screencasting

The library can use screencasting in many ways. It would be a great resource for creating tutorials for people of all ages on how to use the library, its website and the multiple online databases. Many university libraries already use screencasting to show students how to search online databases and the catalog, and from what I have read, these videos seem to be very helpful for the students that access them. The benefits are vast for public libraries because we never get the opportunity to show all of the patrons how to use these tools or to even show them that they exist. Perhaps creating a whole page of tutorials that are accessible from the library's homepage can give patrons easy access to the videos. It can go further with a step by step video that shows patrons new to computers how to start an email or simply an explanation of how to search the Internet through google or yahoo.
The internal uses of screencasting have been amply displayed in the blog for the "25th Thing." Perhaps in addition to the weeekly reader posts that inform staff of new resources, we could add screencast tutorials in order to see the resource in action. I work at the service center so it is a little bit more difficult to find screencasting uses here. I can see usefulness in the training of new employees on MilAcq. With a good audio script it might be a great way to teach new people about item, order, and bib records. We could also create a screencast on the proper ways to attach an item on the fly.