Well, this is a day that has been a long time in coming. The Library of Congress has been working for several months now so that we could “do YouTube right.” When you’re the stewards of the world’s largest collection of audiovisual materials (some 6 million films, broadcasts and sound recordings), nothing less would be expected of you, and our own YouTube channel has now gone public.
We are starting with more than 70 videos, arranged in the following playlists: 2008 National Book Festival author presentations, the Books and Beyond author series, Journeys and Crossings (a series of curator discussions), “Westinghouse” industrial films from 1904 (I defy you to watch some of them without thinking of the Carl Stalling song “Powerhouse”), scholar discussions from the John W. Kluge Center, and the earliest movies made by Thomas Edison, including the first moving image ever made (curiously enough, a sneeze by a man named Fred Ott).
There is not a ton of material there yet, let alone Northwest material, but I did find this wonderful snipped of some unidentified Plains Indians who worked for Buffalo Bill doing a buffalo dance:I see that the LOC has disabled comments on the videos! I am a bit surprised--not very 2.0 of them!
4 comments:
Sad to say, but comment opportunities draw some of the most inarticulate people. Perhaps it's better to do without comments for now, he commented without intent of irony.
Scouter: Yes, YouTube comments do tend to the sophomoric. But they can also be voted up or down, so that the more useful comments rise to the top. And LOC does allow commenting on its photographs on Flickr, and in fact boasts of their success: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/
it may be a liability issue?
Kelly: People in government do worry about (often imaginary) liability so that my be it.
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