- Email: [email protected]
Managing streaming video: A new role for technical services
Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 30 (2006) 214 – 223
Managing streaming video: A new role for technical services Sidney Eng, Flor A. Hernandez ⁎ A. Philip Randolph Memorial Library, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St., New York, NY 10007, USA Available online 12 December 2006
Abstract BMCC Library is using streaming video technology to extend the electronic reserves service to include audio and videos. We have found that a streaming video project can be managed by nontechnical staff with results that empower staff and impress students and faculty with their ease of use. The role of technical services in the library has evolved considerably, a process driven in part by technology. Consistent with this trend, our technical services department was asked to manage an electronic reserves program a few years back. Adding streaming video to its portfolio will invigorate a vital service department in the library. This article will illustrate the process we undertook from start to finish, demonstrating the major concern of streaming media is copyright consideration, not technology. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Streaming video; Video; Video servers; Electronic reserve; TEACH Act; Copyright; Fair use
Borough of Manhattan Community College is one of the nineteen campuses of the City University of New York. Always striving to become the premier urban community college in the nation, BMCC is located in the coveted downtown Tribeca area. With a large and growing enrollment, space is a constant challenge we must overcome. For the library, our strategic solution to alleviate the space crunch is to rely on information services over the Internet. The library itself has twelve professional librarians, and most of its cataloging functions are ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Eng), [email protected] (F.A. Hernandez). 1464-9055/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.lcats.2006.10.001
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outsourced through the acquisition of pre-cataloged copies and a system-wide central cataloging unit. With traditional cataloging and processing duties dwindling for technical services staff, library management has sought innovative ways to reinvigorate the technical services role. By involving technical services in electronic reserves and streaming video, we are preserving their traditional role of providing access to library materials through acquisitions and preparation—only the formats have changed. We demonstrated that a streaming video project like ours can be managed by non-systems staff with results that empower staff and impress students and faculty with their ease of use. The role of technical services in the library has evolved considerably, a process driven in large part by technology. In one sense, the advances of technology have reduced the traditional duties of technical services staff: The availability of bibliographic data online has precipitated the outsourcing of cataloging and centralization of the cataloging process [1,8]. Yet one study pinpoints a growing demand for access to materials in all formats and concludes that there has been no decrease in the amount of items to be cataloged, and rather an increase due to the introduction of new formats [7]. Extensive surveys identify a trend of gradual diversification of functions and caution that unless the technical services departments evolve and adapt, there is a certain danger of a missed opportunity [2,11,14]. It is evident that technology has created new demands as libraries shift from organizing information in book and journal form to managing the delivery of resources online: “A new and important role for technical services departments is that of providing access to the vast array of online resources, either through cataloging … or by becoming involved in digitization projects…” [9]. In keeping with current trends, the BMCC Library technical services department has a successful electronic reserves program in place, scanning required readings and making them available online, a service both students and faculty are pleased with [17]. By extending this concept to audio and video, we continue to create new roles for technical services staff and rejuvenate a vital department in the library. An extensive study of the introduction of new technologies to library departments, and measurement of its effects on staff would be a compelling topic, but is not the focus of this article. We seek instead to share the rationale behind the streaming video project at BMCC Library, the involvement of technical services staff, and illustrate the process we undertook from start to finish.
1. How did the streaming video project begin? Our project began, as most library projects do, with an assessment of current services, and the goal of extending those services to the greatest number of students and faculty possible. This involved a rather small library media collection serving a community college experiencing record enrollment. In our media collection materials circulate only to faculty members, and if a student misses a class, they may only view the material in the library. We asked ourselves: Is there a way to provide resources to any faculty who request them? Our media collection is small (about 1,200 items) with the highest percentage of materials in VHS format, which physically degrade over time. According to Copyright Law, we were within our rights to create archival copies of VHS recordings—but what was the best way to do this? We also asked ourselves how
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we could provide access to these materials and preserve our collection. In addition, our media center hours are limited to weekdays, so many students with evening and weekend classes cannot access our collection at all. In order to obtain the needed materials, the faculty or the student would have to reserve these items to be picked up at the Circulation Desk. How could we extend service to those students who cannot visit the media center during scheduled hours? There were other issues in the college that motivated us to seek an innovative solution to support classroom instruction. On our campus, projection equipment and the media collection consist of two separate departments: The Media/Studio Center provides equipment and the library provides media materials. Instructors must visit two offices to reserve and retrieve items, which could discourage media usage. Thanks to a new technology fee charged to every student, the college is well equipped with technology-enhanced classrooms and high-end projection apparatus. This availability of resources provided the necessary incentive to stream media content to technology-enhanced classrooms.
2. Why technical services? Our technical services department had weathered the tide of cataloging centralization— retaining most of its existing head count, but with considerably less of its original duties. While our staff still did all book ordering, receiving, and processing, the only in-house cataloging involved our textbook and paperback book program. Adding the electronic reserves service brought new responsibilities to staff and allowed them a higher level of interaction with college faculty and staff. When adding the new format of video to our electronic reserves, it was logical to include technical services again. Our technical services staff are attentive to detail and well versed in providing service to the academic community, prerequisites to any project's success. An analysis of literature on the changing roles of technical services areas leaves one hopeful that new technologies may enhance job viability—one study reports “increased levels of value in the job/viability in the job market for all levels of staff” and theorizes that expanding responsibility has given technical services workers increased value [14]. Other survey comments indicate that outsourcing of cataloging duties give technical services staff time to develop new tasks, among them, the management of electronic products [3]. By adding electronic reserves and streaming video to our technical services area we hoped to enlarge upon these observations—giving staff an increased sense of value and capitalizing upon the existing trend of outsourcing by adding management of new products.
3. Why digitize a media collection? We originally turned to streaming video to create digital archival copies of high use videos in our collection. If a professor needed to show a copyright-compliant video that was checked out, we could stream the video to their classroom instead. Eventually, we broadened our approach from scheduled classroom streams to on-demand student viewing, providing such use observed copyright guidelines, or the fair use principle. By making library videos available online, we
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could save faculty and students a trip to the library and valuable class time—students could view required videos at their convenience, from home, in the workplace, or on-campus. This project enabled the library to reach students whose work and class schedules prevented them from visiting us during scheduled hours—thereby extending library services without extending staff hours. All digitizing would be done by technical services staff who already digitized required readings. The project itself would be incorporated into our online electronic reserves system, ERes.
4. Why streaming video? The appeals and advantages of streaming video are many—users can control the stream as they would on a VCR or DVD player: They can pause, stop, fast forward, and rewind, giving students the ability to learn and watch at their own pace. Additionally, streaming video eliminates the need to wait for the entire clip to download, since one watches the clip while it is being downloaded. And finally, the technology of streaming can be seen to aid in copyright protection—since streamed videos are not saved to remote computers. It takes a small stretch of the imagination to envision that all the educational advantages of conventional video may also apply to streaming video. Early writings on the educational capabilities of video asserted its ability to “tilt the balance away from teacher-centered instruction towards learner-centered study” [10]. Another argued that “people generally remember 10 per cent of what they read, 20 per cent of what they hear, 30 per cent of what they see, and 50 per cent of what they hear and see” [16]. On demand streaming is a viable cost-effective technology to deliver course content [13,16]. An extensive video streaming project at the Universities of Manchester and Lancaster used this idea as a central tenet and further stated that “We are confident that streaming video is indeed within the reach of the average tertiary education teacher, that it can produce good educational outcomes and that it has the potential to underpin some of the wider changes educators often hope for" [15].
Other streaming video projects have emphasized the creation of original instructional programming, as in a project undertaken at Worcester Polytechnic Institute [4] and still others have focused on utilizing the growing number of online streaming video services like United Streaming [12]. The University of Wisconsin at Madison (http://www.doit.wisc.edu/ streaming/), the University of New Mexico (http://mts.unm.edu/), and Indiana University (http://www.indiana.edu/~video/) are examples of libraries and universities that emphasize streaming media as part of their media services. In all cases, it is clear that educational institutions are becoming more and more comfortable with the technology of streaming video. Users are also familiar with streaming video on news and entertainment sites, thus rendering even college undergraduates informed users who know what to expect from the technology. 5. Isn't it difficult to maintain a video server? We knew the advantages of video streaming but were not expert in our understanding of the technology. Our goal was precisely to keep this project in the grasp of a technical services staff
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member, not an expert in systems technology—our selection of interface and equipment was therefore vital to the success of the program. The ideal solution for us was a server with a built-in interface that combined storage, encoding, and re-compression features. After research and correspondence with existing users, we chose the SuperView video server from Axonix (http:// www.axonix.com/). The Web-based application accompanying the server is easy to use and not intimidating. The interface made digitizing videos as simple as connecting a VCR and clicking “Record.” The SuperView digitizes videos in the Windows Media Player format, allows for restricted access to recordings, and the recompression of existing recordings to create different file sizes. This server appliance is menu driven and is set up to be managed remotely. There are certainly additional concerns when setting up any streaming video project, and a project like ours requires communication with the campus IT department. Yet in terms of setting up the server and equipment, we were able to do so with few hurdles.
6. Complying with the TEACH Act Until 2002, the U.S. Copyright Laws imposed restrictions on public performance/public showing of copyrighted works, with the exemption of use by faculty and students in a face-toface situation. This exemption was based on specific fair use requirements. Internet transmission of such display was explicitly prohibited. Under these circumstances, some of our streaming practices would have been questionable. The TEACH Act, or the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002, extended the rights of educational institutions to use copyright protected materials in distance education. TEACH says it is not copyright infringement for teachers and students at an educational institution to transmit displays of copyrighted works if certain conditions are met. First of all, educational institutions must possess an institutional copyright policy. In our case, as members of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, we abide by CUNY Libraries Guidelines (http://libraries.cuny.edu/copyright.pdf), which explain the principles of Fair Use. We must also provide copyright information to “accurately describe, and promote compliance with, the laws of United States relating to copyright” (TEACH Act 2002). A notice to students is required that alerts them to copyright restrictions and that access to copyrighted materials is limited to enrolled students. A burden of responsibility is also placed on instructors—they must supervise the use of copyrighted materials and their use must relate directly to class content [5]. The extent of what is considered permissible is difficult to summarize briefly and is not always determined by the amount of copyrighted material used. North Carolina State University's Scholarly Communication Center (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/) has provided an excellent checklist and tutorials for compliance with the TEACH Act. For the purpose of remote access, the rule of thumb may be that you can do remotely what you would normally do in a faceto-face classroom setting. Employing this logic, if it is a film class and the students are required to view certain films, it will be OK to stream the film as long as it is a required classroom activity and not supplementary viewing. What is more important, if you do your due diligence, the staff (that is you and I) of the accredited non-profit institution will be held harmless in the face of inadvertent copyright violation. BMCC Library follows this exact procedure.
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7. Where do you put the links? There are several approaches to providing access to digital media via Web links. The SuperView turn-key system comes with its own user interface and password protection. If given its own internet address, it will become visible to the world immediately. The library may also design its own Web page to link to the video server and user login system. Doing so will give a look and feel consistent with other library pages. However, this would involve the management of redundant passwords and does not put use management of instructional media in the hands of the teacher, which is a requirement of the TEACH Act. Therefore, our existing electronic reserves site, ERes, was the most logical place for us to put video server links. The site helps us observe TEACH Act guidelines in the following ways: All links are located on course pages administrated by professors. Access is limited to students registered in that class through password protection. Passwords are changed each semester, and links are removed at the end of each semester. Students must also agree to a copyright statement before they can access materials—thus satisfying our obligation of providing a copyright notice (Figs. 1 and 2).
8. Isn't bandwidth an issue? Bandwidth is defined as the amount of data that can be transferred over a specific time interval through an existing network, and it is an essential consideration before beginning a streaming video project. Determining the limits of your network will likely require consultation with the campus IT department. A good rule of thumb for keeping streaming video manageable on any network is to keep video file sizes as small as possible. As files are “compressed” or made smaller there can be a significant loss in video and audio quality; it is therefore important to determine the goals of your project. Is it more important to support a shrinking population of dial-up users, or is the trade-off in quality too great? Determining video file sizes is a subtle balancing act of quality vs. accessibility. It is possible to create different file sizes, for on and off-campus access and certain video servers can even “detect” available bandwidth and serve up the appropriate file size. For our purposes, we have found that a file size of 400 kbps renders readable text and subtitles on-screen, and the audio, while not of superior stereo quality, is at least a good approximation of the original. However, even this size is inaccessible to students with dial-up connections, but compressing more would result in a considerable loss of image quality.
9. What about all the different media players? Choosing between the competing technologies in media formats can be confusing—and each format has its strengths and weaknesses. However, in terms of widespread support, there are currently three dominant players on the market: Windows Media, Real Player, and Quicktime. If a user does not have a player installed on his or her computer, it is relatively easy
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Fig. 1. The Axonix interface.
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Fig. 2. The BMCC Library ERes interface.
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to download a free player from the internet. Our video server codes only to Windows Media format, so the decision was in a sense made for us. This format has the additional benefit of being supported by our Windows-based computing centers thereby eliminating the need to download the player. The Windows Media format also works with Mac, as long as Internet Explorer is installed. It is worth noting that our video server is capable of importing content in different formats and converting it to Windows Media. The server appliance can also stream live broadcasting, remote management, and provides different display resolutions on demand.
10. Discussions The literature review indicates that there have been many change factors and outcomes regarding technical services in general and cataloging personnel in particular. None of the reported new roles, however, went as far as what we have done in establishing a streaming media service to re-align technical services staff with their traditional role of providing access to information. A full survey of the addition of new technologies in library departments, and measurements of their effects on staff, before and after would surely be useful. Surveys of technical services staff generally leave one “with an impression that the importance of the library and of technical services and their functions has significantly diminished” [6]. The effect on the morale of the technical services staff when they felt their efforts have gone unrecognized has been identified in various studies we cited. Our current streaming project has put BMCC's technical services front and center in the eyes of the faculty and students. Their role in providing access will, to use the words of a veteran technical services librarian, make technical service another reader service. This is an integration we wish to embrace. Our streaming video project went online for students and faculty in the spring semester of 2004. Although class participation is still limited, we have received considerable positive feedback from faculty members involved. We are instituting a formal student feedback survey to help us further tailor our services and techniques. Our experience has shown that embarking on a streaming video project may be as simple as extending an existing electronic reserves system to include another medium. For us, it now makes little difference if the reserve material is a feature film, a Word document, a PDF file, or Powerpoint presentation, since an efficient work procedure with effective communication has already been established. In conclusion, the streaming video project at the BMCC library accomplished many goals: We extended media department services to include distance learning students and restored class time to professors who no longer needed to screen films in class. Additionally, we relieved some of the demand for materials in the Media department and lessened physical stress on fragile items. Most importantly, we created a valuable service that uses current technology to enlarge upon the traditional role of technical services in the library. References [1] Allen, N. H., & Williams, J. F. (1995). The future of technical services: An administrative perspective. In I. Godden (Ed.), Advances in librarianship (pp. 159–189). San Diego: Academic Press.
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[2] Andrews, V. L., & Kelly, C. M. (1988). Changing staffing patterns in technical services since the 1970's: A study in change. Journal of Library Administration, 9(1), 55–68. [3] Buttlar, L., & Garcha, R. (1998). Catalogers in academic libraries: Their evolving and expanding roles. College and Research Libraries, 59(4), 311–321. [4] Cox, C., & Pratt, S. (2002). The case of the missing students, and how we reached them with streaming media. Computers in Libraries, 22(3), 40–46. [5] Crews, K. D. (2002). New copyright law for distance education: The meaning and importance of the TEACH Act. Retrieved November 9, 2006, from http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/copyrightb/ federallegislation/distanceed/teachsummary.pdf [6] El-Sherbini, M. (2004). Technical services between reality and illusion: Reorganization in technical services at the Ohio state university libraries. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 379–398). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [7] Howley, P. C. (2004). Change and adaptation in the technical services of a group of mid-sized academic libraries: A 14-year overview. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 53–75). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [8] Libby, K. A., & Caudle, D. M. (1997). A survey on the outsourcing of cataloging in academic libraries. College and Research Libraries, 58(5), 550–560. [9] Lopatin, L. (2004). Review of the literature: Technical services redesign and reorganization. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 3–25). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [10] Moss, R. (1983). Video, the educational challenge. London: Croom Helm. [11] Rider, M. M. (1996). Developing new roles for paraprofessionals in cataloging. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 22(1), 26–32. [12] Ross, J. (2005). Streaming video: Why to do it, how to do it, and where to get it. MultiMedia and Internet @ Schools, 12(5), 9–11. [13] Shephard, K. (2003). Questioning, promoting and evaluating the use of streaming video to support student learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34(3), 295–308. [14] Smith, V. T., & Etcheverria, K. (2004). Staffing trends in academic library technical services. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 41–51). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [15] Thornhill, S., Asensio, M., & Young, C. (2002). Video streaming: A guide for educational development. Manchester: JISC Click and Go Video Project. [16] Xiao, D. Y., Pietraszewski, B. A., & Goodwin, S. P. (2004). Full stream ahead: Database instruction through online videos. Library Hi Tech, 22(4), 366–374. [17] Zhao, T., & Eng, S. (2004). Library technical services face new changes of technology: A student survey of electronic course reserve. Journal of Access Services, 2(1), 33–39.
Further reading [1] Boissonnas, C. (2001). Technical services: The other reader service. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 1(1), 33–46.
Sidney Eng is Chief Librarian of the BMCC Library and is member of ALA and Nassau County Library Association. He has worked in public, school, special and academic libraries and received his MLS from St. John's University, MA from NYU, and BA from Bishop's University, Quebec. Flor Hernandez is Assistant Manager of the Technical Services department, where she oversees the library’s Electronic Reserves program and serves as web manager for the library site. She is currently serving as co-chair of the LACUNY Web Roundtable and has worked in academic libraries since obtaining her BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000.
Managing streaming video: A new role for technical services Sidney Eng, Flor A. Hernandez ⁎ A. Philip Randolph Memorial Library, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St., New York, NY 10007, USA Available online 12 December 2006
Abstract BMCC Library is using streaming video technology to extend the electronic reserves service to include audio and videos. We have found that a streaming video project can be managed by nontechnical staff with results that empower staff and impress students and faculty with their ease of use. The role of technical services in the library has evolved considerably, a process driven in part by technology. Consistent with this trend, our technical services department was asked to manage an electronic reserves program a few years back. Adding streaming video to its portfolio will invigorate a vital service department in the library. This article will illustrate the process we undertook from start to finish, demonstrating the major concern of streaming media is copyright consideration, not technology. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Streaming video; Video; Video servers; Electronic reserve; TEACH Act; Copyright; Fair use
Borough of Manhattan Community College is one of the nineteen campuses of the City University of New York. Always striving to become the premier urban community college in the nation, BMCC is located in the coveted downtown Tribeca area. With a large and growing enrollment, space is a constant challenge we must overcome. For the library, our strategic solution to alleviate the space crunch is to rely on information services over the Internet. The library itself has twelve professional librarians, and most of its cataloging functions are ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Eng), [email protected] (F.A. Hernandez). 1464-9055/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.lcats.2006.10.001
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outsourced through the acquisition of pre-cataloged copies and a system-wide central cataloging unit. With traditional cataloging and processing duties dwindling for technical services staff, library management has sought innovative ways to reinvigorate the technical services role. By involving technical services in electronic reserves and streaming video, we are preserving their traditional role of providing access to library materials through acquisitions and preparation—only the formats have changed. We demonstrated that a streaming video project like ours can be managed by non-systems staff with results that empower staff and impress students and faculty with their ease of use. The role of technical services in the library has evolved considerably, a process driven in large part by technology. In one sense, the advances of technology have reduced the traditional duties of technical services staff: The availability of bibliographic data online has precipitated the outsourcing of cataloging and centralization of the cataloging process [1,8]. Yet one study pinpoints a growing demand for access to materials in all formats and concludes that there has been no decrease in the amount of items to be cataloged, and rather an increase due to the introduction of new formats [7]. Extensive surveys identify a trend of gradual diversification of functions and caution that unless the technical services departments evolve and adapt, there is a certain danger of a missed opportunity [2,11,14]. It is evident that technology has created new demands as libraries shift from organizing information in book and journal form to managing the delivery of resources online: “A new and important role for technical services departments is that of providing access to the vast array of online resources, either through cataloging … or by becoming involved in digitization projects…” [9]. In keeping with current trends, the BMCC Library technical services department has a successful electronic reserves program in place, scanning required readings and making them available online, a service both students and faculty are pleased with [17]. By extending this concept to audio and video, we continue to create new roles for technical services staff and rejuvenate a vital department in the library. An extensive study of the introduction of new technologies to library departments, and measurement of its effects on staff would be a compelling topic, but is not the focus of this article. We seek instead to share the rationale behind the streaming video project at BMCC Library, the involvement of technical services staff, and illustrate the process we undertook from start to finish.
1. How did the streaming video project begin? Our project began, as most library projects do, with an assessment of current services, and the goal of extending those services to the greatest number of students and faculty possible. This involved a rather small library media collection serving a community college experiencing record enrollment. In our media collection materials circulate only to faculty members, and if a student misses a class, they may only view the material in the library. We asked ourselves: Is there a way to provide resources to any faculty who request them? Our media collection is small (about 1,200 items) with the highest percentage of materials in VHS format, which physically degrade over time. According to Copyright Law, we were within our rights to create archival copies of VHS recordings—but what was the best way to do this? We also asked ourselves how
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we could provide access to these materials and preserve our collection. In addition, our media center hours are limited to weekdays, so many students with evening and weekend classes cannot access our collection at all. In order to obtain the needed materials, the faculty or the student would have to reserve these items to be picked up at the Circulation Desk. How could we extend service to those students who cannot visit the media center during scheduled hours? There were other issues in the college that motivated us to seek an innovative solution to support classroom instruction. On our campus, projection equipment and the media collection consist of two separate departments: The Media/Studio Center provides equipment and the library provides media materials. Instructors must visit two offices to reserve and retrieve items, which could discourage media usage. Thanks to a new technology fee charged to every student, the college is well equipped with technology-enhanced classrooms and high-end projection apparatus. This availability of resources provided the necessary incentive to stream media content to technology-enhanced classrooms.
2. Why technical services? Our technical services department had weathered the tide of cataloging centralization— retaining most of its existing head count, but with considerably less of its original duties. While our staff still did all book ordering, receiving, and processing, the only in-house cataloging involved our textbook and paperback book program. Adding the electronic reserves service brought new responsibilities to staff and allowed them a higher level of interaction with college faculty and staff. When adding the new format of video to our electronic reserves, it was logical to include technical services again. Our technical services staff are attentive to detail and well versed in providing service to the academic community, prerequisites to any project's success. An analysis of literature on the changing roles of technical services areas leaves one hopeful that new technologies may enhance job viability—one study reports “increased levels of value in the job/viability in the job market for all levels of staff” and theorizes that expanding responsibility has given technical services workers increased value [14]. Other survey comments indicate that outsourcing of cataloging duties give technical services staff time to develop new tasks, among them, the management of electronic products [3]. By adding electronic reserves and streaming video to our technical services area we hoped to enlarge upon these observations—giving staff an increased sense of value and capitalizing upon the existing trend of outsourcing by adding management of new products.
3. Why digitize a media collection? We originally turned to streaming video to create digital archival copies of high use videos in our collection. If a professor needed to show a copyright-compliant video that was checked out, we could stream the video to their classroom instead. Eventually, we broadened our approach from scheduled classroom streams to on-demand student viewing, providing such use observed copyright guidelines, or the fair use principle. By making library videos available online, we
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could save faculty and students a trip to the library and valuable class time—students could view required videos at their convenience, from home, in the workplace, or on-campus. This project enabled the library to reach students whose work and class schedules prevented them from visiting us during scheduled hours—thereby extending library services without extending staff hours. All digitizing would be done by technical services staff who already digitized required readings. The project itself would be incorporated into our online electronic reserves system, ERes.
4. Why streaming video? The appeals and advantages of streaming video are many—users can control the stream as they would on a VCR or DVD player: They can pause, stop, fast forward, and rewind, giving students the ability to learn and watch at their own pace. Additionally, streaming video eliminates the need to wait for the entire clip to download, since one watches the clip while it is being downloaded. And finally, the technology of streaming can be seen to aid in copyright protection—since streamed videos are not saved to remote computers. It takes a small stretch of the imagination to envision that all the educational advantages of conventional video may also apply to streaming video. Early writings on the educational capabilities of video asserted its ability to “tilt the balance away from teacher-centered instruction towards learner-centered study” [10]. Another argued that “people generally remember 10 per cent of what they read, 20 per cent of what they hear, 30 per cent of what they see, and 50 per cent of what they hear and see” [16]. On demand streaming is a viable cost-effective technology to deliver course content [13,16]. An extensive video streaming project at the Universities of Manchester and Lancaster used this idea as a central tenet and further stated that “We are confident that streaming video is indeed within the reach of the average tertiary education teacher, that it can produce good educational outcomes and that it has the potential to underpin some of the wider changes educators often hope for" [15].
Other streaming video projects have emphasized the creation of original instructional programming, as in a project undertaken at Worcester Polytechnic Institute [4] and still others have focused on utilizing the growing number of online streaming video services like United Streaming [12]. The University of Wisconsin at Madison (http://www.doit.wisc.edu/ streaming/), the University of New Mexico (http://mts.unm.edu/), and Indiana University (http://www.indiana.edu/~video/) are examples of libraries and universities that emphasize streaming media as part of their media services. In all cases, it is clear that educational institutions are becoming more and more comfortable with the technology of streaming video. Users are also familiar with streaming video on news and entertainment sites, thus rendering even college undergraduates informed users who know what to expect from the technology. 5. Isn't it difficult to maintain a video server? We knew the advantages of video streaming but were not expert in our understanding of the technology. Our goal was precisely to keep this project in the grasp of a technical services staff
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member, not an expert in systems technology—our selection of interface and equipment was therefore vital to the success of the program. The ideal solution for us was a server with a built-in interface that combined storage, encoding, and re-compression features. After research and correspondence with existing users, we chose the SuperView video server from Axonix (http:// www.axonix.com/). The Web-based application accompanying the server is easy to use and not intimidating. The interface made digitizing videos as simple as connecting a VCR and clicking “Record.” The SuperView digitizes videos in the Windows Media Player format, allows for restricted access to recordings, and the recompression of existing recordings to create different file sizes. This server appliance is menu driven and is set up to be managed remotely. There are certainly additional concerns when setting up any streaming video project, and a project like ours requires communication with the campus IT department. Yet in terms of setting up the server and equipment, we were able to do so with few hurdles.
6. Complying with the TEACH Act Until 2002, the U.S. Copyright Laws imposed restrictions on public performance/public showing of copyrighted works, with the exemption of use by faculty and students in a face-toface situation. This exemption was based on specific fair use requirements. Internet transmission of such display was explicitly prohibited. Under these circumstances, some of our streaming practices would have been questionable. The TEACH Act, or the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002, extended the rights of educational institutions to use copyright protected materials in distance education. TEACH says it is not copyright infringement for teachers and students at an educational institution to transmit displays of copyrighted works if certain conditions are met. First of all, educational institutions must possess an institutional copyright policy. In our case, as members of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, we abide by CUNY Libraries Guidelines (http://libraries.cuny.edu/copyright.pdf), which explain the principles of Fair Use. We must also provide copyright information to “accurately describe, and promote compliance with, the laws of United States relating to copyright” (TEACH Act 2002). A notice to students is required that alerts them to copyright restrictions and that access to copyrighted materials is limited to enrolled students. A burden of responsibility is also placed on instructors—they must supervise the use of copyrighted materials and their use must relate directly to class content [5]. The extent of what is considered permissible is difficult to summarize briefly and is not always determined by the amount of copyrighted material used. North Carolina State University's Scholarly Communication Center (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/) has provided an excellent checklist and tutorials for compliance with the TEACH Act. For the purpose of remote access, the rule of thumb may be that you can do remotely what you would normally do in a faceto-face classroom setting. Employing this logic, if it is a film class and the students are required to view certain films, it will be OK to stream the film as long as it is a required classroom activity and not supplementary viewing. What is more important, if you do your due diligence, the staff (that is you and I) of the accredited non-profit institution will be held harmless in the face of inadvertent copyright violation. BMCC Library follows this exact procedure.
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7. Where do you put the links? There are several approaches to providing access to digital media via Web links. The SuperView turn-key system comes with its own user interface and password protection. If given its own internet address, it will become visible to the world immediately. The library may also design its own Web page to link to the video server and user login system. Doing so will give a look and feel consistent with other library pages. However, this would involve the management of redundant passwords and does not put use management of instructional media in the hands of the teacher, which is a requirement of the TEACH Act. Therefore, our existing electronic reserves site, ERes, was the most logical place for us to put video server links. The site helps us observe TEACH Act guidelines in the following ways: All links are located on course pages administrated by professors. Access is limited to students registered in that class through password protection. Passwords are changed each semester, and links are removed at the end of each semester. Students must also agree to a copyright statement before they can access materials—thus satisfying our obligation of providing a copyright notice (Figs. 1 and 2).
8. Isn't bandwidth an issue? Bandwidth is defined as the amount of data that can be transferred over a specific time interval through an existing network, and it is an essential consideration before beginning a streaming video project. Determining the limits of your network will likely require consultation with the campus IT department. A good rule of thumb for keeping streaming video manageable on any network is to keep video file sizes as small as possible. As files are “compressed” or made smaller there can be a significant loss in video and audio quality; it is therefore important to determine the goals of your project. Is it more important to support a shrinking population of dial-up users, or is the trade-off in quality too great? Determining video file sizes is a subtle balancing act of quality vs. accessibility. It is possible to create different file sizes, for on and off-campus access and certain video servers can even “detect” available bandwidth and serve up the appropriate file size. For our purposes, we have found that a file size of 400 kbps renders readable text and subtitles on-screen, and the audio, while not of superior stereo quality, is at least a good approximation of the original. However, even this size is inaccessible to students with dial-up connections, but compressing more would result in a considerable loss of image quality.
9. What about all the different media players? Choosing between the competing technologies in media formats can be confusing—and each format has its strengths and weaknesses. However, in terms of widespread support, there are currently three dominant players on the market: Windows Media, Real Player, and Quicktime. If a user does not have a player installed on his or her computer, it is relatively easy
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Fig. 1. The Axonix interface.
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Fig. 2. The BMCC Library ERes interface.
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to download a free player from the internet. Our video server codes only to Windows Media format, so the decision was in a sense made for us. This format has the additional benefit of being supported by our Windows-based computing centers thereby eliminating the need to download the player. The Windows Media format also works with Mac, as long as Internet Explorer is installed. It is worth noting that our video server is capable of importing content in different formats and converting it to Windows Media. The server appliance can also stream live broadcasting, remote management, and provides different display resolutions on demand.
10. Discussions The literature review indicates that there have been many change factors and outcomes regarding technical services in general and cataloging personnel in particular. None of the reported new roles, however, went as far as what we have done in establishing a streaming media service to re-align technical services staff with their traditional role of providing access to information. A full survey of the addition of new technologies in library departments, and measurements of their effects on staff, before and after would surely be useful. Surveys of technical services staff generally leave one “with an impression that the importance of the library and of technical services and their functions has significantly diminished” [6]. The effect on the morale of the technical services staff when they felt their efforts have gone unrecognized has been identified in various studies we cited. Our current streaming project has put BMCC's technical services front and center in the eyes of the faculty and students. Their role in providing access will, to use the words of a veteran technical services librarian, make technical service another reader service. This is an integration we wish to embrace. Our streaming video project went online for students and faculty in the spring semester of 2004. Although class participation is still limited, we have received considerable positive feedback from faculty members involved. We are instituting a formal student feedback survey to help us further tailor our services and techniques. Our experience has shown that embarking on a streaming video project may be as simple as extending an existing electronic reserves system to include another medium. For us, it now makes little difference if the reserve material is a feature film, a Word document, a PDF file, or Powerpoint presentation, since an efficient work procedure with effective communication has already been established. In conclusion, the streaming video project at the BMCC library accomplished many goals: We extended media department services to include distance learning students and restored class time to professors who no longer needed to screen films in class. Additionally, we relieved some of the demand for materials in the Media department and lessened physical stress on fragile items. Most importantly, we created a valuable service that uses current technology to enlarge upon the traditional role of technical services in the library. References [1] Allen, N. H., & Williams, J. F. (1995). The future of technical services: An administrative perspective. In I. Godden (Ed.), Advances in librarianship (pp. 159–189). San Diego: Academic Press.
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[2] Andrews, V. L., & Kelly, C. M. (1988). Changing staffing patterns in technical services since the 1970's: A study in change. Journal of Library Administration, 9(1), 55–68. [3] Buttlar, L., & Garcha, R. (1998). Catalogers in academic libraries: Their evolving and expanding roles. College and Research Libraries, 59(4), 311–321. [4] Cox, C., & Pratt, S. (2002). The case of the missing students, and how we reached them with streaming media. Computers in Libraries, 22(3), 40–46. [5] Crews, K. D. (2002). New copyright law for distance education: The meaning and importance of the TEACH Act. Retrieved November 9, 2006, from http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/copyrightb/ federallegislation/distanceed/teachsummary.pdf [6] El-Sherbini, M. (2004). Technical services between reality and illusion: Reorganization in technical services at the Ohio state university libraries. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 379–398). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [7] Howley, P. C. (2004). Change and adaptation in the technical services of a group of mid-sized academic libraries: A 14-year overview. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 53–75). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [8] Libby, K. A., & Caudle, D. M. (1997). A survey on the outsourcing of cataloging in academic libraries. College and Research Libraries, 58(5), 550–560. [9] Lopatin, L. (2004). Review of the literature: Technical services redesign and reorganization. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 3–25). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [10] Moss, R. (1983). Video, the educational challenge. London: Croom Helm. [11] Rider, M. M. (1996). Developing new roles for paraprofessionals in cataloging. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 22(1), 26–32. [12] Ross, J. (2005). Streaming video: Why to do it, how to do it, and where to get it. MultiMedia and Internet @ Schools, 12(5), 9–11. [13] Shephard, K. (2003). Questioning, promoting and evaluating the use of streaming video to support student learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34(3), 295–308. [14] Smith, V. T., & Etcheverria, K. (2004). Staffing trends in academic library technical services. In B. L. Eden (Ed.), Innovative redesign and reorganization of library technical services (pp. 41–51). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. [15] Thornhill, S., Asensio, M., & Young, C. (2002). Video streaming: A guide for educational development. Manchester: JISC Click and Go Video Project. [16] Xiao, D. Y., Pietraszewski, B. A., & Goodwin, S. P. (2004). Full stream ahead: Database instruction through online videos. Library Hi Tech, 22(4), 366–374. [17] Zhao, T., & Eng, S. (2004). Library technical services face new changes of technology: A student survey of electronic course reserve. Journal of Access Services, 2(1), 33–39.
Further reading [1] Boissonnas, C. (2001). Technical services: The other reader service. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 1(1), 33–46.
Sidney Eng is Chief Librarian of the BMCC Library and is member of ALA and Nassau County Library Association. He has worked in public, school, special and academic libraries and received his MLS from St. John's University, MA from NYU, and BA from Bishop's University, Quebec. Flor Hernandez is Assistant Manager of the Technical Services department, where she oversees the library’s Electronic Reserves program and serves as web manager for the library site. She is currently serving as co-chair of the LACUNY Web Roundtable and has worked in academic libraries since obtaining her BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000.