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Faculty Guide to the Library

Find out what the library can do to help you save time and connect your students to expert research guidance.

Copyright: The Quickest of Facts

  • Movies (or any content) must be legally-acquired in all endeavors.
  • If it's in support of a lesson, you may show a film in its entirety in your physical classroom.
  • Digital classrooms may have less leniency: you cannot stream an entire film to your online students, as you would a face-to-face class, under the TEACH Act. However, you could do a fair use analysis instead -- you do not have to use the TEACH Act as your justification just because you're online.
  • License agreements can override fair use: if Netflix makes you agree your account is only for personal use, classroom use is excluded. Licenses like the Creative Commons can alternately add freedoms/permissions, as well. Know your license agreement.
  • You may not circumvent DRM (digital rights management) mechanisms even in the pursuit of fair use functionality, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (e.g. you want to rip a DVD to upload a clip to D2L -- can't do it if the disc is protected)
Features Video Databases E-book Databases YouTube
Explicitly licensed for education use
Provide (quality) closed captioning and transcripts n/a
Link to or embed in D2L (or upload portions)
Available 24/7
Simultaneous users

*E-book licenses vary title-to-title and are set by the publisher.

Background Info: A Little Bit About Funding Models

Funding Models:

PDA (Patron-Driven Acquisition)

Applies to:

  • Kanopy, Films on Demand

Movies can be watched but don't trigger a purchase for any one film until there's been a certain number of views lasting at least a certain amount of time.

Funding works like a debit card, or maybe a season pass to a theme park: new budget year = full account. So long as there are funds on the gift card, all films are available! When the money runs out, the only films available are those that were purchased (either directly or were triggered by viewership).

Pros:

  • Maximum selection and availability with relatively small initial investment

Cons:

  • Surprise! PDA ran out and now that film you wanted isn't available as readily. There's no predictable date/time for funds to run out, unfortunately.
Purchase/License

Applies to:

  • Kanopy, Films on Demand, EBSCO eBook Collection, ProQuest Ebook Central

You never truly "buy" digital content, and this is more apparent with these databases. If we purchase a film, what we've actually done is pay for a license to have access to that film for a certain amount of time (typically either 1 year or 3 years). When the license expires after the designated period, the film will have to be re-purchased.

Pros:

  • We know exactly if and when a film will be available to stream.
  • Specific control over content of the collection.

Cons:

  • Individual purchase rather than a broad library.
Subscription Package

Applies to:

  • ProQuest Ebook Central, Academic Video Premier (Alexander Street Press)

Titles are part of a big subscription bundle, with the possibility of individual purchase/license of titles. Generally, we haven't specifically selected what's included.

Pros:

  • Big collection without having to purchase every single thing.
  • Titles tend to have unlimited access.

Cons:

  • Licenses between the database and the publishers can change -- i.e. titles can still disappear from the collection.
  • It's a big collection...including things we might not have chosen to purchase if we'd had the option, which clutters up searches.