LibGuides: History Research Guide: Media

Where can I search for videos and audios?

Academic Video Online
Provides ~ 68,000+ streaming videos spanning most subject areas and many genres, including documentaries, interviews, feature films, performances, news programs and newsreels, demonstrations, and raw footage.

Films on Demand: History Video Collection
This Master Academic collection offers full-length, curriculum-focused, streaming videos grouped into prearranged subject-specific categories. Unlimited access and use from any location.

Kanopy Videostreaming
Kanopy has more than 26,000 films in its collection - including leading producers such as Criterion Collection, The Great Courses, New Day Films, California Newsreel, Kino Lorber, PBS, BBC, First Run Features, The Video Project, Media Education Foundation, Documentary Education Resources - on every topic imaginable.

Kanopy Changes: Due to rising costs, we need to prioritize curricular over recreational use of this collection. If you find that a video you want is not immediately accessible, please fill out the form provided to express your interest. Someone will be in touch with you shortly to gather additional information.
You can easily share films, create clips or teaching playlists, and embed them into the course system. Most films have closed captions and transcripts.

American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in the United States
Index to and growing database of 5000+ full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two. Developed and maintained by University of Texas at Tyler.

Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA offers a single point of access to millions of items—photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more—from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Users can browse and search the DPLA’s collections by timeline, map, format, and topic.

RerunCentury.com
Free videos and 20th Century TV. Prime time TV schedules of 1948-1999, with links to available DVDs and free videos.
American History Tellers
The Cold War, Prohibition, the Gold Rush, the Space Race. Every part of life can be traced to our history, but how well do we really know the stories that made America? These podcasts take one to the events, the times, and the people that shaped our nation. They show how our history affected them, their families, and how it affects us today. From Wondery, the network behind Tides Of History, History Unplugged, and Fall Of Rome.

Examples of Videos in the BU Library

The Civil War by Ken Burns
Call Number: BU Library DVD Collection 973.7 C5827w 2004
Death and the Civil War (PBS)
Call Number: BU Library DVD Collection 973.71 D2856 2012
Dust Bowl (PBS)
Call Number: BU Library DVD Collection 973.717 D974 2012
National Parks: America's Best Idea (PBS)
Call Number: BU Library DVD Collection 973 N27774 2009 Disc 1-6
Slavery by Another Name (PBS)
Call Number: BU Library DVD Collection 305.896073 S6318 2012
West, The (PBS)
Call Number: BU Library DVD Collection 978 W5212 2004 Disc 1-5

Images

Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA offers a single point of access to millions of items—photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more—from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Users can browse and search the DPLA’s collections by timeline, map, format, and topic.

Europeana
Portal for European digital collections
Eyewitness to History
First hand accounts of events throughout the history of the world. Image rich.
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
Presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds. Contains images, texts, and maps. From the New York Public Library.
Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains
Includes photographs, paintings, ledger drawings, documents, serigraphs, and stereographs from 1874 through the 1940's. Maintained by Montana State University.
Minnesota Reflections
Images, maps and documents from more than 150 of the state's cultural heritage organizations. A project of the Minnesota Digital Library.
NYPL Digital Collections
Provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
Old Maps Online
An easy-to-use gateway to historical maps in libraries around the world. It allows the user to search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search. Search by typing a place-name or by clicking in the map window, and narrow by date. The search results provide a direct link to the map image on the website of the host institution.
Picturing the Century: One Hundred Years of Photography from the National Archives
Commemorates the end of the 20th century with a selection of photographs from the vast and varied holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
Images from the Library of Congress collection, including photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.
Science Service Historical Image Collection (Smithsonian Institution)
The Science Service Historical Image Collection represents 20th-century scientific research consisting of images and original captions as they appeared in period publications.The captions were written by Science Service journalists and have been transcribed exactly. We are providing a 40-year random sample of innovation and invention; which is specific to the subject of electricity.