Alexander Street Press (ASP) provides an important and useful set of products for academic libraries in the humanities. Opera in Video, a database with current holdings of approximately 190 videos, including documentaries, biographies, and most importantly productions, is anticipating growth to 250 this year. The collection represents many well known operas and those used to study music history, for example, Verdi's Aida, and Mozart's Don Giovanni.
The format of the homepage of Opera in Video includes a basic description of the database, a few images of representative titles and many links to various pages. It is when the user clicks on one of the links that he/she will be asked to login. This is not an open‐access product and requires a subscription. The descriptors that are available include: Clips, Ensembles, Genres, Roles, Time Periods, Venues and Videos. The Clips allows users to import video clips, in part or whole, into a playlist or they can import their own clips. This is a great feature for teachers while planning course content.
Overall, Opera in Video is a content‐rich database and should be considered for subscription for institutions that have any music programme. ASP has grown and continues to offer scholarly databases useful in research from undergraduate to faculty in any college or university. Opera in Video may be part of a larger package of multiple databases offered by the vendor.
Describing the content, it include operas from seven periods, the most being Romantic (51) the fewest pre‐classical (one). There are forty twentieth century pieces, excerpts, full‐length operas, interviews or documentaries. The database is also categorized by material type. The following material types are searchable: biography, documentary, editorial, interview, performance or video recording. When searching these fields it is apparent that this is a work in progress as some have only two hits. The video recordings are full‐length.
The Playlist feature in this database offers users flexibility and organizational support in several ways. There are public playlists, some created by ASP editors or submitted by users, or users can set up their own playlists, perhaps for an individual course or unit of study. The third playlist capability is for institutional playlists that can be shared with colleagues or students but not for general use. This is a very useful feature and integrating required viewing/listening playlists into a classroom management system could be a good multi‐media teaching device.
Another feature that might be useful for the occasional user is the subscription RSS (really simple syndication) feed. Users are automatically updated when new material is offered. Users must register for this separately but it is free. It appears that the database is updated every day and the catalogue is growing rapidly.
