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Western Libraries

Streaming Online Video: Overview

This is a guide to educate patrons on resources Western Libraries provides for streaming video in our collections and certain third party resources as well.

Streaming Video: The Basics

Streaming video can be an excellent teaching resource since it allows for flexibility. Rather than taking up class time to show a film professors can “flip” the class and place streaming videos on reserve. Hybrid and online courses can better take advantage of streaming video as well.

Subscription streaming video resources at WWU include:

  • Academic Video Online (documentary, clinical, and newsreel)
  • Docuseek2 (social and environmental documentaries)
  • Swank films (feature films for individual courses)
  • Many other titles added to the collection on a one-by-one basis that can be found in OneSearch

If you have questions about streaming video don’t hesitate to contact a librarian about the options that might be available to you! 

Place a purchase request for a film

Even if a film is not available through one of our subscription sources we might still be able to get streaming access to it. Currently, if you place a purchase request for a video we will check for streaming access and default to purchasing that, unless you ask us to do otherwise. We do have some limitations, such as distributors that don’t provide streaming access.