Are you our Friend on YouTube? Providing Access to Archival Collections through Social Media

With the explosion of information available on the Web and the widespread use of social media, people find, retrieve, and use information in ways that is fundamentally changing how they interact with libraries and archives. It is natural that the way we work must evolve as well by going where our users are and providing access to collections in their favorite online spaces such as YouTube and Facebook. In 2011, the NCAR Archives launched a YouTube site that showcases our audio-visual collections with the goal of bringing the Archives to users in an innovative way and informing people about the history of NCAR and the atmospheric sciences. We sought to exploit the power of social media to reach new audiences that may not be familiar with our collections or even archival repositories in general. YouTube offers an easy and free way to repackage our collections that makes them more accessible and discoverable, and hopefully raises interest in the Archives. This project shows that librarians and archivists must embrace a user-centered approach and leverage opportunities to use technology to share collections, interact with users, and be active and engaged participants in our communities rather than passive curators hidden away in the stacks.