Film at Schaffer Library

To comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, Schaffer Library has eliminated its practice of digitizing DVDs. Faculty were notified of this change in January 2024. Beginning Fall 2024, Schaffer Library will no longer digitize a film from DVD or provide access to previously digitized films on Panopto. If you have questions or concerns about these changes, please contact Frances Maloy, College Librarian.

As per §110 (1) of the U.S. Copyright Act, faculty are permitted to show films in the classroom for educational purposes. For face-to-face instruction, film clips and/or entire films can be shown.

Schaffer Library subscribes to many streaming media services that make it easy to integrate film into your pedagogy. We also have an extensive collection of DVDs that can be viewed in your classroom and/or placed on Course Reserve. Showing licensed video and legally acquired DVDs are compliant with the U.S. Copyright Act.

Please note that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 prohibits the conversion of DVDs to digital format. For more information about DMCA, view the American Library Association (ALA) “Digital Millennium Copyright Act” page or the Schaffer Library Copyright for Faculty guide.

Under Section 201.40 of the DMCA, faculty are permitted to create and use short digital clips from a DVD. For technical assistance on how to create short clips, faculty should contact Amy Hathaway, Head of Access Services.

See the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) “Performance of or Showing Films in the Classroom” for further advice and examples.

The best place to start your search is Primo, the library catalog. Primo searches our streaming databases and DVD collection at the same time, providing a comprehensive search. Enter your search terms below to get started.

Tips:

• When searching for a title, enter as much of the title as you know.
• Films from a particular region may be difficult to find. We recommend you use Primo to perform an advanced search for country and "film" or "motion picture"
• To search by a director, enter some or all of the director's name. It does not matter if the first or last name is the first search term.

Below are some of our popular streaming databases, which you can search directly. For a complete list of our streaming audio and video databases, please visit our A-Z Database List.