As distance learning has grown at the University during the COVID-19 pandemic, so has the demand for streaming video which can be viewed conveniently anywhere and at any time — a trend the Library expects will continue to play an important role in instruction and learning in a post-COVID world.
The Library presently has more than 75,000 licensed streaming titles which you can view off Grounds by signing in through Netbadge, or by installing UVaAnywhere-Lite VPN or UVA’s Virtual Private Network. The easiest way to find streaming video in the Library’s catalog Virgo, is by going to “Advanced Search” and clicking the “Video” checkbox under Resource Type, and the “Online” checkbox under Availability on the left side of the screen, and typing a title or keywords.
In addition to individual titles, the Library offers streaming video portals such as:
- Academic Video Online, 70,000 titles from many publishers, spanning areas as diverse as anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more — more than 14,000 are exclusive to this platform.
- HistoryMakers Digital Archive, 150,000 stories assembled from interviews with 2,700 historically significant African Americans including politicians, religious leaders, athletes, musicians, civil rights activists, soldiers, and many more.
- JoVE Science Education, a compilation of films dedicated to teaching the practice and theory of scientific experiments through engaging and easy-to-understand visual demonstrations.
- Kanopy Streaming, feature films, documentaries, short films; the Criterion Collection, California Newsreel, DEFA German Film, Media Education Foundation, Roland Collection, First Run Features, Green Planet Films, Stenhouse, Medcom, Michael Blackwood, Kino Lorber, and thousands of educational filmmakers.
- PBS Selection, curated from older videos originally broadcast on PBS — films of Ken Burns, American Experience, Scientific American Frontiers, and many others.
UVA is working in partnership with other institutions in a project by Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit organization, to examine how libraries review, license, assess, manage, and use streaming media. The project will help UVA Library and other academic research libraries to understand and sustain these now-essential resources. For more about streaming video in the Library, please check out the Library’s guide to Video and Media Resources.
From Academic Video Online, “Goin’ Back To T-Town” (first broadcast on American Experience in 1993) tells the story of Greenwood, a Black district of Tulsa, Oklahoma known as “Black Wall Street” where in 1921 white mobs went on a rampage, killing over 300 Black residents and looting and burning Black-owned businesses. The film features some of the final recorded interviews of eyewitnesses to the massacre.
Faculty can learn how to incorporate streaming content into courses by reading about course reserves, browsing streaming resources currently available, and contacting subject liaisons or the Video Collections Librarian Leigh Rockey.