Survey of Academic Library Video Content Provision Practices

The study looks at how 31 academic libraries provide video content to traditional and online classes and other academic and scholarly purposes. The study examines the use of traditional and streamed video, the digitization of existing college video collections (commercial and proprietary), and use of gratis video from YouTube and other sources. The report helps its end users to answer questions such as: how much are libraries spending on streamed video? Traditional video? How many libraries are making use of video archives of classes, lectures, special events and speakers and what are they doing with this video? What kind of licensing models are libraries using for streamed video: pay per view, in perpetuity licensing? Fixed term? What is the role of consortia in purchasing? How happy are librarians and their patrons with the video delivery infrastructure at their institutions? How much are libraries spending on licenses to convert their existing tradition video assets to digital formats? Just a few of the report’s many findings are that: Institutions with less than 3,000 enrollment were most likely to say infrastructure was underdeveloped (38%). Overall, the research institutions were the most satisfied, Most libraries (58%) felt they should spend more on streaming video in the future, while a small number (6%) felt they should spend less. Forty-eight per cent of respondents make available for educational purposes video archives of events, programs or courses such as lectures or performances given at the college, or tapes of college courses themselves. This was more common among public institutions (62%) than private (20%). 21% of video content licenses were accounted for by flat fee in perpetuity license. Community colleges did not report any flat fee, in perpetuity licensing. Data is broken out by size and type of institution, by tuition level and for public and private colleges.