Hi Scott,
We do still maintain our 'worldwide' VHS players, although like you,
they're receiving less and less use as international DVDs become more
widely utilized for not-available-commercially-in-the-U.S. titles.
We maintain three -- one in our viewing carrels that students can use,
one in our Media Research Room (basically a faculty media study), and
one in our Viewing Room (multimedia projection room which can be
scheduled for class screenings). I'm glad we have several after reading
that they are becoming harder to come by! We have a robust study abroad
program, so we regularly get folks who bring materials back from a
country with different standards / region codings and are surprised when
they won't work on their players. Also, we have a popular ELI program
and students occasionally want to view something they've brought from
home. (Although again, we're seeing more DVDs than tapes now, which
isn't a surprise.)
As fewer patrons have access to VCRs, I think it's becoming more
important that we provide access -- especially to cover formats and
regions, etc., that we have in our collections. But as we're seeing
with laserdiscs, there's a limited amount of time where that's a
realistic goal as far as technology is concerned.
--
Meghann Matwichuk, M.S.
Associate Librarian
Film and Video Collection
Morris Library, University of Delaware
181 S. College Ave.
Newark, DE 19717
(302) 831-1475
http://www.lib.udel.edu/filmandvideo
On 5/26/2015 1:58 PM, scott spicer wrote:
Collective Wisdom,
The international VCR in our media center is on the fritz, and we are
having a heck of a time finding a replacement. We have a fairly
limited collection of international VHS tapes in our primary media
collection (42), and according to our usage stats only 2 of the titles
have been checked our a whopping 3 times over the past 2 years. I
realize this is imprecise as what limited use there is of these titles
may be viewed in the space itself. Further, I have the sense that
some of the again limited demand may come from our users own
international collections as well. So how many of you are currently
providing international VHS playback capability in your spaces, and do
you see this as a critical service for an academic media center in 2015?
Until I have the sense that more of our community deems VHS to be
officially obsolete, I am kinda on the side that this is something we
should offer, but this particular issue is not one that keeps me up at
night, to be honest.
Best,
Scott
--
Scott Spicer
Media Outreach and Learning Spaces Librarian
University of Minnesota Libraries - Twin Cities
341 Walter Library
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> 612.626.0629
Media Services: lib.umn.edu/media <http://lib.umn.edu/media>
SMART Learning Commons: lib.umn.edu/smart <http://lib.umn.edu/smart>
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues
relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control,
preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and
related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective
working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication
between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and
distributors.
