How I became a Ninja Librarian

Who would have thought that there are so many library related podcasts and YouTube videos out there. It seems very obvious though, now that I think of it. How else would you reach current and future readers in a fun and easy way? I especially like the idea of library induction tours on YouTube as it not only familiarises future readers with the layout of the library but also with the librarians. This, I think, will most certainly help future users to contact librarians.

The Centre for South Asian Studies has a great collection of podcasts of their archive for an international audience. See Polar Adventurer's excellent post on this.

One aspect which hasn't been mentioned so far on 23 Things (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that use of social media and the Web 2.0 will create a great change in how librarians will be (and are) perceived by readers. A great resource is the website "You don't look like a librarian". Especially librarians' involvement in podcasts and most importantly YouTube will greatly influence the public image of librarians in the future. And it is up to us who work in libraries to influence it the way we would like ourselves to be seen. Basically, we need to create our own public image.

What I see is a move away from this:
To something like this:

Now this may seem exaggerated and is more of a tribute to the fabulous Ninja Librarian videos on YouTube, but you get my point.

One of the video clips that puts librarians in a rather negative light (but which I still like - the clip, not the negative perception of librarians) is here, enjoy: