TVLINK is sponsored by American Time Lapse, a stock footage company located in Wilmette, Illinois. The company has put together a large meta site for anyone looking for information about television, film, video, and the telecommunications field. TVLINK boasts almost 500 links organized into approximately two dozen categories. An index comes first to make browsing easier.
TVLINK lives up to its name with its extensive coverage of television. The site offers links to web sites for popular U.S. television shows, such as “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons.” Soap operas and late night variety shows are also covered. CNN, MSNBC, and other news channels are linked, as well as sports networks, major broadcast networks, and general U.S. cable channels.
TVLINK goes beyond just television, though. Film also receives wide coverage, with links provided to reviews, festivals, and studios. Links are provided to more than 80 festivals throughout the world. A few general listing sites are provided; but sites devoted to or sponsored by festivals like the Toronto Underground Film Festival, the Cartagena International Film Festival, and the Margaret Mead Film Festival make up the bulk of the category. General cinema resources, like the Internet Movie Database and the Box Office Report, are also provided via TVLINK.
There is international coverage in both of these areas as well. Links are provided to the BBC, NHK, and other channels, networks and production companies from Brazil to Croatia, from Sweden to India.
TVLINK also provides links to sites dealing with research in the profession of telecommunications and to sites devoted to the production side of the television and film business. Professional associations like the Society of Operating Cameramen and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) are among the many links. TVLINK has a few extra touches, such as a link to an e‐book at the Gutenberg Project site and links to Starting Point and Webcrawler.
There are a few minor drawbacks. The category called “More” appears to be a collection of sites which did not get placed into the proper category. This makes the “More” category a bit unwieldly. It also means some other sections may be incomplete. Another problem is that there is no contact information or any credit given to any particular individuals at American Timelapse. There is a general e‐mail address given for reporting dead or broken links, though. The site also lacks any mention of when updates were performed. And, although it was not overwhelming, there is a commercial pitch for their products included in one section.
TVLINK provides extensive coverage of general topics and provides links to several more specialized topics not well covered by other sites. It should be noted that links are not annotated. Neither is there any discussion of how sites are chosen for inclusion, so evaluation is left to the user. Overall, the site is highly recommended for reference services and research purposes, as it provides hundreds of links to interesting sites and useful resources.
