Movies and Documentaries @ the Library: How to Find Videos in the Online Catalog

Whether you prefer blockbuster movies or educational documentaries, the library is sure to have videos that interest you.  However, people sometimes have trouble finding videos in our online catalog, because they don't know how to separate the videos from the books in their search.  For example, if you go to the catalog and type in "Civil War", you'll see that we have over 1,800 items with those keywords.  Most of these are books, so scrolling through all 1800 items to find the videos would be pretty tedious. 

Luckily, there's a better way.  Simply click on "Format", to the right of the page, and select "Visual Materials", as in the picture below:

This will narrow your search to videos only, so now you will see 249 items, instead of 1838 (see below). Once you have narrowed your search this way, you will see that our Civil War videos can be further divided into three formats:  Electronic Resources (most of which are streaming videos available through the Access Video on Demand database), DVDs, and a few VHS tapes (most of our hard copy videos are now on DVD).

If you want to narrow your search further, you can click on one of these formats.  For example, if you click "DVD", this will narrow your search to just 66 DVDs, as in the picture below.  Notice that each time you limit your search, the "limiters" will appear near the top of the page, as shown in the red box below.  If you decide you don't want to limit your search so much--for example, if you want to see all visual materials, not just DVDs--you can click the "x" next to the DVD limiter, and it will disappear.  For now, let's say you want to limit your search to just DVDs.  Those 66 DVDs will include videos made for adults, teenagers, and children.  If you're an adult looking for a video to watch yourself, you're probably not interested in the teen and children's videos.  To limit the DVD's to the ones made for adults, you can click "Collection", and then "DVD Adult", as shown below.

While we have a great selection of DVDs, don't forget that we have a huge selection of online videos available through Access Video on Demand. You can start watching these immediately.  Simply click on the title you are interested in, scroll to the bottom of its catalog page, and click the link that looks like this:

This will take you to the login page for Access Video on Demand.  Enter your library card number, and you're ready to watch the video.  For more on using Access Video on Demand, see this blog post. If you have any questions about finding videos at the library, give us a call at 876-5861, or email us at reference@mytpl.org.  Happy viewing!