A YouTube channel hosted by a campus library may not sound like the beginnings of a viral sensation, but the numbers don’t lie. What started as nothing more than a way to centralize digital video content is now the most popular YouTube channel created by the University of Utah.

First launched in June 2015, the YouTube channel for digital publishing and collections at the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library (EHSL) boasts an impressive 213,000 subscribers and more than 24 million views.

That popularity earned EHSL a YouTube Creator Award, specifically the Silver Play Button Award. On Tuesday, January 22, the library hosted a cake-cutting ceremony to celebrate.

When a channel hits 100,000 subscribers, YouTube does a thorough review to determine if the channel is eligible for an award.

EHSL’s channel had hit 200,000 subscribers when assistant librarian and head of digital publishing Bryan Hull got an email from YouTube with some good news: an award was coming their way.

When it arrived, Hull and EHSL Executive Director and Librarian Catherine B. Soehner filmed an unboxing video.

“We used some of the tools from an old World War I surgical kit to unbox the award,” says Hull. “We were excited to hit that milestone and wanted to have fun with it.”

One of the most popular videos on EHSL’s YouTube channel is part of a neuroanatomy video series. It shows a human brain in its natural, “unfixed” state. Suzanne Stensaas, PhD, a retired neuroscientist and emeritus faculty member, explains the different areas of the brain to viewers.

Stensaas decided to film the neuroanatomy video series after a research trip to Africa.

“Most of the medical schools in African countries have little to no access to preserved human material for medical training,” says Stensaas. “It’s very hard to learn about the human brain without seeing it in 3D.”

Countries in Asia and the Middle East face this same challenge due to cultural practices that include a quick burial and no autopsy.

Stensaas spent three years creating the neuroanatomy video series, with the help of an EHSL videographer. For the past decade, countless students and faculty at medical schools across the world have benefitted from Stensaas’ years of work.

The response to the neuroanatomy video series was—still is—overwhelming. The unfixed brain video has more than four million views. Another video in the series has more than sixteen million.

“Suzanne’s neuroanatomy video series has gone viral several times over and is the main reason our channel has so many subscribers,” says Hull.

It was Hull who had the idea of taking advantage of the library’s YouTube channel. Up until that point, EHSL had only used internal video publishing systems, with access restricted to the internal campus community.

Hull decided to think outside the box.

“Why not publish the video series to the library’s YouTube channel?” says Hull. “In a lot of ways, it was an experiment to see if publishing externally would increase the impact and utility of Dr. Stensaas’ material.”

The experiment proved to be a success. Ninety percent of the library’s YouTube channel viewers are international, with just ten percent from the United States.

“I find that to be more evidence of the channel’s success,” says Hull. “The United States is only one country of many, so a ninety-ten split is more reflective of a true global audience.”

The video series is also available for download via the library’s website. Stensaas gets download approval requests every day. Recent requests have come from medical students and educators in South Africa, the Netherlands, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Iran, Egypt, India, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Isreal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the United States.

Ten years on, Hull knows that posting the material on YouTube was the right choice. While Stensaas agrees, she doesn’t want any of the credit.

“If anyone should be praised, it should be EHSL and Instructional Media Services,” says Stensaas. “This award is only made possible because of them.”

The next level YouTube Creator Award is for channels with a million subscribers, but Hull isn’t concerned about hitting another big number just yet. Currently, the channel mostly features recorded lectures, presentations, and conference proceedings.

Hull wants to change that. His immediate goal is to develop more educational video series for students and educators.

“YouTube has proven to be an effective way to disseminate medical educational resources,” says Hull. “We are excited to continue to support professors and lecturers who are interested in utilizing our channel for that purpose.”

When it comes to EHSL Digital Collections, the library’s YouTube channel is just the tip of the iceberg. Visit https://library.med.utah.edu/publishing/ to learn more about what the library’s many digital collections.