User categories: ensuring library access for all institutional users

Abstract

others. However, for Classic Cinema, Kanopy offers some access to the incomparable Criterion Collection, with access to many European, Latin America, and Asian films by filmmakers such as Godard, Truffaut, Kurosawa, and Bergman. SWANK explains: “Swank Digital Campus provides colleges and universities with the largest academic streaming collection of its kind. With over 25,000 films, documentaries and TV shows, SWANK Digital Campus simplifies film distribution by providing faculty and students a legal streaming resource both on and off campus” (Digital campus: Swank motion pictures). As with most streaming platforms, SWANK is expensive, but offers discounted “blocks of films” at reasonable pricing. All the platforms allow streaming with URLs, the capability to create playlists, and to set up clips, and are easily adaptable to be embedded into most Learning Management Systems (LMS). Many offer curated programming as an option. AVON offers streaming web server applications. The budgetary strain on most institutions, including CUNY, has put a strain on the amount and quality of streaming and e-resources we can purchase. We have had to refuse renewal for a few products, and it has made us very thrifty when purchasing new resources. Hopefully, this paradigm will change as we work for a better educational tomorrow for our students and faculty. Now more than ever, e-resources and media, including primarily streaming films, are taking a leading role in higher education. This influence should be built upon and reinforced. It becomes the job of the e-resources librarians in major institutions to advocate for the renewal and investment in these valuable, didactic streaming tools.