Now Showing at McDermott Library: 600 New Feature Films

Hidden Figures, Ice Age and 12 Years a Slave are among the hundreds of feature films available at the Eugene McDermott Library, thanks to the library’s new on-demand streaming video service that provides UT Dallas students and faculty free access to nearly 600 films.

The new Feature Films for Education Collection, similar to Netflix, offers hundreds of full-length feature films that focus on both current and hard-to-find titles, including dramas, literary adaptations, blockbusters, classics, science fiction, foreign films, social issues and animation studies, many of which are Academy Award-winning titles.

UT Dallas students, faculty and staff may access the service by logging in with their net ID and password if they’re off campus; however for on-campus use, passwords are not needed. Find Feature Films for Education and other popular streaming services on the library’s Electronic Media and Streaming page. Individual titles can also be searched in the Library Catalog, and new titles are added each quarter.

The films are searchable by genre and may be filtered by MPAA rating and age of film.

The McDermott Library added the film-steaming service to its electronic offerings in January 2018, complimenting the library’s other on-demand streaming video service, Kanopy, which includes films from such producers as PBS, BBC, Criterion, Media Education Foundation and A&E.

“The new feature films collection really compliments our other streaming service, Kanopy, which has more documentaries and educational kinds of titles. This new offering features more entertainment type films, so it’s a nice leisure collection to watch for fun, but it also supports the course curriculum, too, by allowing students to see examples of award-winning films,” said Dr. Tiffany Norris, Associate Library Director for Research Services.

“ATEC’s film studies program offers classes on computer animation, motion graphics and audio production, so sometimes the professors will pull in movies as examples, so this collection is a very nice resource for them,” Norris said.

Librarians agree that streaming technology is revitalizing video as an educational tool in academia, Norris said. Streaming video resources greatly simplify access to content. According to library records, the number of visits to Kanopy movies has risen dramatically since the library added the service in 2015. In 2015, the library recorded 1,340 visits to the service, but in 2017, that number rose to 8,547 visits.

“Consumer streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have increased the amount of media consumption in general and that has translated to the academic setting,” Norris said. “Faculty are used to using media and are more aware of the educational uses of video. Knowing that their students are able to access content any time of the day anywhere they are makes media much more appealing as a teaching resource.”

The library’s streaming video resources work across a number of devices including desktop computers, tablets, phones and other devices like ROKU and Apple TV.