Guest Blogger Elena Wayne, Vice President Key Accounts, and life-long collaborator with Indiana University, shares with the IU Bloomington community Docuseek’s commitment to educational streaming. Be sure to check out the numerous resources available to the IUB community via our LibGuide.
Educational video streaming has come a long way over the past 20 years. YouTube launched on Valentine’s Day in 2005. Films Media Group, later acquired by Infobase, launched its streaming alternative to DVDs in 2005. Not long after, in 2006, Alexander Street Press launched Theater in Video. By 2012, Kanopy, The Film Platform, and Docuseek were options available to university libraries for the acquisition on streaming video as requested by faculty and students for education, research, and entertainment.
Between 2013 and 2022 a wave of acquisitions and platform consolidations moved the streaming landscape from one of independent, small platforms to streaming video as an aspect of larger library aggregation company services. Overdrive acquired Kanopy. ProQuest acquired Alexander Street, and ProQuest was later acquired by Clarivate. Successive private equity firms acquired ownership of Infobase. In this evolved landscape, very few streaming platforms remain small, independent, and truly free from corporate oversight and constraint.
Docuseek, formed by partnership between Bullfrog Films and Icarus Flms, began with a mission that remains unchanged today; that is to deliver highly curated exclusive content, that provides documentaries and films that are the best in social issues, environmental and independent film. For over a decade, the small team at Docuseek has worked closely with filmmakers, librarians, faculty, and distributors to ensure that it delivers on its mission.
In recent years, perhaps owing to the forces of industry consolidation, pricing transparency, access and purchase models, and educational streaming access in general have witnessed contraction. Not so with Docuseek. The sales and marketing team at Docuseek works very closely with university library customers to constantly evolve access and acquisition models with pricing that is budget sensitive. Docuseek believes in making its catalogue available, as much as possible, to 100% of a library’s available budget and to 100% of the acquisition models preferred by those in collection development. In practical terms, this means Docuseek offers and will continue to offer, single title acquisition alongside collection acquisition. One-year, three-year, and life-of-file streaming are staples of the Docuseek single title and collection access options. The flagship Docuseek Complete Collection, ever growing, is more than 95% exclusive content, available with susbcription, evidence-based-acquisition, and one-time purchase life-of-file access.
As larger library product companies move away from choice in access models and reduce their focus on broader content acquisition, Docuseek has positioned itself as more than a distribution platform. Independence, and supporting and fostering independence in the wider educational streaming ecosystem, has become a growing point of emphasis for the Docuseek team. In recent years Good Docs and Pragda leveraged the Docuseek platform and technology solutions to deliver their collections as streaming directly to university libraries. Check out Pragda Stream: https://stream.pragda.com/
This fall, Docuseek is proud to announce three new partnerships that exemplify its mission to support independent educational streaming distribution.
The Video Project: founded in 1983, is one of the nation’s leading educational distributors of independent documentary films. Its curated collection of more than 350 documentaries features many award-winning titles exploring today’s most pressing social, environmental, and human rights issues. This collection is now available on the Docuseek platform.
New Day Films: founded in 1971, as a cooperative of over 140 filmmakers who share the work of distribution, operations, and leadership, has partnered with Docuseek to offer its streaming collection to university libraries. With more than 400 films available over the next few years as a complete collection, this is a best-in-class streaming collection.
California Newsreel: Coming this Fall, Docuseek is powering the launch of a new website for streaming video acquisition and access. California Newsreel was founded in 1968, to advance racial justice through its unparalleled collection of films on African American and African life and history.
As Docuseek moves through its second decade, the commitment to independence and supporting independence in educational streaming will continue. What began with Bullfrog and Icarus, has grown to include more than 30 distribution partners from around the world. The focus on curation, exclusivity, social issues, environmental justice and sustainability, and sparking classroom discussion through film is unwavering. I have been with Docuseek from its founding, when we were still an unfamiliar name, and it has been extraordinary to see the platform grow into a trusted resource for libraries and educators. I look forward to speaking with you and understanding how Docuseek, and I, can serve your needs and support your mission. Please email me at ewayne@docuseek2.com.
Elena Wayne, Vice President Key Accounts
Docuseek2
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