Digital Audio and Video on Computers in Church Libraries

[familiesr4ever-p40]

I think it would be great to have a computer (could be donated by a member) in the library that contained all of the free digital audio and video from the church. The typical library right now would have printed material. A computer could also help you catalog the printed material. There is some free cataloging software available on the internet. As most Chapels do not have internet access, much less the library, this would have to be "sneaker net" where you would bring the digital content in on a usb drive, etc. that you downloaded at home. You would also need a CD/DVD burner and some blank disks available to burn the content to disk for the members. This could be a great resource for members who do not know how to download church material or for teachers to have a digital supplement to their lessons that could be played on a church owned dvd player or a personal laptop. The possibilities are very numerous. This could help an "old school" librarian become much more technically savvy. As more cars are coming equipped with aux / usb / ipod ports, it is making it much easier for members to have church audio to play while driving back and forth to work, etc. I provide material to some of the members by burning them disks or dumping talks to their mp3 player from home. Having a nicely cataloged list of all free church content and a person who could provide that as a calling in helping perfect the saints through their Gospel study seems like a great opportunity.

[garysturn]

I would like to see the day when each ward library had a computer with a large HDTV screen on a cart that could be wheeled into the class room to use for lessons. Develop a Chruch sponsored cloud web site where lesson materials in the form of audio and video clips, prepared presentations, and training materials could be stored. Members could go to this cloud web site from home and prepare the presentations for their lessons, then access them from the computer in the classroom. This would require the Chruch building to have wireless internet, many buildings with Family History Centers already do have this. This same setup could be used for a Chruch leader to speak to a group from a remote location threw a video conference (like a Stake President could hold a meeting with the Ward Councils assembled in 3 different buildings at one time to correlate an emergency situation). It could also be wheeled into a High Council room so a traveling councilmen could join the meeting threw a video conference from his motel room when he is out of town on business.

[jtwitchell]

My first thought when I saw this idea was to setup a MythTV system (see http://www.mythtv.org/). What this would allow you to do is create a backend server that contains all the content, keep it in the library, and then as people need content, they can use a MythTV front-end to show the content. I have yet to make one of these systems, but it seemed easier than recreating a system from scratch.