason to go to the middlemen aggregators (like Hulu.com, et. al.) is ease of use of the interface.
This is a reference question I've been holding onto for awhile, hoping I'd have an answer to share. I don't, so now I'm hoping someone else might.
