Rainy weather may keep you indoors this summer break, but an at-home streak can be an opportunity to indulge in some online videostreaming.
Yes. That’s right. Watch a moving image with audio – a film, documentary, video, demonstration, training, mini-series, and potentially sneak in an independently produced box office hit.
Streaming services are growing in popularity and use. In a 2014 review of streaming services purchased by libraries, “Stepping into the Stream: Bringing Netflix-style Video to Libraries,” Stephanie Klose excluded a high contender, (advertised as one of the largest streaming services worldwide) Kanopy, but assured that student and patron interest is on the rise in streaming. “The most popular services are offered by vendors with which librarians—and many patrons—are already familiar: Midwest Tape’s hoopla, OverDrive’s streaming service, LibraryIdeas’s Freegal Movies and Television, and IndieFlix, which is distributed to libraries by Recorded Books” (Klose).
The Graduate Center library has requested a trial to Kanopy, a video-streaming service that holds one of the largest collections of films in the world with 50,000+ films from thousands of leading producers such as Criterion Collection, Universal Paramount, The Great Courses, New Day Films, California Newsreel, Kino Lorber, PBS, First Run Features, Media Education Foundation, Documentary Educational Resources, and others. Films are all genres – from documentaries to movies and training videos – and touch on every topic imaginable.
With similar features of leading streaming platforms, Kanopy’s sleek interface coupled with its unique patron-driven acquisition model allows for an unclear budget with close to 500 additional films added per month. If students purchase nothing for months, then suddenly watch hours of film during the rainy season, will the GC budget handle this plentiful collection?
From Streaming To Screening
Professional documentary and filmmaking agencies have strict licensing agreements for the rights to stream film to large audiences. Licensing agreements often restrict unlimited screening rights, however, Kanopy returns the majority of every sale to the filmmakers allowing for full screening rights. For the duration of the Kanopy trial, all screening rights are cleared. That means you can watch these films in the comfort if your home, or hold an event in a theater or classroom.
Professional documentary and filmmaking agencies have strict licensing agreements for the rights to stream film to large audiences. Licensing agreements often restrict unlimited screening rights, however, Kanopy returns the majority of every sale to the filmmakers allowing for full screening rights. For the duration of the Kanopy trial, all screening rights are cleared. That means you can watch these films in the comfort if your home, or hold an event in a theater or classroom.
The choice to purchase Kanopy will depend on use during the trial and our ability to manage the very unique patron-driven fee structure. Use the product. Watch Kanopy as you would if we owned it. Then, tell us what you think by completing this form.
The trial ends in 2 weeks on July 31st. Don’t Miss it!
Other GC Library VideoStreaming
Compare with our other videostreaming options at the Graduate Center Library .
- American History in Video – Over 1,600 hours of historical video from commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries.
- Digital Theatre Plus – Offers the opportunity of watching some of the best theatre that is currently being produced in the UK, alongside study guides and other supplementary materials.
- Electronic Arts Intermix Streaming Videos – A selection of streaming videos from Electronic Arts Intermix, a nonprofit arts organization that is a leading international resource for video and media art. Titles available to stream can also be searched in the Advanced Search tab in the top toolbar, by selecting “Available for educational streaming.”
- Ethnographic Video Online – This online resource for the visual study of human culture and behavior contains more than 500 hours of classic and contemporary documentaries produced by leading video producers in the discipline; previously unpublished footage from working anthropologists and ethnographers in the field; and select feature films. Wherever possible, videos include accompanying field notes, liner notes, filmmaker biographies, related articles, study guides, and other context-enhancing, full-text materials.
- Filmakers Library Online – Over 1,000 documentaries about race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more.
- Lynda.com – An online educational site that includes over 3,000 courses (and over 130,000 videos) in popular fields like web design, web development, IT, education/instruction, media production, and business. Experts create and deliver all courses as well as provide supplemental materials like exercise files and relevant work samples. Users will need to create accounts in order to track course progress, create playlists of potential coursework, and keep course notes.
- Met Opera on Demand – Enjoy unlimited access to more than 500 Metropolitan Opera performances.
- New World Cinema: Independent Features and Shorts, 1990-Present – Includes over 200 full-length feature films from leading independent distributors such as Kino Lorber, First Run Features, Film Movement, and Global Lens.
- On the Boards – Delivers full-length, high quality contemporary performance films to your TV, desktop or mobile device. Includes 32 performance films, with seven more on the way, by 30 different artists representing the Pacific Northwest, New York, Australia, Germany, France, Poland, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Belgium.
- Routledge Performance Archive – A developing resource produced in partnership with Digital Theatre, providing unique access to an unprecedented range of audio-visual material from past and present practitioners of performance.
- Silent Film Online – Brings together films which represent the basis of modern cinematic technique and film theory. Carefully curated with ASP’s Video Advisory Board, the database covers silent features, serials, and shorts from the 1890s to the 1930s.
- Theatre in Video – More than 400 videos of plays or drama documentaries. Includes plays by Aeschylus, Albee, Beckett, Chekhov, Fugard, Gogol, Hansberry, Ibsen, Miller, Moliere, O’Neill, Pinter, Pirandello, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Strindberg, Wasserstein, and others.
- World History in Video – More than 900 documentaries exploring human history from the earliest civilizations to the late twentieth century.
Klose, S. (2014). “Stepping into the stream: Bringing Netflix-style video to libraries. Library Journal. Web. Retrieved from http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2014/04/media/video/stepping-into-the-stream-bringing-netflix-style-video-to-libraries/
