The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Member Engagement and Outreach Committee will host the third annual ARL Film Festival (the ARLIES) on Tuesday, April 24, 2018, at the 2018 Spring Association of Research Libraries Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The film festival highlights and shares multimedia products developed by member institutions to increase knowledge and use of libraries, their spaces, services, collections, and expertise.
ARL members were invited to submit films of less than three minutes in the following categories: How-To/Instruction, Development/Fund-Raising, Collections-Focused, Publicity/Marketing, and Free-Form. Out of 40 entries, the committee chose 20 submissions to be viewed by members and guests in the early evening of April 24. Association member representatives will vote following the film viewing and the 10 award winners will be announced during the Association Meeting on Thursday, April 26.
View all the 2018 ARLIES submissions and descriptions of the 20 featured films.
2018 ARLIES Winners
Best of How-To Instruction Films: University of Manitoba
As part of the University of Manitoba Libraries’ website redesign, library staff created numerous instructional videos and text tutorials, named the “Help Hub.” A series on predatory publishing and open access publishing was proposed and created for the Help Hub. The video introduces predatory publishing and describes why they should be avoided. The target audience is faculty and researchers, though the video is embedded in various parts of our library website. Ruby Warren, our User Experience 2 librarian, wrote the script and Justin Fuhr edited, created the animations, and did the audio for the video. GoAnimate was used to create the animation and Camtasia was used to edit the video. This video is currently the most viewed video that the University of Manitoba Libraries has produced. (Note—the video still references Beall’s list and will be updated this summer).
Best of Development/Fundraising Films: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Fund raising film including live action and animated elements, intended to promote the Southern Illinois University Day of Giving, a fund-raising event in which each college (including the library) seek donations. The audience is potential donors, which for this event is defined broadly as anyone who might be persuaded to contribute even $1 to the library. Impact cannot be measured just yet—the event has not yet taken place. The video is being shared via social media and embedded on the institution’s website. Initial feedback has been universally positive, with members of the test audience indicating the video presented the idea of donating to the library in a favorable light, and was lighthearted and enjoyable to watch.
Best of Collections-Focused Films: Kent State University Libraries
The Daily Kent Stater Digital Archive has been a multi-year project to digitize every issue of the Kent Stater/Daily Kent Stater campus newspaper. The project, funded by the Kent State University Libraries, includes issues dating from February 1926 through December 2016. The video talks with those responsible for the project, shares alumni and family connections, and discusses its relevance to today’s students.
Best of Publicity/Marketing Films: Duke University Libraries
We wanted to use the occasion of National Library Week (April 9–15, 2017) to organize a “One for the Books” bookface social media campaign. We captured photos of people in front of Perkins and Lilly Libraries doing bookface poses, using the tagline “I’m one for the books.” Bookfaces are an established social media trend. Librarians and other book lovers post them on social media apps like Instagram, using hashtags like #Bookface and #BookfaceFriday. These photos were compiled, curated, and shared via library social media channels (primarily Facebook and Instagram). At the same time, we produced a video of our bookfacing activities, which did double-duty as the spring solicitation video for the library development office.
Finally, the “One for the Books” social media campaign kicked off our new annual fund advertising campaign aimed at Duke alumni, the successor to our “Crazy Smart” ad campaign. All of the ads (which appear first in Duke Magazine, distributed to 160,000 Duke alumni) feature highly staged and professionally photographed bookface tableaus. The tagline is a simple double-entendre. “One for the books” is idiomatic for something so important or momentous that it should be recorded for posterity. But in this context, it also conveys the sense of being supportive of books, reading, and—by extension—libraries. The bookface ads all include some version of this simple pitch: “When you make your gift to Duke, make it one for the books.”
Best of Free-Form Films: The University of Texas at Austin
In preparation for the 2018 “Re-think it: Libraries for a New Age” conference to be hosted in Austin, the University of Texas Libraries pursued the production of a film using a story identified from our campus community about an innovation resulting from library resources, space or tools in order to demonstrate how the Libraries are preparing for the future. After a period of collecting and considering ideas, we settled on the work of a Ph.D. candidate in the Butler School of Music’s Entrepreneurship Program who discovered a score in the Fine Arts Library that he’d been passively seeking for several years. Performance of the piece required a 6-string violin that he was able to design and produce using the 3D printers in the library’s Foundry makerspace with the assistance of one of the library’s student technicians (a senior in the university’s engineering school).
Libraries advancement staff worked with the digital content team in the university’s communications office to create two versions of the film: a long version (3+ minutes) that would be presented at the national conference (along with a live performance with the instrument by the Ph.D. candidate), and a short version (<2 minutes), designed for promotion on the university’s homepage and via social media channels the following week.
Project principals felt the story had great potential for appeal to a broad audience with the goal of exemplifying the university and its libraries as building environments for student collaboration, creativity, and innovation.
Best Production: University of Michigan Library
The film was intended as a digital New Year greeting card for Library donors and friends.
The Library’s graphic designer cut out images from various Library collections, and the production company Big Foot Media animated the images and wove them into video taken around the library.
Media views of 6200+ were derived from various Library channels, where the video was loaded separately (not embedded): YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and the Library’s digital magazine.
We’ve received positive feedback from donors, staff, and other communicators from across the U-M campus.
Best Humor: University at Buffalo, SUNY, Libraries
UB Libraries News is a video project introduced to students and faculty to test their capacity to identify fake news. This film was one of many broadcast in the spring of 2017 through the UB Libraries website and YouTube channel. The first half of the film was the news portion where the story featured a clip of the video in question, which ran on Monday. This story is based on an internet article claiming those who have four 11 particular traits make them a genius. Nicole, the anchor, asks viewers if the story is fake or fact. Viewers were then encouraged to use their CRAAP test skills and cast their vote through UB Libraries social media platforms. On Friday, the “reveal” half of the film was broadcast; this includes a recap of the story and the results of the votes received earlier in the week. Turns out the story was true and the most intelligent people happen to swear, be messy, talk to themselves, and stay awake later. The truth of the story revealed, viewers were given reasons why the story was fake or not and each video ended with highlights of UB Libraries students and faculty could explore. The purpose of the film was to encourage the UB community to use the libraries’ resources to always fact-check information and to utilize the Libraries’ recording equipment, the One-Button Studio, which was used to create the films. This film was viewed by several hundred faculty and students, who also voted their opinion.
Best Performance: The University of Texas at Austin
In preparation for the 2018 “Re-think it: Libraries for a New Age” conference to be hosted in Austin, the University of Texas Libraries pursued the production of a film using a story identified from our campus community about an innovation resulting from library resources, space or tools in order to demonstrate how the Libraries are preparing for the future. After a period of collecting and considering ideas, we settled on the work of a Ph.D. candidate in the Butler School of Music’s Entrepreneurship Program who discovered a score in the Fine Arts Library that he’d been passively seeking for several years. Performance of the piece required a 6-string violin that he was able to design and produce using the 3D printers in the library’s Foundry makerspace with the assistance of one of the library’s student technicians (a senior in the university’s engineering school).
Libraries advancement staff worked with the digital content team in the university’s communications office to create two versions of the film: a long version (3+ minutes) that would be presented at the national conference (along with a live performance with the instrument by the Ph.D. candidate), and a short version (<2 minutes), designed for promotion on the university’s homepage and via social media channels the following week.
Project principals felt the story had great potential for appeal to a broad audience with the goal of exemplifying the university and its libraries as building environments for student collaboration, creativity, and innovation.
Best Reflection of Diversity: UCLA Library WI+RE
This video was designed to help undergraduate students identify as researchers and introduce the research opportunities available on campus. We interviewed student researchers from diverse backgrounds in order to encourage all students to get involved, regardless of their prior research experience.
This video has been integrated into UCLA’S online cornerstone research workshop as part of the “Getting Started with Research” module. The Library has also reached out to instructors across campus to implement the video into undergraduate research courses. The full version of this video (3:40) has received approximately 1,000 views since its publication last summer.
Best of Show: The University of Texas at Austin
In preparation for the 2018 “Re-think it: Libraries for a New Age” conference to be hosted in Austin, the University of Texas Libraries pursued the production of a film using a story identified from our campus community about an innovation resulting from library resources, space or tools in order to demonstrate how the Libraries are preparing for the future. After a period of collecting and considering ideas, we settled on the work of a Ph.D. candidate in the Butler School of Music’s Entrepreneurship Program who discovered a score in the Fine Arts Library that he’d been passively seeking for several years. Performance of the piece required a 6-string violin that he was able to design and produce using the 3D printers in the library’s Foundry makerspace with the assistance of one of the library’s student technicians (a senior in the university’s engineering school).
Libraries advancement staff worked with the digital content team in the university’s communications office to create two versions of the film: a long version (3+ minutes) that would be presented at the national conference (along with a live performance with the instrument by the Ph.D. candidate), and a short version (<2 minutes), designed for promotion on the university’s homepage and via social media channels the following week.
Project principals felt the story had great potential for appeal to a broad audience with the goal of exemplifying the university and its libraries as building environments for student collaboration, creativity, and innovation.
