Library Guides: Guide to Using Media in Courses: Licensed Collections

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Sure, you know about YouTube and Spotify and some other great web resources, but we bet you don't know about all the streaming services DU subscribes to on your behalf. Check out our general film and video collections, history and current events collections, materials for therapists and social workers, digital primary sources, and much more. Most collections support durable URLs, clips, and playlist creation, making them especially appropriate for classroom presentations.

Take a look through the collections in this guide, and we think you'll be surprised!

Choose a topic below to navigate to that section:

Feature Films and Documentaries
History and Current Events
Psychotherapy and Social Work
Science
Media Studies
Theatre
Music

Foreign Language Films and Documentaries
Just for Fun

Feature Films and Documentaries

Kanopy
On-demand streaming service with more than 30,000 classic films, documentaries, and instructional videos. Marketed as “Netflix for colleges.” Many titles are accompanied by searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Docuseek2
A collection of more than 1,200 full-length and shorter documentaries and educational films. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Includes Bullfrog Films, Icarus Films (including The Fanlight Collection and dGenerate Films), Kartemquin Films, KimStim, the National Film Board of Canada, and Terra Nova Films.
Film Platform
Film Platform serves as a bridge between academia and documentary film, bringing the most relevant and highly regarded films from the festival circuit.
Film Platform no longer offers full access to its catalog and now offers access on a title-by-title basis. Please speak with your liaison librarian if you're interested in a film.
Swank Digital Campus
More than 100 feature films from the 1930s up through 2016.
Filmakers Library Online
Provides access to more than 1,000 award-winning documentaries.
Academic Video Online
Thousands of streaming videos from a large number of produces and distributors across a wide range of subject areas.
Films on Demand
Streaming media in a variety of disciplines.
Feature Films for Education
From Films on Demand, feature films with educational licenses.
JFLIX
Streaming platform dedicated to award winning films on various topics dealing with Judaism and Israel.
Alexander Street Press Videos (multi-search)
Access the streaming video content from Alexander Street Press.

History and Current Events

Meet the Press
More than 1,500 hours or recordings from television’s longest-running news interview program, from 1947 to 2013. Priceless for the period advertisements alone. Close-captioned. Searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
60 Minutes
Thousands of reports broadcast on this popular television newsmagazine program over a period of 17 years. Close-captioned. Searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
World History in Video
More than a thousand full-length documentaries on World History topics, plus other material such as newsreel films. Close-captioned. Searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
American History in Video
More than a thousand full-length documentaries on American History topics, plus other material such as newsreel films. Close-captioned. Searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Access World News
Primarily an international newspaper and magazine database, Access World News also indexes and links to a fair number of online and broadcast sources of audio and video.
Ethnographic Video Online
Comprehensive resource for visual anthropology in the world, providing access to over 2,000 hours of film, from raw field footage to crafted ethnographies and documentaries. Includes indigenous voices, festivals and films.
Socialism on Film: the Cold War and International Propaganda
A collection of documentaries and feature films produced in the communist world between the Russian Revolution and the 1980s. Searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation. Also includes supporting documentation such as maps and essays.
Visual History Archive
The world’s largest audiovisual archive of testimony from survivors of, and witnesses to, genocide. More than 114,000 hours of recorded testimony. A strong emphasis on indexing to make the material useful for researchers.
National Geographic Virtual Library
Brings together a complete archive of National Geographic magazine, every page of every issue, along with a cross-searchable collection of National Geographic books, maps, images and videos.
Americana
Provides cross-searchable access to millions of pages of essential American history, literature and culture. Uncover captivating manuscript and typescript letters, diaries, notebooks, journals, newspapers, plus incredible art works, illustrations, photographs, video and 360-degree objects.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Music, politics, fashion, youth culture—the period from 1950 to 1975 witnessed dramatic changes in society. From the austerity of the 1950s to the excess of the 1970s, discover the period through a wealth of printed and manuscript sources, visual material, ephemera and video clips.
First World War Portal
A collection of primary source documents drawn from archives across the globe varying in scope and offering a window on the lives and experiences of men and women during the First World War. Showcases a wealth of primary source material for the study of the Great War, complemented by a range of contextual secondary features. (Includes video)
Victorian Popular Culture
Enter darkened halls, small backrooms and traveling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic and spiritualist séances. (Includes video/cinema footage)
Leisure, Travel, & Mass Culture: The History of Tourism
Provides an in-depth look at the evolution of British and American working class tourism from c.1850 to 1980.
African American Communities
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
Border and Migration Studies Online
Provides historical background on more than thirty key worldwide border areas, including: U.S. and Mexico; the European Union; Afghanistan; Israel; Turkey; The Congo; Argentina; China; Thailand; and others. Features 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images.
Human Rights Studies Online
Provides comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event.
Revolution and Protest
Explores the protest movements, revolutions, and civil wars that have transformed societies and human experience from the 18th century through the present.
Security Issues
Delves into conflicts, policies, and relationships that have impacted the global arena throughout modern history and include various themes such as terrorism and counterterrorism, insurgency and counterinsurgency, cybersecurity, ethnic conflicts and resolution, and nuclear threats. Videos and printed materials available.
JFLIX
Streaming platform dedicated to award winning films on various topics dealing with Judaism and Israel.
Archival Films and Newsreels
Streaming video from newsreels and archives
Latinx Thought and Culture: NPR Archive
This collection showcases two radio programs: the weekly Spanish-language Enfoque Nacional (1979–1988) and the daily English-language Latin File (1988–1990), available as digitized audio with transcripts. They focus on Latinx issues related to politics, sociology, human rights, the arts and more with interviews of key figures and news reporting by a new generation of Latino/a journalists at the time.

Psychotherapy and Social Work

Counseling and Therapy in Video
Thousands of hours of video and hundreds of books and documents for the study of counseling, social work, psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatric counseling. Close-captioned. Searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Social Work Online
This resource combines hundreds of monographs and textbooks available to read online with 80 hours of documentary video. Some videos are close-captioned, with searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Psychotherapy.net
Around 300 instructional videos aimed at psychotherapists and students of psychotherapy. Searchable, downloadable, self-scrolling transcripts. Instructors’ manuals. Close-captioned; supports clip creation.
Sage Research Methods Videos
Includes tutorials, interviews, video case studies, and mini-documentaries covering the entire research process.

Science

National Geographic Virtual Library
Brings together a complete archive of National Geographic magazine, every page of every issue, along with a cross-searchable collection of National Geographic books, maps, images and videos.
Nursing & Allied Health Database
Offers reliable, comprehensive coverage of the fields of nursing and allied health including journals, video, dissertations, reference books and more.
Technology Collection (ProQuest)
Full-text collection that includes the Materials Science & Engineering, Advanced Tech & Aerospace, and Military Databases. Source types include scholarly journals, trade journals, books, conference proceedings, blogs, podcasts, websites, dissertations, government publications, magazines, newspapers, video, audio, and more.
BBC Landmark Video Collection
Videos of our natural world from the BBC, including Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Spy in the Wild, and many more.
Environmental Issues Online
The database is curated around specific environmental issues and events from the 20th and 21st centuries. Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of the field, content is drawn from the social sciences, ecology and earth science, and the humanities.
Sage Research Methods Videos
Includes tutorials, interviews, video case studies, and mini-documentaries covering the entire research process.

Media Studies

Paley Center Seminars
The Museum of Television & Radio was renamed the Paley Center for Media in 2007. The Paley Center Seminars feature industry insiders discussing issues such as the processes of television production and the impact of media on contemporary society. Videos are navigable by section, support clip creation, and include downloadable transcripts.

Theatre

Theatre in Video
450+ videos, including theatre performances and a handful of documentaries. Close-captioned. Searchable, self-scrolling transcripts. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Digital Theatre Plus
Videos supplemented by text materials, in the areas of “Plays & Productions,” “Practice & Practitioners,” and “Theory and Criticism.”
Routledge Performance Archive
More than 90 hours of video on Theatre topics and practitioners, enhanced by content from The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance.
BroadwayHD
Founded by Broadway producers Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley, BroadwayHD seeks to promote and preserve live theatre, extending the reach of Broadway and Broadway-caliber shows.
Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Live (Drama Online)
Videos of performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Shakespeare's Globe on Screen (2008-2015) (Drama Online)
Videos of Globe on Screen's performances from 2008-2015.
Shakespeare's Globe on Screen 2 (2016-2018) (Drama Online)
Videos of Globe on Screen's performances from 2016-2018.

Music

Opera in Video
Contains 500 hours of video comprising 288 operatic works. Each video is navigable by act and scene, or use the searchable, self-scrolling transcript to jump to any point in the performance. Mobile-web friendly; supports playlist and clip creation.
Metropolitan Opera On Demand
Met Opera on Demand provides access to more than 550 full performances from the Metropolitan Opera House, including more than 400 audio recordings of performances originally broadcast over radio and more than 150 video recordings from classic telecasts and the Met's Live in HD series. All operas include a synopsis in English, and all videos include English subtitles.
Limited to 10 concurrent users at a time
NAXOS Music Library
Audio collection with over 110,000 albums and 1.6 million tracks. Mostly classical, with modest holdings in Jazz, Folk, and World Music genres. Searchable and browsable. Includes downloadable liner notes to many albums, and an extensive biographical database of composers and artists. Also available as a mobile app for Android and iOS.
Classical Music Library
Audio collection with more than 57,000 albums. Includes downloadable liner notes to many recordings and a database of biographical and historical information. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Jazz Music Library
Audio collection with more than 52,000 albums. Includes downloadable liner notes to many recordings and a database of biographical and historical information. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Popular Music Library
Audio collection with more than 413,000 albums. Supports playlist and clip creation.
American Music
Audio collection with more than 47,000 albums. Includes downloadable liner notes to many recordings. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Contemporary World Music
Audio collection with more than 147,000 albums. Includes downloadable liner notes to many recordings. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries
Audio collection with more than 3,000 albums, including not just music but also spoken work and oral history recordings. Includes downloadable liner notes to many recordings. Supports playlist and clip creation.
Vocal MasterClassics
Index to publicly available videos about master classics. Search the Menu options by Artist, Song, Composer, etc. to get the best of our this resource!
Ethnographic Sound Archive
Historic audio recordings and their supporting field materials for the study of music in its cultural context. The collection brings together 2,000 hours of audio recordings from field expeditions around the world, particularly from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Medici TV
Classical music channel featuring concerts, operas, ballets, and documentaries.
Music Online: Qwest TV Collection
This collection preserves diverse liveperformances, covering the evolution of jazz and beyond, representing funk, soul, hip-hop, folk, indie, electronic, blues, and other eclectic world genres.

Foreign Language Films and Documentaries

Alexander Street Press Videos (multi-search)
Access the streaming video content from Alexander Street Press.
Film Platform
Film Platform offers videos in 54 different languages. Some of the major languages highlighted on Film Platform include Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish. To filter by language there is a drop-down menu on the top right side of the Film Platform home page.
Films on Demand
Films on Demand allows users to stream videos in 48 different languages, including music only videos and videos with no audio. The language filter can be accessed through the advanced search link next to the search bar. Some of the most prominent languages include Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.
JFLIX
Streaming platform dedicated to award winning films on various topics dealing with Judaism and Israel.
Kanopy
Kanopy offers videos in 99 languages including silent films within the World Cinema collection. Each collection will have a different amount of languages offered. Although the language filter appears at the bottom of the web page for every video collection, typing in a keyword in the search box will bring the filters to the top of the web page after you search.
Socialism on Film: the Cold War and International Propaganda
Socialism on Film offers 15 languages. To find the language selection click on the "Advanced Search" button on the top right corner of the web page. The language option will be available under the "Search Directories" section on the right side of the web page.
Swank Digital Campus
Swank offers foreign films in 9 different languages with the ability to turn on captions in English.

University of Denver

University Libraries

Research Guides

Guide to Using Media in Courses