Kanopy @ Delaware Public Library
Did you know that the Delaware County District Library also has Kanopy? If you'd like to watch videos for entertainment purposes, we recommend getting your Delaware County District Library card and signing in through Kanopy with that, so we can keep OWU's Kanopy free and clear for academic use.
Thank you!
Interested In Ordering?
If there's a specific streaming title you know you'd like to use, please reach out to your liaison librarian. They may be able to find a better streaming deal than is offered by Kanopy, or may know of similar alternatives to which we already have access.
Public Services Librarian
Free Streaming Video Resources
- American Memory Collection
- The Library of Congress has made this collection of early American video, including feature films and documentaries, publicly available. Featuring video and audio from the late 19th and early 20th century, these resources focus on capturing American life at the time.
- C-SPAN Video Library
- A valuable collection of political videos with over 250,000 hours of content, including House and Senate Sessions, Presidential Addresses, news conferences, and more.
- Internet Archive: Movies
- The Internet Archive provides this collection of over 20,000 videos, from movie trailers to World War II propaganda to stock footage.
- National Geographic Video
- Includes short videos on natural science, history, and sociology. Many of the videos are in the 2-5 minute range, and they range from news to educational material.
- National Film Board of Canada
- The National Film Board of Canda offers over 3,000 streaming films produced in Canada, from documentaries to feature films. While some resources, particularly in the education section, are behind a paywall, many are freely available to stream.
- PBS Video Library
- An ad-supported streaming of a wide variety of PBS programming, including vital programs like documentary news series Frontline and science education program Nova, going back years.
- Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive
- A special collection within the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive features over 1,000 hours of historical video pertaining to World War II and the Holocaust, and over 200 hours of outtakes and interviews from Claude Lanzmann's groundbreaking Holocaust documentary, Shoah.
- StreamOWU
- Interested in past presentations hosted by OWU? StreamOWU has links to video of many of the great presentations and panel discussions hosted here at OWU going back nearly a decade!
- TED Talks
- TED is a non-profit that invites thought-leaders and trend-setters from around the world to give brief talks on the areas of their expertise, over 3,000 of which are freely available on the TED Talks website.
- YouTube
- YouTube is one of the biggest repositories of streaming video anywhere. Because anyone can upload anything, it may take some digging to find something suitable for your class, but if you reach out to your liaison librarian, you may be surprised at how rich its trove of video essays, historical and educational programming, and more actually is.
Films On Demand
Thanks to the hard work of OhioLINK and funding from the Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER), we are now able to offer a considerable selection of streaming video from Films on Demand.
OWU students, staff, and faculty should have access to the following collections from Films on Demand:
- Health & Medicine Video Collection
- Humanities & Social Sciences Package
- Science Video Package
- Nursing Core Collection
- Physical Therapy
- Allied Health
- World Cinema Collection
OWU Media Center
OWU has a large physical collection of videos on various formats in the Media Center, located in the basement of Beeghly Library.
Facts About Kanopy Usage
In the short time we've been using Kanopy, it has become one of the Libraries' most popular online resources. We are pleased it is so valued and well-used. That said, Kanopy’s business model is quite different from other resources for which we provide access.
Kanopy tracks how many times each work is viewed. Once a title is viewed enough times, Kanopy charges the Libraries a considerable amount for a one year license. With that in mind, we'd like to share the following information and suggestions to help us control cost and maintain access to all Kanopy has to offer as summer approaches and planning for next year's courses begin.
Did You Know?
- The library is charged $135 per title/year once a video is viewed 4 times.
- One view = 30 seconds or more.
- Films are licensed, not owned.
- Once charged, the video may be viewed as many times as needed for 1 year. This usually includes the public performance rights, and the library is happy to help you find out if they come with your video.
- If you have plans to use a video repeatedly over a course of several years, we do have options to purchase a longer license. Doing so in advance is cheaper than repeated individual purchases.
Suggestions
- Limit your preview of a title to under 25 seconds whenever possible.
- Increasingly, titles have a 'trailer' function that allow you to preview the material without triggering a purchase. If you see a 'Trailer' button, please select that to preview a title.
- If you are previewing a film for class, try to do so in one sitting as returning will trigger another use and potentially result in a purchase.
- When deciding whether to preview, you can also Google a specific title of interest using a video search to watch the trailer and possibly find other links that provide additional descriptive content about the film.
- You may also want to check with the Libraries if a film you are interested in already has a license and, if so, when it expires. While a license is current, you won’t need to worry about length or number of views.
- Many of the popular feature films provided on Kanopy are available on DVD at a fraction of the cost. If a DVD will suit your needs, please check with your library liaison to see if a copy is owned or can be purchased for the Media Center circulating collection and placed on closed reserve for your course.
Check with your liaison to discuss your media needs. There are collections of free/open films and videos they can direct you to that might be relevant. Librarians can also help suggest the best way to explore content on Kanopy. If you are using Kanopy for entertainment purposes, we ask that you consider using alternatives available through your public library or other means. Your liaison librarians are happy to help direct you to these alternatives.
Quick Note
We have heard some reports that folks are encountering errors when trying to use Kanopy from the Google Chrome browser. If you are running into problems while using it and are using Chrome, we recommend trying a different browser before reaching out.