Guest Post from Carol Ann Davis, Assistant Dean of USF Libraries
There has been some confusion about the streaming media collections in the library, so we are here to set the record straight!
First of all…Did we cancel funding for Kanopy? No, we did not. Streaming media as part of the library collection was originally funded through student tech fees, in the amount of $90,000, back in September 2015. That funding lasted through March 2017, at which point the library tried to keep this service going by pulling funds from other resources, such as open staff lines and the Foundation accounts. Use of the Kanopy platform exploded in fall 2018, with $90,000 expended in the final four months from September to December 2018. The library realized that without a massive budget infusion, we were unable to support an unmediated purchase model for Kanopy.
Though there is no annual platform fee for Kanopy, each title costs $150 to lease for 12 months. Remember, this is a fee to lease, so at the end of the year, we do not own those titles. That $150 is basically a long-term rental fee, and in year 2, we have to pay another $150 fee to access the exact same content another year. In the full 2018 calendar year, the library leased 1051 videos at a total cost of $157,447. All of that money went to leasing content rather than purchasing permanent, ongoing collections.
Given the constraints on the library’s budgets, and taking the high demand for streaming media into account, in January 2019, the library moved Kanopy to a mediated model. This means that a request must be approved by the library before it is leased, rather than each student or faculty member being able to select a video and immediately watch it. When a request comes through, the library leases up to 5 videos per course of 50 students or more. The library has not been leasing titles for non-course use since the beginning of 2019. See https://guides.lib.usf.edu/media/request for more information on how to request a video.