The UA is putting $500 up for grabs in a contest for students to create a video to promote the Main Library.

Videos must be between two and five minutes long, include two facts listed on the library’s video contest website, be uploaded publicly to a website such as YouTube or Vimeo and must be
appropriate for a wide audience.

The contest began Feb. 4, and the deadline is April 15. However, so far, no students have signed up, according to Nicole Pagowsky, the instructional services librarian.

After seeing the success of other schools, like the University of Minnesota, whose video is up on the UA library’s website as an example, the UA library staff was inspired to host its own contest.

“We saw there was success with it, and we were looking at updating our orientation materials,” Pagowsky said. “We wanted to make it more fun, get more student engagement, get students in the library and give them an opportunity to talk about what they like, and we can see what students like about the library through this as well.”

Currently enrolled UA students can submit a video by themselves or in a group to win $500 as first prize. The winning video will be shown in orientations and put up on the library’s website. A second place prize consists of two pairs of passes to the Loft Cult Classics series at the Loft Cinema for everyone who contributed to the video.

“We thought it would be more fun for students to see an orientation video with other students rather than with a bunch of librarians telling them all the features of the library,” Pagowsky said. “We don’t want it to be dry, because we can do that. We want it to be fun — something that other students want to watch.”

Some students didn’t know the resources that the library had to offer and thought an informational video could be useful.

“I feel like a lot of students here don’t really know how to use their resources that well,” said Ellie Brownridge, an anthropology sophomore. “That definitely was a problem for me, especially as a freshman because I didn’t know what I was doing at all.”

Other students said that they thought they wouldn’t have a shot at winning the contest because they weren’t very knowledgeable about technology.

“I think it’s a great idea; that’s a good incentive,” said Zoe Schroeder, a pre-nursing freshman. “I’m not good with technology, though.”

If students don’t have a video camera, they can rent one from the Office of Student Computing Resources lab and use the library’s Multimedia Zone for video editing. Dan Lee, the director of the Office of Copyright Management and Scholarly Communication, said students are welcome to ask him about their project to ensure they aren’t infringing on any copyrights.

Michael Brewer, librarian and team leader for instructional services, said the UA library wanted to see how the contest goes this year before asking for sponsors.

“If this goes well this year, we would like to do it again. We would like to have new videos every year to keep it fresh,” Pagowsky said. “The information here is changing so quickly or the services we have to offer [are changing], so we would have to update our videos or our materials every year. So offering this contest is a way for students to get involved and to keep everything current.”