YouTube continues its transformation from blooper archive to legit online video resource with the new U.S. Government YouTube channel. Like YouTube EDU, which we blogged about just a month ago, this new channel is meant to aggregate more serious videos (in this case of the government persuasion), making them easier to find within the abundance and variety of videos available on YouTube.

Currently, the U.S. Government channel’s strength is not in the number of videos it offers (as of Thursday, May 21st, it has just one: “New Media Across Government”), but is rather the videos it links to in its favorites and playlists sections, and “other channels” list.

Other Channels
The other channels the U.S. Government YouTube channel links to are of departments and agencies within the government. So far this list includes:

• The White House
• NASA
• CDC Streaming Health
• U.S. Department of State
• Library of Congress
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency
• NOAA, Ocean Explorer
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• FDIC
• National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Veterans Affairs
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• America.gov
• Corporation for National and Community Service
• U.S. Department of Education
• Social Security

Playlists
Within the playlist section, the government channel organizes videos by topic (like Benefits and Grants; Defense and International; and Environment, Energy, and Agriculture), and selects videos from a range of agencies and departments that cover these topics. Here are links to all the current playlists:

• Benefits and Grants
• Defense and International
• Environment, Energy, and Agriculture
• Family, Home, and Community
• Health and Nutrition
• History, Arts, and Culture
• Jobs, Education, and Volunteerism
• Money and Taxes
• Public Safety and Law
• Reference and General Government
• Travel and Recreation
• Videos en español

How useful this site is and will be to historians and history educators in the future is yet to be determined. But the central portal nature of the channel and how well it’s organized is encouraging, and if improved on and added to, this channel could become an excellent resource.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.