Filmakers Library Online: Volume I

Filmakers Library Online: Volume I

"2011 Editors' Choice Award" Winner! ‒Booklist

"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." ‒Reference Reviews

"There is great stuff here. . . Highly recommended for any library that has demand for documentary films." ‒Booklist

"Useful for libraries with a need for the content areas covered by Filmakers Library and an interest in online access. . . Recommended" ‒CHOICE

"Students will find the site easy to navigate and packed with intriguing documentaries. . . Recommended.” ‒Library Media Connection

For more than 40 years, Filmakers Library has worked to find and bring you high-quality, issue-based documentaries and independent films from around the world. Now more than 1,000 of these titles are available online in a single, easy-to search, multidisciplinary collection of streaming video designed specifically to meet the needs of researchers and teaching faculty.

Cross-disciplinary relevance, diverse and complex perspectives

The collection includes documentaries that are already heavily used in humanities and social science classrooms—films such as Who Killed Vincent Chin?; Aging Out: Teens Leaving Foster Care; Critical Condition; Dax's Case: Who Should Decide?; Sound and Fury: The Communication Wars of the Deaf; and Waging a Living. A trove of content that would have taken immeasurable time to find and view in its entirety now is accessible and powerfully searchable through Alexander Street’s deep semantic indexing.

Topical coverage is contemporary and relevant across the curriculum—race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more. The titles in Filmakers Library Online: Volume I present points of view and historical and current experiences from diverse cultures and traditions worldwide.

Superb value . . . and continuously growing

If you were to purchase each film individually, the collection would cost more than $250,000 to build. An annual subscription to this collection gives your patrons access to more than 1,000 documentaries and independent films for roughly $3 to $5 per video, depending on the size of your institution. And Filmakers Library Online: Volume I will grow by more than 100 titles per year.

Top film makers and titles

For over 40 years, Filmakers Library has garnered acclaim and awards for films such as Fire Eyes; First Contact; Guardians of the Flutes; My American Girls; Original Intent; A Panther in Africa; Paradise Bent; Prison Lullabies; Race to Execution; The Split Horn; T-Shirt Travels; Today's Man; Walking the Line; All Power to the People; The Danish Solution; Guestworker; and Lynchburg Story.

Internationally known producers represented here include the National Film Board of Canada, KCTS/Seattle, and many others. Among the hundreds of notable independent film makers worldwide whose works make up Filmakers Library Online are Christine Choy, Roger Weisberg, Josh Aronson, David Bradbury, Judith Gleason, Jeremy Levine & Landon Van Soest, Aaron Matthews, Jeffrey O'Connor, Tana Ross, and Taggart Siegel.

Functionality for scholarship and classroom use

All Alexander Street online video collections are designed to meet the needs of researchers and teaching faculty.

  • Synchronized, searchable transcripts run alongside each video.
  • Visual tables of contents let you quickly scan each video.
  • Rich playlist functionality lets users create, annotate, and organize clips and include links to other content.
  • Permanent URLs let users cite and share whole videos, playlists, and custom clips.
  • An embeddable video player lets libraries and instructors deliver video content to other users on secure Web site pages or via course management systems.
  • Permissions for in-class, on-campus, and remote-access viewing are all included in the terms of the subscription.

Publication Details

Filmakers Library Online: Volume I is available to academic, public, and school libraries via annual subscription or one-time purchase. No special setup or software is required—all you need is an Internet browser. To request a free trial or price quote, please email sales [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com.