More than 25,000 Streaming Videos Added to the University Libraries' Catalog

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Diverse Streaming Video Collections Added to Libraries' Catalog

The University Libraries are pleased to announce the addition of two important streaming video collections for the academic year 2014-15, VAST: Academic Video Online and the Kanopy Streaming Service. 

VAST offers a multidisciplinary collection of more than 22,000 videos in a wide range of disciplines, from architecture to Women’s Studies. Videos include documentaries, newsreels, animation, instructional films, theatrical and dance performances, commercials, interviews, and conference presentations from producers such as the BBC, Broadway Theatre Archive, Icarus, PBS, and Zeitgeist. Be sure to check out the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon Debate, the documentary Elvis: Return to Tupelo, or Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, a comprehensive history of the American horror film, while browsing titles.

Users can create clips and curate personal playlists of films to share, view, link, email, or embed on Blackboard. Faculty can assign or link to specific clips from Blackboard courses, or embed a link directly into a syllabus, and students can study film transcripts, which are available in 65 languages. Users can also send films to mobile devices to view on the go. 

VAST is part of a suite of resources from Alexander Street Press and is cross-searchable with their other databases.  A keyword search for Billie Holiday will provide audio recordings, documentaries, interviews, transcripts, and performances by Holiday, as well as other artists covering her songs.

Kanopy Streaming Service is a new company that offers more than 3300 videos, including theatrical releases, documentaries, training films, and art cinema, all licensed for academic use. Highlights of Kanopy collections include: the Criterion Collection of classic films from the silent era to today by masters of cinema like Godard, Kurosawa, Fellini, and Hitchcock; the California Newsreel Collection of cutting edge, social justice films that inspire, educate and engage audiences; the March of Time Collection of docudramas produced between 1935 and 1951 for American theaters; and special collections on art and architecture, health and medicine, science and mathematics, education and business. 

Kanopy’s streaming collections also include titles from PBS’s Frontline, American Experience, and NOVA, among other series. Don’t miss standouts like American Experience’s “The Rise and Fall of Penn Station,” and last year’s “League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis” from Frontline. There are currently 134 titles in the PBS collection, which will continue to grow. 

These are rich and dynamic collections that will help support the academic and research needs of many members of the UARK community, but these are just two of the many resources available.  Please visit the Performing Arts and Media Library (PAM), in Mullins Library Level 1, to find out more about the University Libraries’ video and audio collections. And PAM is always open on-line at http://libinfo.uark.edu/av/. Follow UARKLibraries on Facebook to receive updates about new resources like these, as well as events, exhibits, and courses.