How To Use Films On Demand: Home

Films On Demand is a database of documentaries, educational videos and news footage. It does not contain movies. Highly desirable items include the works of Bill Moyers and Ken Burns as well as PBS programs, selected TED talks, CNBC political footage, the Biography Channel and films from the American Museum of Natural History.

Search

If you know the title of the film or film segment that you are searching for, the search box at the top of the Films On Demand homepage is your best option.

1. Put the title of the video or section that you're looking for in quotation marks in the search box, OR put the topic you are looking for in the search box.
2. Hit enter or click the red button with the magnifying glass on it.
3. To get to Advanced Search, click the Advanced Search link to the right of the search box.

Advanced Search

If you want to search for a film but you don't know its exact title, or you want to find a film on a particular topic, try Advanced Search. You can get to it by clicking the Advanced Search link under the search box on the Films On Demand homepage. Once at Advanced Search:

1. Enter your keywords into the search box.
2. You can enter one search term in each search box and utilize the Boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) drop down lists to link the terms.
3. If you know the format of what you are searching, you can choose Audio or Video in the drop down list under Search Options.

Browse Subjects

Another way to find a video on your topic is to browse by subject area. To get to subject areas go to the menu on the top left of the screen shown as three black vertical bars and click on the menu. You will see a list of subject areas, popular categories and featured producers.

Once you click on a subject area you will be taken to a results list page. Here you can further narrow these results and filter by full, segmented, or all titles, Types of results such as documentary film or lecture and interview, copyright date and producer.

Results List

In your Films On Demand results list:

1. Click on the thumbnail image of the film to open and begin playing it. 
2. Use the pull-down menus to filter results by subject and "More Filters" including by format, language, type, copyright date and producers.
3. Use tools such as preview, share and add to.

• Click Share to email a link to the film or receive an embed/link.
• Click Add To to add it to a playlist, course folder or your favorites. (These options require that you be signed into Films On Demand.)
• Click on the title of the film to view the film information page. 
• Preview will show a clip of the video on the results page.

Film Information Page

1. Click on the video to make it start playing.
2. To the right of the video is a menu with tabs at the top.

• Show Transcript has the full-text of what is being said in the video.
• The Quiz tab allows for creation of a quiz pertaining to the video.
• In the column to the right of the video, all the video segments are described and listed. Click on the title of a video segment to access it.

In addition to the same features found on the main results page "Share" and "Add to", there is a "Cite" icon. The Citation icon underneath the video lets you copy and paste a properly formatted citation of the video in MLA, APA, or Chicago Style.

3. Click Segments to create custom segments

Playing a Video

To play a video, click on it. There are controls to pause, move forward and back, turn closed captions on and off, expand the video to fill the whole screen, and adjust the volume. There is also a time code that says how many minutes and seconds into the video you are, and how long the video is in total. 

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