Women's Studies Section

Association of College & Research Libraries / American Library Association

Description

Open Video Project is a repository of digitized video clips from a variety of sources, largely video programs obtained from various U.S. government agencies such as the U.S. Records and Archives Administration and NASA. In addition, the project has a collection of videos originally created by companies, research projects, and universities from the 1940s to the present that have been digitized by the contributing organizations.

The formats are MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and QuickTime. Most records contain a 7-second excerpt and/or a storyboard. Each film has a metadata record with bibliographic, rights, and technical information. The videos are primarily in English with some in French and Spanish.

Women's Studies Content

The Internet Moving Images Archive, a collection of mostly ephemeral films, includes numerous women related materials. Of particular interest are the videos created in the 1950s to market appliances to homemakers, where the stereotyping of a woman's role in society is well defined. This is excellent material to be used in classes exploring the issues of women prior to the women's movement. For example, the film "Mother Takes A Holiday" is a dramatization of how the women in the family manipulate the men into upgrading the laundry facilities. There are also videos showing women as performing artists, women in traditional and non-traditional roles in the workplace, and a few of women in sports. The "public service" genre contains videos from around the globe on family planning.

Searching

Simple search and detailed search are available. The entire archive is keyword searchable and one can browse or search, limiting by genre, duration, color, sound, and collection. Once the search results are displayed, the site presents links for “related video” titles and for “related keyword searches,” expanding the search possibilities. The search interface is very each to use.

The genres "ephemeral," "documentary," and "educational" present resources on women. For example, combining genre "ephemeral" with keyword "gender roles" retrieves videos created in the 1950s to market appliances to women. .

Other useful keywords for finding women's studies materials are erotica, gender roles, girls, home economics, man-woman relationships, sex education, sex in advertising, teenagers, women, and women entertainers.

Archive Review:
Kayo Denda
Rutgers University