*All he was trying to do was come up with a creative way to promote Duke University library’s curbside pickup procedure throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Duke librarian Jamie Keesecker crafted a simple-but-catchy synth-pop beat, wrote some light, punchy lyrics detailing the library’s checkout system and presented it with crude, stick-figured, colored-penciled video. Nearly 700,000 views later, “Library Takeout” is now everybody’s jam. It’s also available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Keesecker, who earned a doctorate in music composition before taking a job at Duke’s Music Library, wrote the song and animated the video with help from his three-year-old daughter while working remotely. The whole vibe feels like Billie Eilish meets Prince’s “Annie Christian,” meets Aha’s “Take On Me” video – with some synth runs at the end reminiscent of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle.”
“I decided I might as well try and see if I could put together a song,” Keesecker told Duke Today. “If it’s a total disaster, we don’t have to release it. But it could be just the thing we need to reach the people we’re trying to reach.”
Now, because of Keesecker, hundreds of thousands of people now know how to work Duke University’s contactless library checkout.
Watch below:
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