By Mary Rieder, library
With almost 68,000 streaming videos covering subject areas such as business and economics, education, science, nursing, counseling and therapy, classical music, sports medicine, theatre, engineering, religion, and LGBTQ studies, you may have already used the library’s subscription to Academic Video Online (AVON) for class assignments, but did you know it also has many videos you can watch just for fun? Included in the collection are videos from the A&E television network, the BBC, PBS, the History Channel, London’s Royal Opera House, Live from Stratford-upon-Avon the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Discovery Channel, just to name a few.
To sample some of these more entertaining videos, I asked several library staff members what some of their favorites are in AVON, and their choices reflect the variety of options available.
Jason Skoog is interested in the arts and architecture. He selected two videos. The first is Great Cathedral Mystery, “In the 15th century, Filippo Brunelleschi, a goldsmith and sculptor with no serious architectural training, designed Florence Cathedral’s dome. To this day, it remains the largest brick dome ever built. Historians, architects, and engineers are still not certain how the dome was constructed without collapsing. In this documentary, architecture and engineering professor Massimo Ricci works with a team to build a 1:5 scale model of the dome in an attempt to uncover Brunelleschi’s secrets.” The second is Sleeping Beauty, “A performance of the classic ballet from the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Ballet of Saint Petersburg.”
Kim Olson-Kopp selected the entire Sony Pictures Classics Channel. She commented, “This channel has many blockbuster films, including art and independent movies. (Note: some are listed as sample only.)”
Caitlyn Konze is a writer who favors mythology, science fiction, and the macabre. Her pick is an episode of Myths and Monsters, Heroes & Villains. She said, “I love the literary analysis of good and evil, monsters both external and within from ancient legends to modern tales. The visuals are stunning. I’m a fan of Joseph Campbell and his studies with mythology and The Hero’s Journey. This video outlines Campbell’s research using the Star Wars saga.”
Jodi Hilleshiem watches videos on cooking and politics. About Cooking Fundamentals she said, “I love watching cooking shows, and there are lots included in AVON. I like this one because it teaches some basic skills, and the recipes are ones I could probably even handle (although I’m not overly confident about that since I melted a spatula last week while trying to fry eggs).” She also likes the series How to Lose the Presidency, “which features memorable moments from presidential campaigns that did not go as planned.”
I’m the history geek and train lover in the bunch. I was excited to find an episode of A&E’s Civil War Journal in AVON about a unit that my great-great-grandfather fought in, Born Killers: The Iron Brigade. There’s also an interesting episode of A&E’s Modern Marvels series, Transcontinental Railroad, about the building of the railroad and the challenges faced as it was built both westward and eastward to meet in Utah. And being a Ken Burns film-lover, too, I was happy to see that most of his PBS series and films, from The Civil War to his recent Country Music, are included in AVON.
To view all of these videos, and more, simply go to the research section of the library’s home page and select Databases. Academic Video Online is currently the third database in the alphabetical list. When accessing video content from off-campus, users will need their Viterbo login credentials.