Communications & Brand Guide: Photo & Video

• Staff photos
• Photo and video shoot requests
• Hiring a photographer
• Video captioning and posting

Page last updated: Aug. 2025

The MIT Libraries are not currently providing professional portraits for staff. 

If you have had a headshot taken previously at the Libraries:

• These photos are stored in One Drive in a folder named “Staff Portraits."  All library staff have access to this folder.
• You may use the photo for any purpose associated with your professional role at MIT (e.g. LinkedIn profile, a headshot for an article you’ve published, for a professional association to which you belong, etc.) For publications, please include a photo credit whenever possible (e.g. “Photo by: Bryce Vickmark”)
• This is a SELF-SERVICE repository. If you need to supply your photo to an outside entity (e.g. a publisher for submission of an article), please do so yourself.

If you would like to provide your own photo for the staff directory, please see the guidelines on the User Experience/Web Services wiki. 

Commercial or news-related filming and photography by news media or for MIT communications must be approved and scheduled ahead of time. Please direct any requests to shoot photos or video in library spaces to the Director of Communications, who will work with the appropriate Access Services Manager to approve or deny requests.

Non-commercial photography by students, visitors, and the general public does not need to go through this process.  

The MIT Libraries Photo Policy (Libraries’ public website) outlines the rules for both  non-commercial and commercial filming or photography.

The Libraries often use Bryce Vickmark for portraits and event and marketing photography. Reach out to Bryce directly for an estimate and to schedule; contact information is available at his website. 

See additional photographer recommendations under “Vendors & resources” on the Institute Events website.

You may request captioning at no charge to your department by following the process below. The Communications team provides this service, with UXWS as backup. Please see the workflow below and follow the instructions for what is needed from you. 

1. Create a video that will be linked from our public website and/or libguides. 
2. Send an email to video-lib@mit.edu with a request to have your audio/video file captioned. 
   • A minimum of one week’s turnaround time is required.
3. In the email please provide the following information:
   • What is the topic of the audio/video?
   • Who is the target audience?
   • Where will this video be posted? (Libraries website, libguide/class guide, etc.)
   • What is your desired posting deadline?
4.  Submit the audio/video file. You have two options:
   • Attach audio/video file to your email (if file is 40MB or less)
     OR
   • In your email, include a link to the audio/video file (from Dropbox or Google).
5. We'll order the caption file from 3PlayMedia. 
6. Once completed, we'll upload the video and captioning file to MIT Libraries YouTube channel for hosting.
   • We'll determine whether it should be posted as “public” or “unlisted” on the Libraries’ YouTube channel and whether it should be added to an existing playlist.***
7. We'll email you the YouTube URL, which will allow you to embed/link to the video where needed.
8. Done!
    

***We'll categorize audio/videos as either:

• “Public” - audio/video has broad appeal or is relevant to most of the MIT community or beyond: Video that promotes a service, tool, library priority (like OA), new space, event recordings (MIT Reads), collections, etc.
  • Video should meet minimum standards for production quality - clear audio, faces adequately lit, camera not shaky, etc. 
• “Unlisted” - video is aimed at a single class, or a specific department. They are hosted on YouTube (so staff can get a link to share/embed), but they aren’t listed on the main Libraries YouTube channel.