Bloomfield Public Library loves supporting our local authors! In a series of on-demand YouTube videos, youth services librarian Nicole Dolat talks with Bloomfield's youngest authors about books they have self-published.
Advanced Planning
I wanted to celebrate the efforts of the young authors self-publishing in our community and to inspire other local residents who wish to be authors. I also know that a passion project for the Director of School Improvement at the Board of Education is supporting aspiring authors in our community. I believe this Young Author Talk series will have the dual benefit of supporting our youth/community’s interests as well as building off of something that is important to a community partner.
I like on-demand recorded programs because people can easily watch them whenever they wish to. It also presents a certain level of flexibility on the back end (e.g., you can record and edit on different days). Once I confirmed that all of my authors were on board with the series, I picked out the dates each month when the videos would go live (ultimately, I looked for days that seemed lighter on programming, which turned out to be Mondays). I then scheduled the actual interviews approximately two to three weeks prior to the date I want to actually publish the video so I have flexible timing for editing/publishing.
Before the interview, I make sure I read their book(s) and prepare a list of questions. Younger authors may require more prompts for responses, so I make sure I have plenty of content on my end to help the interview along.
Marketing
I promoted this event in our library the way I would any other traditional youth program. I designed a flyer and thumbnail images in Canva. The flyer is posted in our library, and extra copies are available for patrons to take home. The thumbnail image is used on our website Events Calendar and our social media channels for Instagram and Facebook. I design monthly program summaries in Constant Contact and send the summary of upcoming programs to all of our school and town administrator contacts.
We also post our programs on the Town of Bloomfield calendar and put paper versions in a few locations around town, including some of the schools and our Human Services Building. Additionally, I have colleagues who are responsible for sending our advertisements to local papers each month. However, I often find that word-of-mouth is one of the best ways for me to get interest in upcoming programs!
Budgeting
There was no cost to this program series other than my own staff time. If a library does not have a professional Zoom account, there are free Zoom accounts (just be aware that the time you have for the recording will be limited). But you could also just do the interview in-person and record using an iPad or other device. I also recommend adding books from local young authors being interviewed to your library collection, if possible. Most of the young authors gave me a copy of their book(s), but in one case, we purchased books from Amazon.
Day-of-event Activity
I am a full-time librarian and did this program on my own with no other staff involved. The biggest challenge I faced was finding consistent Wi-Fi to ensure the recording had no hiccups and a consistently quiet space. My town’s two library locations are currently under construction, and we are based in a temporary location with inconsistent Wi-Fi. My director supports my decision to work from home on the interview day so I can use my personal Wi-Fi (and have a nice quiet space for the discussion).
I schedule two hours for each interview. I interviewed and recorded the authors using our Zoom library account. Zoom is user-friendly and I can easily share my screen during the interview (with parts of the books being discussed, relevant images, etc.). After the Zoom ends and the recording downloads to my PC, I upload it to my Google Drive and then download it to my iPad so I can edit using iMovie. I like to leave myself at least a few hours for editing – in one sitting or across a few days. I upload the finalized video to our library YouTube page, schedule a release date on YouTube, and eventually post the direct link on our library Events Calendar.
Program Execution
As this is a new program series, I don’t have a lot of data yet. However, one of the precursors to this program series was a one-off “on demand” video I created with a then 10-year-old author. It was posted about a year ago and currently has almost 90 views recorded on YouTube. One of the challenges with creating pre-recorded/on-demand programs is that statistics are hard to pin down. You can assess views after one month so you can see how many people viewed the video during the first published month, but interest often grows over time.
One of the greatest outcomes is the relationships our library fosters with youth and families in our community, as well as a shared interest and common goal with our Board of Education to encourage aspiring authors. I did not have a formal program evaluation for this series because I have no way of knowing which individuals are viewing the recordings. Members of our community are always welcome and encouraged to provide our library with feedback about our programs and offerings via our website.
Advice
My community has many aspiring authors of all ages. My library and community partners, like our Board of Education, have taken note of this and worked to embrace it. While I chose to make this on-demand series a celebration of local youth authors, it could easily be adapted to showcasing youth (or adults) in various contexts: artists, entrepreneurs, musicians, poets, community volunteers, etc.
As a Youth Librarian, I am always looking for ways to “lift up” and celebrate our youth and to make others in the community aware of them and proud of what they are doing. If your library does not currently have a YouTube page or do much with social media, on-demand programs are a great way to finally take the plunge. You can give yourself the space and time to get everything the way you want it on the backend, practice with various platforms, and even without a YouTube account/page, you can host videos on your website.
Supporting Materials
- Feedback (Coming Soon!)
- Programming Librarian Facebook Group
Slideshow Images
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