DVD and streaming video: Choices for an academic library
Susannah Benedetti, Jeanne G. Cross · NC Digital Online Collection of Knowledge and Scholarship (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) · 2016
Randall Library has a large educational and documentary DVD collection (4,800+) which continues to grow. Like many we are experiencing an increasing number of requests for streaming video titles due in part to UNCW offering more distance education and online courses. In FY13 we received a faculty request for the Media Education Foundation's Media Studies and Communication streaming video package. We considered the subscription despite a significant 65% overlap of titles in our existing DVD collection. With the availability of some one-time funding, we chose to subscribe to a 3 year license for the streaming package, hosted on Kanopy, and to analyze use. Collection management question: Is it worth it for the library to duplicate purchased content and support ongoing costs for a licensed subscription?