NEWS

Take a look into Kanopy

Bailey Library librarian Meghan Rose demonstrates how the
Kanopy streaming service works. Varden Sargsyan | Washtenaw Voice

By Danny Villalobos
Contributor

More than 30,000 films and documentaries are now accessible to WCC students through Kanopy and you don’t have to be on college grounds to access them.

“Kanopy is a streaming database and it includes documentaries and classic movies,” said Amy Lee, a librarian at WCC. “They’re not so much feature films or block busters—it’s not what you’d find here. It’s more of movies that you’d view in a classroom.”

Kanopy also features college-level video courses, provided by the Great Courses Plus. Great Courses Plus is an on-demand streaming service filled with videos on a wide range of subjects, and are taught by experts and professors in their fields.

Therefore, if you’re interested in French, there’s a course taught by an experienced professor for you. Algebra? They’ve got it. You have a new puppy you need to train? The service provides video lectures on that, too.

For free access to Kanopy, students must have their WCCnet ID to log in.

To access Kanopy: visit the Bailey Library website at wccnet.edu/library, click on the “Database/E-Books” tab, then choose “Research Databases By Subject,” expand the “Streaming Video” drop down, and click “Kanopy.” From there, you can log in using your WCC email address through the Google option. Or visit this address: wccnet.kanopy.com.

Library director, Joyce Hommel, knew about Kanopy before joining WCC in 2017. Hommel worked at other libraries that had Kanopy and recommended WCC acquire the service, too.

Kanopy didn’t fit in the library’s budget until this semester, Lee said.

Before acquiring Kanopy this semester, the Bailey library still had DVDs that students could borrow, but “DVDs are going by the wayside. It’s not a technology as desirable as streaming,” said Lee.

Stuart Susnick, a part-time professor who teaches international cinema expressed excitement when he heard Kanopy was now accessible to WCC.

“Kanopy has a richer streaming collection. Also, Netflix and Amazon streaming versions aren’t always the best. Kanopy’s streaming library leans heavily toward Criterion editions. Their versions are known for their their historical fidelity, technical merit and the quality of their included ‘extras’,” said Susnick.

Recently, WCC placed every film Susnick’s course requires into a cloud to save students’ time and money. Susnick plans to put film suggestions on his course through Kanopy content.