Primo Instructional Videos

Abstract

Over the summer of 2024 UMD libraries transitioned to Primo. This meant the library catalog looked totally different, had new features, and old features looked different visually. The TLS department, in order to support this transition, made instructional videos on how to use and navigate the new Primo catalog. These videos required collaboration between multiple departments in order for the videos to fully come to fruition. Instructional videos are important, but both the work needed to create them is often underestimated. Additionally, how to make them the most accessible and useful is not given enough attention.

With my poster, I hope to explain why instructional videos are important, using the Primo videos as an example. First, I want to discuss instructional videos, or how to videos, broadly. Then, I want to briefly explain how the Primo catalog is different, and what features and new parts of the catalog we needed to explain in our videos. Thirdly, I will spend the most time and space discussing the process we went through at TLS to make the videos. I will include a discussion of what we did, what I personally did, and what other departments did. I will discuss both the tools we used and our rationale as to why we did what we did.