2012-02-09
Faculty, staff, and students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign now have 24/7, online access to 12 discipline-specific video collections, which together include more than 10,000 full-length streaming videos—all cross-searchable from a single interface.
The University, along with Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Northern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, worked together to make a significant purchase of video content from Alexander Street Press, publisher of online collections for scholarly research, teaching and learning, for their campuses.
The online collections include:
- American History in Video
- Classical Music in Video
- Counseling and Therapy in Video
- Counseling and Therapy in Video: Volume II
- Education in Video
- Ethnographic Video Online
- Dance in Video
- Filmmakers Library Online
- Nursing Education in Video
- Opera in Video
- Theatre in Video
- World History in Video
“The University Library had been fielding requests to acquire portions of this collection for some time, so we knew that there was a demand for some of the content. When the opportunity arose for us to work with our partner institutions on a cooperative acquisition, we jumped at the chance, knowing that such cooperation would benefit all four institutions through reduced prices and broader access,” said Associate University Librarian for Collections and Assistant Dean of Libraries Tom Teper.
Users from within the University community can view and search transcripts alongside videos in this massive collection and create and share custom clips and playlists—all from a computer or even a mobile device, including iPhone, iPad, and Android.
“Faculty have indicated to me that they prefer the convenience of streaming video for classroom instruction, and that the content of these collections will be very useful for their students,” said Social Work/Anthropology/Sociology Librarian Beth Sheehan, “The Counseling and Therapy in Video and Ethnographic Video Online collections have been on my acquisitions wishlist for some time. In the short time since the purchase, I have already started using the collections to help faculty members find video clips for lesson plans. This is a great teaching and learning resource.”
“It is great to have multimedia services through the Library,” said Julia Pollack, an Instructional Services graduate assistant at Illinois. “This is the most amazing resource the Library has ever purchased access to!”
To assist patrons in utilizing these online collections, the University Library has created an Alexander Street Press Video Portal research guide at https://guides.library.illinois.edu/ASP .
Do you have a story you’d like added to the Library News & Events? If so, please contact Heather Murphy ( hmurphy@illinois.edu ).