Alexander Street Press has partnered with Filmakers Library to offer nearly 1,000 of their documentary films as streaming videos with searchable transcripts. Filmakers Library is a distributor of films heavily used in the social sciences and humanities. Specific topics include race and gender studies, education, human rights, culture studies, international relations, politics, psychology, and the arts. It is expected that the collection will continue to grow by more than 100 titles per year.
The opening screen provides a welcome to the system along with a brief description of the collection. Four revolving images of featured videos appear underneath. Above the welcome is a toolbar with a search box at the right that offers keyword searches of the entire collection, or narrowed to director/producer, title and series, or subject. Underneath the quick search box is a link to access personally created playlists and clip collections. The left side of the toolbar provides access to the browse function, the advanced search, playlists, new features, and the help pages. The left hand column provides another access point for the various browse options to view a list of all videos by title or to have them sorted by director and producers, topics, places, or clips.
The all video browse feature lists the videos alphabetically by title. An A to Z list at the top of the table allows choosing titles that begin with a particular letter. Results can be also be sorted by any column by clicking on its heading. The topics browse offers 50 different broad subjects such as agriculture, economics, education, health, literature, politics, and women's issues. Similarly, the places browse includes the broad geographic areas of Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, Oceania, and North America. The list narrows to particular countries after choosing a broad area. The number of matching results is noted by each topic and place. Once a topic or place has been chosen, the narrowed list can be filtered by director/producer, language, subject, video type, or the year released.
A quick search box is available on all pages or an advanced search can be accessed through the top toolbar. Search results display in relevancy order unless another sort order is chosen from the advanced search screen. Each result includes an image, play icons, and the video title and citation. Matching terms within the transcripts are highlighted in red. Choosing the play icon next to the terms will quickly lead to the matching spot within the transcript and the video.
On selecting a film the user has three options: play the video, send it to a mobile phone, or add it to a playlist. The play button links to another screen where the video will begin streaming immediately. The video can be resized slightly or made full screen. The full screen is grainier, but still tolerable to watch. The quality of the video and sound does vary between the films. Additional information on the film appears above the screen such as awards, film credits, production and release years, key words, subject, intended audience, language, original language, and a summary. Clicking on the director and producer names will provide a list of other titles in the collection attributed to them.
Access to the full transcript is available above the screen. The transcript can also appear along the right hand side of the screen as the video plays. It synchronizes with the video so that the part playing is highlighted in yellow on the transcript. It is easy to skip to a different part of the video by highlighting in blue another section within the transcript. Still another way to move to different sections in the film is by using the thumbnail pictures of the video. Other options offered on this screen include printing the screen, embedding a link to the video, and creating clips. Registration as an individual user is required in order to create clips and playlists. Playlists can include text, images, clips, tracks, and URLs. Each playlist has a unique URL and can be annotated, edited, copied, and shared.
Overall, this robust resource of visual media is easy to use and navigate. It is an excellent way to access unique videos in the humanities and social sciences. This collection is recommended for any academic library.
