One Library’s Successful Venture in Providing Comprehensive Streaming Media Services

Thoroughly understanding what professors and instructors needed to accomplish their teaching goals with streaming video was the first step enabling one academic library to successfully manage a rapid increase in demand for streaming media. The second element was incorporating an expert understanding of copyright law and the nature of the video marketplace. This paper will strive to educate librarians and other professional library staff on how they can best integrate media streaming into mainstream library services for their campus faculty, as well as how to provide a full range of streaming services. The paper also will address workflow, communication with faculty, budget and license negotiations, copyright principles, fair use, and content delivery. Introduction and Background University libraries have always engaged in the business of providing their campus communities with resources for research and teaching. As technology has changed, the delivery method for providing these resources has also adjusted in order to make content more easily and quickly accessible. One excellent example of this is the provision of media, especially film. Historians document that motion pictures made their debut in the late 1800s and by the 1970s 16mm films were regularly used in educational settings from grade school through higher education (Mintz and McNeil, 2013). Many university libraries developed extensive collections of 16mm film, including archival collections of university activities (Brancolini, 1993). As technology advanced, 16mm films were replaced by collections of videos in Beta and VHS formats, then DVD, and finally Blu‐Ray as physical forms of film. Providing access to films in physical formats such as VHS, DVD, and Blu‐Ray had obvious disadvantages for library users. There were only so many copies available to students who were required to view certain films for their coursework and only so many machines available to play these physical formats causing stress on both the library and the students. As computer technology improved and the Internet matured, videos were increasingly created in digital form and films on VHS and DVD were capable of being digitized and streamed. Streaming allowed access to the films any time, anywhere the Internet was available. Many university libraries began to offer media Copyright of this contribution remains in the name of the author(s). http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284316240 107 Charleston Conference Proceedings 2015 streaming services to their campus communities such that a faculty member could request the streaming of a film for their course, the library would digitize and stream the film, and students could easily access the required film any time (Snyder et al., 2001). These services began appearing in the early to mid‐2000’s when film publishers and vendors were primarily offering the physical forms of film as the dominant method of purchasing and accessing a film. However, the marketplace was shifting. Film publishers and vendors began to embrace the new technology and their offerings expanded to include streamed versions of their films for a price. As such, libraries have responded to the new marketplace by adapting and updating their media‐related services. Getting clear about what library users needed in order to accomplish their teaching and learning tasks along with incorporating expert understanding of copyright and the marketplace allowed one university library to successfully manage these significant changes while still meeting user needs.