Friday, March 20, 2015

Multimedia Seeds: A free AV collections class



Perkins, Rebecca

Lamb, A., & Johnson, L. (2006, January 1). Welcome to S621: Audio and Video Sources. Retrieved March 20, 2015, from http://eduscapes.com/seeds/index.html

Summary: This website offers a free course on audio and video collections for schools and libraries and was “designed primarily as a SLIS graduate course offered at Indiana University-Indianapolis.” This course includes a basic overview of audio and video collections as well as a separate module for management of such collections including collection development, issues, management and promotions. Within this module there are many tips to managing  audio and video collections including selection criteria, issues of censorship, copyright, and licensing for public showings, as wells as descriptions and links for ratings systems.

Evaluation: Though the material the course is based on is dated (late 1990’s and early 2000’s) and some of the links are dead, overall this is a good introduction to audio and video collections. It was interesting to read that some libraries use rating systems to determine if a child could check out a video or not, as that is clearly censorship, but hopefully this mention is only due to the date of this course and this practice is not still in effect anywhere. Most of the links to “family friendly” groups that focus on providing descriptions of films to assist parents in making informed decisions are viable and would be a good resource to share with “concerned” parents …especially for librarians working in places with policies against providing opinions about the appropriateness of movies even when parents insist on trying to get a librarians’ opinion. The most useful parts are the elements and links to collection development policies dealing with audio and video collections.

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