LION TV announcement

Announcing the Library Information literacy Online Network or LION TV

The ANimated Tutorial Sharing Project (ANTS) would like to announce the introduction of their new site: the Library Information literacy Online Network or LION TV.

(http://liontv.blip.tv)

LION TV is an Educational Network whose Information Literacy Broadcasts are directed at Teachers, Professors, Students or members of the General Public. As such, the site provides librarians with a Brand site on the Internet where people can go to for Information about Information; much like one would go to YouTube for Videos or Flickr for Pictures.

A review of the site indicates that:

• Unlike YouTube, the broadcasts at this site are so clear that you can view the text typed into a search box.
• Individual Episodes can be easily located and displayed.
• It has excellent Sharing, Embedding, Linking, and E-mailing capabilities.
• Viewers can opt to easily Syndicate all LION TV episodes at their own sites.
• Anyone Embedding Episodes or Syndicating the Show, can select the size of screen they wish to see displayed at their site, so they are not restricted to small screens.
• Identifying Files, Metadata and Creative Commons Rights for each Episode is very easy.
• Viewers can subscribe to LION TV’s broadcasts using RSS, Miro, Pando or iTunes.
• Viewers can provide Feedback to each episode.
• The home page for LION TV provides viewers with a lot of information about Information Literacy and Libraries.

Less visibly:

• The site makes use of excellent Push Technology to send broadcasts out to popular Brand sites on the Internet like Facebook, Blinkx, iTunes, Flickr, AOL Video, Yahoo Video, MySpace, MeFeedia, Meebo, MeeVee, Lycos Mix, del.ic.ious and Internet Archive - so even though the broadcasts are not on YouTube, they are ubiquitous.
• The site has excellent statistics which enables us to keep track of viewing numbers for each episode.

While not all distribution sites have been officially posted to, we are working at getting the content out to as many sites as possible. In the interim you can:

• Visit the LION TV site: http://liontv.blip.tv/
• See how the tutorials display at the Blinkx http://www.blinkx.com/ or AOL http://video.aol.com/ Video Search engines by (1) searching for tutorials there (for example search for PsychInfo) and then (2) watching how it links back to the LION TV site.

• Visit our Facebook site at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/LION-Library-Information-literacy-Online-Network/26633613400?ref=ts
• See how their broadcasts look Embedded in Libguides:

http://demo.libguides.com/content.php?pid=7133

Librarians wishing to add to the LION TV’s broadcasts can do so by adding a tutorial or video broadcast to the ANTS repository at DSpace.[1] Topics might include Facebook and Privacy; Copyright; The Open Web vs the Invisible Web; The Information Cycle; Media Literacy, Database Searching, (etc). We will take the content, do the file conversions, and upload it to LION TV. So all you need do is create and upload. We will handle the rest.

We at ANTS and LION TV are very excited about this new site as we recognize that Librarians and Educators today face an enormous challenge in attempting to be seen and heard amidst all of the noise on the Internet - and we believe that LION TV can help. LION TV places Librarian created content onto popular brand sites and this content then directs people back to a new Library Brand site: LION TV. Once there, people will discover an Online Network with professional insight into the complex World of Information. In short, LION TV’s approach to broadcasting and brand name promotion – combined with the rich array of content coming from contributors to ANTS – will work to ensure that libraries and librarians are once again visible where many people spend their time online.

Presently, LION TV contains 44 broadcasts and with the help of our fellow librarians in institutions everywhere, will continue to add to our list of educational broadcasts. If you would like to assist with this initiative, we would encourage you to (1) become a contributing member of ANTS (see: http://ants.wetpaint.com ) and (2) ensure that students, teachers, faculty or members of the general public know about this site by promoting it to your users.

Join us by developing professional content and sharing it with the world. When you do so, everyone wins.

Sincerely,

The ANTS Team

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[1] Note: While content is welcome, please keep in mind that it should be content that is relevant beyond your home institution or home library. Please do not include shots of your library or your library’s home page. Instead keep content generic enough to be relevant to all viewers.

If you are creating a tutorial for a specific e-product, we have important Guidelines for Developing ANimated Tutorials that provide people with a good overview of what to include and exclude. These guidelines are very good and many have commented that they are useful even when they are not contributing content to ANTS. They can be found at: http://attachments.wetpaintserv.us/Jr2tlDmuo5TvbAbKF6A5sQ%3D%3D27395