Library orientation on videotape: production planning and administrative support

New student-faculty-staff orientation is an important public service in a medical library and demands creativity, imagination, teaching skill, coordination, and cooperation on the part of public services staff. The Northwestern University Medical Library (NUML) implemented a video production service in the spring of 1986 and used the new service to produce an orientation videotape for incoming students, new faculty, and medical center staff. Planning is an important function in video production, and the various phases of outlining topics, drafting scripts, matching video sequences, and actual taping of video, voice, and music are described. The NUML orientation videotape demonstrates how reference and audiovisual services merge talent and skills to benefit the library user. Videotape production, however, cannot happen in a vacuum of good intentions and high ideals. This paper also presents the management support and cost analysis needed to make video production services a reality for use by public service departments.