A 17-year-old Plant City resident recently won a statewide video competition promoting local libraries.
Deven Otero, a junior at Plant City High School representing Bruton Memorial Library, won the annual competition for the 90-second video, in which he took a more literal approach to the competition’s ‘Build a Better World’ prompt.
“I never thought I’d win,” Otero said. “I just thought it’d be a fun project to get involved in.”
The competition was sponsored by the Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP), a national coalition of libraries that pool their resources and knowledge together to help support library programs.
“If somebody can read, they have the world at their fingertips,” Karen Day, a CSLP administrator, said. “We encourage everyone to read for fun, to increase their knowledge. If some people can’t read, (we) help them learn to read. Once you can read, you have such a bigger advantage in life.”
Each year, Day said, the program issues a different video challenge to help promote libraries and literacy. Participating states each select one winner whose local library receives funds to help enhance its programs.
This year’s theme, Day said, was about the different ways to use a library to build a better world, whether it be through construction, building relationships or self-improvement.
In Otero’s time-lapse video, he starts with a simple illustration of the Earth. Then, using about 15 atlases and reference books from the library, he draws a more detailed, ‘better’
version of the world.
Otero said the project, in addition to being fun, taught him about areas of the world he was unfamiliar with.
Winning the video competition, John Russell, the youth services librarian at Bruton Memorial Library, said, brings recognition to both Otero and the library.
“It’s going to be shown on morning shows and throughout the whole state,” Russell said. “He’s brought recognition to the library, and he’s also won the library the chance to enhance its programs.”
Otero’s video, and other videos from winners around the country, can be viewed on the CSLP’s website. The video will become part of the official Teen Public Service Announcements for the National CSLP Summer Reading Program.
Contact Daniel Figueroa at dfigueroa@plantcityobserver.com.