Report of the Task Force on A-V Collections and Services
13 May 2009
Summary
The task force was charged by the Penn State University Libraries administration to review and
outline the most significant curricular needs for audio/video within the context of Libraries-based
services, considering acquisition, access and delivery, and management of collections. This
report summarizes our investigation of existing digital video services at Penn State and how they
are addressing the curricular needs for video that we identified. Included are the following
recommendations:

The Penn State University Libraries should develop an online course-reserve service for
video.

The Penn State University Libraries should explore the need for partnering with colleges
to incorporate television content into their teaching and learning by providing a Librarieshosted service that enables the recording and archiving of television programming.

The Penn State University Libraries should engage in regular review of the content
available for licensing from streaming video vendors as a possible supplement to the
Libraries video collections.

The Penn State University Libraries should explore their potential role in archiving
digital video content on behalf of, and in collaboration with, the Penn State University
community.
Outline of Report
I. Review of digital video services at Penn State
II. Proposal for a Libraries-based online course-reserve service for video
A. Course-reserve services in academic libraries
B. Need for expansion into online video for course reserves
C. Benchmarking
D. Options for implementation
1. Locally created system
2. Third-party enterprise system
III. Television programming
IV. Acquisition of video content by the University Libraries
V. Archiving and preservation
VI. Task force membership
2
I. Review of digital video services at Penn State
Student- and instructor-created video is used for learning across the University. Instructors in
many disciplines assign students to create video and other media presentations for courses, and
film/video creation is an important component of learning for Film-Video and Media Studies
students in the College of Communications. The College of Communications maintains several
labs equipped to support their students and faculty in Film-Video and Media Studies, Journalism,
Telecommunications, and Advertising/Public Relations.
The Digital Commons, an Educational Technology Services (ETS) initiative, supports students
and instructors from all disciplines in the creation of digital content (including digital video) for
teaching and learning, by providing learning spaces, computing tools, support materials, and
consultants. ITS Streaming Services enable self-service video streaming for Penn State faculty,
who can upload the digital videos they have created to an Apple QuickTime Streaming Server
maintained by Information Technology Services (ITS). ITS plans to expand this service to
students as well. The service provides instructions for converting a personal video to QuickTime
format, uploading it to the server, and setting access controls. ITS also enables podcasting:
instructors can post audio and video content on iTunesU so students can access selected course
lectures and other course materials using iTunes software.1 Instructors of both resident and
online courses use ITS Streaming Services and Penn State on iTunesU, and Digital Commons
studios are planned for every Penn State campus to support students and instructors involved in
resident instruction at each campus. ITS units collaborate with other units to provide a suite of
information to students and instructors about copyright law as it relates to the use of digital
media. The website “Copyright Perspectives” links to several internal and external resources,
including a page of links to Free Media Resources.2
Television programming is studied in Communications courses and other disciplines. Some
television programming is available online. WPSU Penn State Public Broadcasting streams
locally produced television programs from its website.3 ITS licenses access to international
television programming for Penn State users from SCOLA, a non-profit educational organization
that receives and re-transmits television programming from around the world in native languages.
Penn State users can access the SCOLA website with their Access Account ID and password and
download or stream international television. At the University Park campus, the 24/7 SCOLA
television broadcast is also available on channel 29 of the Penn State network.4
The World Campus supports its online courses with technical and instructional design staff, in
collaboration with ITS. In 2008, staff in Teaching and Learning with Technology designed and
implemented for the World Campus a procedure for digitizing full-length films for an online
1
See http://digitalcommons.psu.edu/, http://its.psu.edu/streaming/, and https://itunes.psu.edu/.
2
See http://copyright.psu.edu/, and also http://its.psu.edu/policies/digitalmedia/index.html.
3
See http://wpsu.psu.edu/tv/allprograms.
4
See http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/scola/).
3
offering of COMM 150, “Cinema Art.” After process implementation, the digitizing workflow
was handled by World Campus staff. Many colleges have developed their own e-learning
support units whose staff digitize and deliver content, including video, taught in college-based
online courses offered through the University’s e-Learning Cooperative or Blended Learning
Initiative.5 Examples of college e-learning support centers are the College of Agricultural
Sciences “eLearning Unit,” College of Engineering “eLearning Initiative,” College of Arts and
Architecture “e-Learning Institute,” and College of Earth and Mineral Sciences “e-Education
Institute.”
Within the University Libraries, staff in Media Technology and Support Services capture and
deliver class lectures and other presentations upon request, using Media Site Live.6 Selected
Media Site Live recordings are retained long-term in the University Archives. The Special
Collections department digitizes and delivers video content from its collections on a project basis.
For example, videos from the “Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern
Activists” have been digitized and are available from the Special Collections website.7
II. Proposal for a Libraries-based online course-reserve service for video
To help determine if all significant curricular needs for digital video are being met by the
initiatives described above, the task force examined another indicator of curricular use: the
number of faculty requests to place instructional content on reserve for their courses in the
University Libraries. Instructors of 280 courses requested that 1,697 videos be placed on the
course reserve shelves at the Music and Media Center in Pattee Library during academic year
2008-2009.8 These 1,697 videos are only a subset of videos used for teaching and learning
during 2008-2009 – many other videos were placed on reserve shelves at other Penn State library
locations. Instructors also taught with videos outside of utilizing the University Libraries course
reserve service. The task force has no way to quantify all video usage for teaching and learning
at Penn State, but within our known universe of videos placed on course reserve within the
University Libraries, it is clear that the curricular use of information published in video format is
significant at Penn State.
5
See http://weblearning.psu.edu/elearning-cooperative and http://weblearning.psu.edu/blended-learning-initiative.
6
See http://www.libraries.psu.edu/mtss/mediasitelive/mediasitelive.html.
7
See http://www.libraries.psu.edu/digital/rabin/about.html.
8
These courses were from departments and programs in African and African American Studies, Anthropology, Art
History, Biology, Chinese, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Communication Arts and Sciences,
Comparative and International Education, Comparative Literature, Communications (Film-Video Studies), Dance,
Educational Theory and Policy, English, Earth and Mineral Sciences, French, English as a Second Language,
Geography, German, History, Health Policy and Administration, Integrative Arts, Italian, Jewish Studies, Latin
Studies, Japanese, Music, Nutrition, Philosophy, Political Science, Photography, Psychology, Rehabilitation and
Human Services, Rural Sociology, Religious Studies, Russian, Science Technology and Society, Sociology, Spanish,
Swahili, Theatre, Ukrainian, and Women’s Studies.
4
II.A. Course-reserve services in academic libraries
Academic libraries have for decades provided a “course reserve” service that fulfills instructors’
requests to place a library-owned item on a specially designated shelf to reserve it for use of
students in a specific course during a given semester, taking it temporarily out of general
circulation. Placing a book, journal article, sound recording, or video (for example) on course
reserve ensures equal access to that content for all students in the class – one student cannot
check the material out of the library and keep others from consulting it.
The higher education environment for teaching and learning over the past decade has grown to
be increasingly online. At Penn State this is true not only for World Campus courses and collegebased online courses (through the e-Learning Cooperative and the Blended Learning Initiative),
but for almost all resident instruction courses. Penn State’s student demographics include more
returning students, adult learners, and learners who study at least some of the time at a distance
and some of the time late at night or on weekends. For any course taught at Penn State, the
expectation of students and instructors is that course content for teaching and learning is
available online, from any location at any time of the day or night, to meet the needs of all types
and locations of Penn State learners.
In the mid-1990s, to better meet the needs of learners and teachers in an online environment,
academic libraries began to expand their course reserve services by digitizing and delivering
over the Internet, to students in a specific course during a given semester, the content placed by
instructor request on reserve for their course. Benefits to students included the ability to learn
even when the library building was closed, or when students were learning from a distance or
under other constraints that made physically accessing the library building difficult.
First developed in the mid-1990s for textual information, the Penn State University Libraries’
online course reserve service expanded to delivery of page images in the late 1990s after
migrating to a platform that supported .pdf files. In 1999, at the request of music faculty, the
University Libraries developed an online version of our course reserves service for music audio.
The sound recordings that were traditionally placed on course reserve in the library were
digitized and delivered online for student use during a given semester.9 These “electronic
reserves” (or “e-reserves”) library services for text, page image (.pdf), and audio are used
extensively by instructors at most campuses in resident as well as online courses. Instructors can
provide a direct link from their ANGEL (course management system) course site to items on
course reserve in the University Libraries, so their students can access that content directly from
ANGEL. E-reserve content can be accessed during class sessions that are held in technologyequipped classrooms.
The University Libraries’ electronic course reserve services are fully mediated by University
Libraries staff, who retrieve from the Libraries’ shelves the content identified by the instructor;
digitize it (if it is not already available digitally via licensed sources); apply metadata to describe
The University Libraries’ audio e-reserves service is described at
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/artshumanities/musicaudio/audio_electronic_reserves.html.
9
5
it; upload it to a server maintained by Digital Library Technologies (DLT); and strictly control
access via authentication and time duration (e.g., a specific semester). The metadata describes
the source of the content (i.e., its bibliographic description), its physical library location (e.g.,
call number and shelf location), and course-related data (e.g., course name, number, instructor,
and semester of use). Libraries’ staff members consult with instructors on a case-by-case basis
about the amount of content from a copyrighted work that is required to meet the teaching and
learning needs for a given course. Mediation by University Libraries staff, following Librariesdeveloped policies for source of content and controlled access, is an important component of the
University Libraries’ interpretation of and compliance with copyright law.10
II.B. Need for expansion into online video for course reserves
Information published in all physical and digital formats is used for teaching and learning, and
the University Libraries build and maintain collections of information, regardless of its physical
or digital format, in support of teaching and learning in all disciplines. The learning value of the
content of the information package or carrier, rather than the package itself, drives its curricular
use, and drives its selection and acquisition for the Libraries’ collections.11 If information
published in film or video formats is used for teaching and learning, then there is a curricular
need in our online learning environment for digital delivery of that video content. In this context,
the curricular need for online delivery of video equates to the curricular need for other digital
content. The University Libraries have over the past decade developed the capacity to expand
their course reserve service into the online environment by delivering the textual, page image,
and audio information placed on course reserve at instructors’ requests. The amount of use of the
University Libraries’ course reserve service for videos, attested to by the number of video
reserve requests filled by the Music and Media Center last year, and the numerous instructor
requests at the Music and Media Center for an online reserve service for video content, are
evidence of an equivalent curricular need for online delivery of the video content on course
reserve.
An online course reserve service for video would enhance student success by making video
content on course reserve from the University Libraries’ collections more accessible to thousands
of students every semester and would further promote delivery of the University Libraries’
collections to our students’ learning environment. These outcomes are strategic goals of the
University and the University Libraries.12 Some savings would be realized in the University
See “Applying Fair Use in the Development of Electronic Reserve Systems,” a statement endorsed by the
Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, and others,
http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/copyresources/applying.shtml. See also “Statement on the Digital Transmission
of Electronic Reserves,” Music Library Association,
http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/copyright/Resources/DigitalReserves.
10
11
Certain disciplines involve the study of information carriers or formats within the context of their technology,
history, or culture. In those disciplines (e.g., the history of the book, or the history of the film), the actual artefacts
are as important as their content.
12
University Strategic Goal #1, enhance student success; University Strategic Goal #6, make greater use of
technology, including expansion of online offerings; University Libraries Strategic Goal #1, enhance services that
inspire learning and enable the discovery and delivery of information, including delivery of collections in our users’
6
Libraries’ acquisitions budget through fewer duplicate titles purchased for the Libraries’
collections. To meet the video needs of resident instruction at all Penn State campuses, the
University Libraries purchase duplicate copies of video titles for each library location where an
instructor requests that title to be placed on reserve. Delivering the course-reserve content online
could reduce the need for multiple physical copies purchased solely for course reserves. Savings
in the purchase of duplicate titles is estimated to be at least $1,000-$2,000 per year. (In 2008, the
Arts and Humanities Library selectors purchased $1,000 worth of duplicate video titles for
course reserve -- that is, titles that were already held by another campus library and were
requested by a University Park instructor for course reserve at the Music and Media Center.)
II.C. Benchmarking
Other institutions whose academic libraries offer an online course reserve service for video
include:
Northwestern University Library
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/dc/digitizationservices/streaming.html
Dartmouth College Library
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/mediactr/reserves.html
Emory University Libraries
http://web.library.emory.edu/services/circulation/reserves/streaming-policy.html
Brown University Library
http://brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/services/reserves/
Georgetown University Library
http://www.library.georgetown.edu/forms/gelardin/reserves/index.htm
Characteristics of an online course reserve service for video would include:




driven by instructor requests to place videos on course reserve in the University Libraries
for a specific course in a given semester;
mediated by University Libraries staff following Libraries guidelines for implementation
of electronic course reserves (see note 10);
equipped with metadata and file repository systems to store and retrieve files and report
usage via facets such as work content (bibliographic description), library ownership and
location, and course data (title, number, instructor, dates); and
access-controlled via secure authentication and authorization mechanisms.
teaching, learning, and research environments. Tactic: identify new methods for providing users with fresh and
effective ways of connecting with library resources.
7
In designing and managing their online course reserve services, the Penn State University
Libraries employ techniques intended to comply with the fair use provisions of copyright law
(see note 10 above). The online video reserve service recommended in this report would have
similar characteristics of compliance. The University of Michigan is operating its online video
reserve service using techniques intended to comply with fair use, and several of the institutions’
webpages for online video reserve services linked above contain statements about compliance
with fair use.
Attorney Wayne Mowery (of McQuaide Blasko, retained by Penn State University) met with
Becky Albitz and John Harwood in August 2008 to discuss the digitization and delivery of fulllength films for the World Campus offering of COMM 150 (mentioned above in the Review of
Digital Video Services at Penn State). Mr. Mowery stated his opinion that the digitization of
entire films would likely not be permitted under the 2002 TEACH Act.13 But, because of the
lack of case law to codify this position, Penn State could choose to pursue such activity, if the
institution was willing to accept the level of risk it entails. The Penn State University Libraries
provide their course reserves services under the fair use provisions of the copyright law, rather
than under the 2002 TEACH Act provision. As noted by Kenneth Crews, “The TEACH Act
applies only if you choose to use it. It is one option for the lawful uses of copyrighted works.
You can still turn to fair use or licensing.”14
II.D. Options for implementation
Options for implementing an online video course reserve service include 1) developing the
service in-house, with local IT staff identifying and acquiring appropriate software, hardware,
and servers, and testing processes in conjunction with library staff; or 2) purchasing or licensing
an enterprise system from a third party.
II.D.1. Locally created system
For example, the University of Michigan in fall 2008 piloted an online video reserves service
called BlueStream,15 developed and implemented by their IT division on behalf of the university
library. Digitization is handled by staff in the university library. The service is integrated into the
course management system. Its digital asset management (DAM) system runs on IBM Content
Manager, which creates an online digital repository and a template for access within the course
management system via searchable metadata and thumbnails down the left side. The template is
a java-script application with a video-player interface. The service supports 500 simultaneous
13
Teaching and Learning with Technology, a division of ITS, provides a website of information about the Teach Act
at http://tlt.its.psu.edu/dmd/teachact/.
14
Kenny Crews, ALA/ TEACH Act FAQ,
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/wo/woissues/copyrightb/federallegislation/distanceed/teachfaq.cfm).
15
See http://sitemaker.umich.edu/bluestream/home.
8
streams, with options for full-size or half-size streams. Timescripts synchronized to the video are
created upon capture. Other components include VideoLogger for basic indexing (when needed
such as voice-to-text analysis in a lecture environment) and Telestream Foot Factory, which
automatically makes different versions of a video file. Metadata and repository management is
via Ancept Digital Asset Management and WebSphere Application Server, which allows
administrators and/or users to set access controls, select which formats are available, collate the
resources. They piggyback on the campus streaming service (Darwin and Helix). Library staff
capture the content and decide what content to add based on course reserve requests. Fall 2008
was the pilot semester for 15 courses, over 300 students, and 76 feature-length films. Full rollout
will occur fall 2009. The same platform supports self-service student contributions of video
content..
At Penn State, DLT could investigate partnering with units in ITS (e.g., Teaching and Learning
with Technology, or ITS Streaming Services) to design and implement a local system that would
support an online video course reserve service. DLT is beginning to develop repository services,
with plans for an extensible framework that could be applied to any repository under their
purview. The repository framework will have component services, including metadata and
access security, which could be reused. One task force member serves on a group investigating
an e-learning resource repository for Penn State, a joint project of the Blended Learning
Initiative (ETS and World Campus). This group is focusing on WebLion, a locally developed
content management system intended to provide robust metadata management features capable
of managing such a repository. DLT could investigate partnering with WebLion for the metadata
and repository functionality.
Though open-source code is now available to support the delivery of online audio for course
reserves, the task force is not aware of open-source code that supports online video delivery.
Indiana University has released their Variations digital music library system as free, open-source
software (http://variations.sourceforge.net/). This system is a package of software, with
guidelines for hardware and workflow/processes, for implementing and operating an online
audio reserves service. Included are server, client, and source code; guidelines for installing and
configuring the server, client, and digitizer tools; guidelines for integrating with local systems for
authentication, authorization, library catalog, and web servers; and a digitization and cataloging
guide. According to a contact at Indiana University, video is planned for inclusion in a future
Variations project.
Costs
Development of a local system would require programmer/staff time in DLT, or collaboration
between DLT and other ITS units. An assessment of necessary infrastructure investment in DLT
to support an in-house system would be required. The cost of developing a local system is
unknown to the task force.
9
II.D.2. Third-party enterprise system16
ShareStream is a turnkey software package that supports the digitizing and secure (authenticated)
delivery of video and other media content (such as podcasts). It is marketed to higher education
and consists of three independent modules:



Capture, Encode and Archive
For digitizing, saving, and retrieving files.
Coursework
Integrates with the local library catalog and/or course management system. The database
serves as a centralized repository of files. Comes with a rich-media authoring tool for
creating webpages with links to media files, which could be applied to non-course-related
uses (such as Special Collections guides).
Lecture Capture
Automated process for capturing lectures and other events synchronized with slides or
desktop presentations.
ShareStream automates the process of encoding content, assigning metadata and mining the
Internet for existing metadata when available, organizing files, and auditing use through reports
organized by users, courses, time period (etc.). It enables digitization of large multimedia
collections an in automated fashion; storage and retrieval of media assets with appropriate
metadata; controlled access to copyrighted content; delivery via streaming, downloads, and/or
podcasts; and auditing of user and content accesses via a reporting tool.
Security features include user-credential verification technology that performs authentication,
authorization, and course-enrollment checking; access control lists that manage user privileges
and roles; and location/IP address-restricted and time-duration-restricted access to content.
ShareStream works with any type of streaming server and media player. It integrates with iTunes.
It is currently programmed to integrate with Sakai, Blackboard, and eCollege. DLT has provided
a cost estimate for hardware and server upgrades to support a possible ShareStream
implementation (see under Costs below). In answer to our question about developing
interoperability with ANGEL, ShareStream stated,
Developing interoperability for a learning management system that ShareStream does not
have preexisting integration with, such as ANGEL, typically takes from 4-6 weeks.
ShareStream understands that the documentation for developing an ANGEL “Nugget,”
its terminology for interoperable solutions, is very good, so the four-to-six week period
16
Our sponsors charged the task force to investigate several third-party enterprise systems/services with potential
relevance for delivering video, including Sharestream, SnapStream, Cdigix (C-Labs), and Gotuit. Sharestream and
SnapStream are discussed in this report. Cdigix ceased operations at the end of 2008. Gotuit (http://www.gotuit.com/)
is a metadata application for internal tagging of content within digital video files – in other words, “text encoding”
for video content. The task force decided this product is not relevant to our charge.
10
for competing ANGEL interoperability may be reduced. ShareStream will require a Penn
State ANGEL technical point of contact and access to Penn State's test ANGEL
environment to develop an ANGEL gel Nugget. We will work together to coordinate on
the requirements to ensure that the final integration meets the institution's needs. The
ShareStream preliminary integration with ANGEL on Penn State's test ANGEL
environment can then be tested and evaluated prior to final deployment in the production
environment.
At Georgetown University, where it was developed, ShareStream is used to support media
delivery for 350 courses. Some task force members saw a demonstration of ShareStream, in
particular the access that students see via the course management system, the staff inputting
screen for metadata, and a streamed video digitized from Georgetown University Library’s
special collections.
Costs
License:
 first year: $35,000 for support of up to 50 courses, or $45,000 for up to 200 courses
 second and third years: $50,000 each
 delivery of media not related to courses, such as Special Collections content: no charge
(would be a fringe benefit).
Local infrastructure and hardware investment:
$50,000 - $80,000, depending on number of courses served.
Staffing for capture and database entry:
$5,250 (20 hours/week at $8.75 wage for 30 weeks) – this work can be shared to some
extent with the audio capturing done by audio e-reserves staff.
Attached are ShareStream’s template license agreement, cost proposal, and answers to questions
about infrastructure requirements.
III. Television programming
A strategic goal of the University is to make Penn State a global university by infusing the
curriculum with more international content and recruiting additional international students.17 The
University Libraries might consider contributing to this goal by partnering with language
learning departments to incorporate foreign language television content into their learning, and
partnering with the College of Communications on learning activities using television
programming. Such an extension of our digital library into the area of digital media studies
would build upon access provided by the Television and News Viewing Area of the News and
Microforms Library.
17
University Strategic Plan Goal #3, Make Penn State a Global University.
11
The ability to record, archive, retrieve, playback, and analyze television programming is
important for study in the fields of communications, media studies, and language learning.
Television content is used in teaching, learning, and research in the discipline of communications,
both for media monitoring (e.g., how issues are portrayed in the news, when a news item was
first reported, the number of times a name is mentioned in the media, etc.) and for television
research (content analysis, etc.). Television programming is also useful for foreign-language
teaching and learning in the language disciplines. The current Penn State environment includes a
cable TV license for dorms and classrooms.
SnapStream is a third-party enterprise system marketed to higher education. The College of
Communications has submitted a grant proposal to acquire SnapStream for a specific research
project within their college. The University Libraries might want to consider supplementing
SCOLA content by acquiring SnapStream to promote broader curricular access to television
programming, beyond the College of Communications.
SnapStream is a turnkey system for the recording, storage, and playback of television
programming, and the simultaneous capture and storage of the closed-caption data that
accompanies the television signal. The transcript of the closed-captions is searchable for
subsequent retrieval. SnapStream enables its customers to create and retain a digital video library
of current television programming, selected locally from SnapStream’s programming lineup.
File formats
The server captures and stores the video signal as an mpeg2 file, the closed-caption data is stored
as a separate transcript file. SnapStream runs an automated, continuous text clean-up program on
the closed-captioning to create the transcripts on the fly.
Features
 Record television programming, including international programming, and watch it later,
 Record one or more channels continuously.
 Extract clips from recorded television programs (the clip-creation feature can be turned
off on selected end-users workstations if desired).
 Email clips and transcripts or burn them to DVD.
 Stream clips to end-user PCs.
 Search transcripts by keyword: users can search transcripts that are stored on the local
server. For programs without closed captioning, users can locate them by show title and
channel.
 Receive email or podcast alerts when keywords appear on television.
Hardware
SnapStream sells a server for local installation. The television signals connect into the back of
the server, which accommodates regular cable, digital cable, and satellite feeds. The server
records from 4 to 10 channels/feeds simultaneously (the number of channels depends on the type
of server that is purchased). Satellite feeds require additional hardware (blaster and set-top
boxes). The video is saved as mpeg2 files and stored on the server.
12
The server stores up to 2300 hours of mepg2 video. Files can be burned to DVD for long-term
storage. The server can be connected to networked storage and can be programmed to
automatically copy content to networked storage. The server automatically deletes its oldest
content when it reaches its storage capacity.
Software
End-user client software is required for searching, clip creation, and playback. The client
software is compatible with Windows only, not with Mac or Linux. End-users can compress
clips for emailing or streaming to other users; the compressed files are in Windows Media format
and can be viewed with Windows Media Player.
Authentication/Permissions
SnapStream allows the local administrator to set permissions for use of the various features. It
integrates with Microsoft’s Active Directory authentication management system. SnapStream
indicated a willingness to develop a way to integrate with other authentication systems in use at
universities.
Costs
Server cost (one-time purchase):
4 simultaneous channels = $8,000
6 simultaneous channels = $12,000
8 simultaneous channels = $16,000
10 simultaneous channels = $20,000
Client licenses: 20 licenses are included in the server price. Additional licenses are $35 each.
Annual fee (hardware warranty, software updates, maintenance) = 10% of server price:
4 channels = $800/year
6 channels = $1,200/year
8 channels = $1,600/year
10 channels = $2,000/year
Staffing
There would be some ongoing costs in staff time to schedule and manage the recording of the
programming.
IV. Acquisition of video content by the University Libraries
The current University Libraries practice of purchasing video content in physical containers (e.g.,
DVDs) is functioning. The task force recommends regular review of the content available from
streaming video vendors as a possible supplement (in the future) to the Libraries video
collections.
13
The Video Round Table of the American Library Association maintains a “Streaming Video
Vendor List” with 89 entries of publishers and distributors—one of which is Penn State Media
Sales—whom libraries pay annually to license access to streaming video, or pay once to
purchase perpetual rights to the online video content, on behalf of their users.18 The white paper
“Streamed Video Licensing: Issues and Challenges for Buyers and Sellers,” by Gary Handman
(UC Berkeley) and Lawrence Daressa (California Newsreel), outlines many issues involved in
this new model of acquiring video content in libraries.19
A crucial consideration for academic libraries is content: does the online video collection under
consideration for licensing contain the content needed by Penn State instructors and students?
The University Libraries know what video content is used for teaching and learning at Penn State
based on the titles that instructors place on course reserve. By acquiring those specific titles,
either through purchase of physical artefacts (e.g., DVDs) or licensing for online access to a
specific work, we pay for the content we know is needed for teaching and learning. When
aggregated and publisher-based streaming audio libraries developed a few years ago, a
comparison of the content of three streaming audio libraries (Napster, Classical Music Library,
and Naxos Music Library) with the list of audio titles (i.e., CDs) placed on course reserve at the
Music and Media Center showed that the commercial online libraries held only one third of the
content used for teaching and learning at Penn State.20 Paying hefty annual license fees for
content, only some of which will be used for teaching and learning, may not be the best
stewardship of acquisition dollars.
Netflix is an example of a home movie rental service that is expanding into online delivery.
Personal subscribers pay a monthly subscription fee (currently $5 to $17 per month) which
allows them to receive in the mail DVDs from Netflix’s collection of 100,000 DVD titles, 12,000
of which are also available online via streaming to a home computer or specially equipped home
TV. The University of Washington University Libraries are paying for DVD rentals from Netflix
on behalf of their faculty, to supplement their Libraries’ video collection. A similar service is
offered to Reinhardt College instructors by their library.21 Online streaming is not a feature of
these library/Netflix agreements. When exploring the plausibility and efficacy of institutional
licensing of online content from a distributor such as Netflix, we again must consider what
content is actually available, as well as cost, to determining if the distributor can really provide
the video content use for teaching and learning at Penn State.
Implementation of an online course reserve service for video would eliminate the need to acquire
multiple copies for different campus libraries solely for the purpose of course reserve. Licensing
18
See http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/vrt/professionalresources/vrtresources/resources.cfm.
19
See http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/vod08b.pdf.
20
Maple, “Online Music Services and Academic Libraries,” ARL: A Bimonthly Report, 244 (February 2006).
See “Netflix Service for UW Instructors,” http://www.lib.washington.edu/media/netflix.html, and “Netflix
Request Fact Sheet,” http://library.reinhardt.edu/Netflix_info.htm.
21
14
some online video content could reduce the need for local digitization for course reserve if a
requested video were available in the licensed collection. This precedent exists for textual and
audio formats: the University Libraries course reserve services already point to licensed journal
articles and streamed music tracks, rather than digitizing them locally, when the requested
content is available in library-licensed databases. Regular review of the content available from
streaming video vendors is recommended. As Handman and Daressa concluded, “There will
remain compelling reasons to build and maintain standing collections of video titles, either
artifactual or online, in libraries . . . . It is unlikely that any single model will be sufficient to
serve the broad scope of institutional types and institutional needs.”
V. Archiving and Preservation
Although Penn State provides services to assist students and instructors with the creation and
sharing of digital video, the task force was not able to identify services for long-term archiving
or preservation of those productions. The College of Communications has approached the
University Libraries for help archiving their student films, reporting that ITS’s streaming server
does not meet their needs for search-and-retrieval or for long-term archiving. Communications
faculty have also asked for help archiving video files created for their Journalism courses, which
now include film and video production. If the University Libraries were to implement a delivery
and repository system for online video as part of an online course reserves service, that system
could be leveraged to archive and manage other video content, such as student films from the
College of Communications or videos from the Libraries’ Department of Special Collections.
The University Libraries should explore their potential role in archiving digital video content on
behalf of the University community.
The Association of Moving Image Archivists provides fact sheets about film and videotape
preservation, including one about conversion from analog to digital formats.22 The Department
of Special Collections in the University Libraries has hardware for converting analog audio and
video formats to CD-R and DVD-R storage, and also outsources the preservation of some film
and magnetic tape housed in Special Collections to Ascent Media, a company that provides film,
audio, and video preservation and digital conversion. Our task force was unable to locate
national professional standards or best practices about the recommended frequency or schedule
of format conversions to newer video file formats for digital video content designated for longterm (permanent) retention.
VI. Task force membership: Eileen Akin, Becky Albitz, Bill Bishop, Debora Cheney, Robert
Freeborn, Jim Leous, Amanda Maple (chair), Mairéad Martin, Barb Smith.
22
See http://www.amianet.org/resources/guides/fact_sheets.pdf.