Once again, the technology in which films are distributed is on the verge of a change, now from DVD to video-on-demand streaming. Nevertheless, as long as films remain an important medium for local storage and distribution for some time still, the Libraries will continue to acquire them. The first priority in building the current film and television collection is the ongoing acquisition of canonical works. Popular, non-canonical films are acquired on a demand-driven basis for instructional use. For films in languages other than English, subtitles are preferable, as are DVDs produced for Region 1 (North America). Only in the area of Indian film are the Libraries building a collection of research-quality depth, although Area Studies bibliographers are also building strong collections in Iranian, Israeli, and Latin American film. Because of their quality and importance, the Libraries acquire all Criterion Collection DVDs in addition to receiving those distributed by Kino Lorber and Film Movement on standing order. The Fisher Fine Arts Library selectively acquires videotapes and DVDs that are original works of art, usually sold at prices higher than other home-use video or video marketed to the academic institutional market by individual galleries representing the artists rather than by commercial film distributors.
Films are also bought for other programs and departments, for example, theatre arts(especially Shakespeare and Renaissance drama), history, literature, history of art and architecture, communication and political rhetoric (Annenberg Library), music (staged musical works, orchestral performances, historical jazz performance, ethno/folk music) (Music Library), classical ethnographic and documentary videos on a wide range of African topics (both Museum Library and Van Pelt-Dietrich Library).
The text collections (books, journals, databases) focus on scholarly material: history, aesthetics, theory, and the motion picture industry. The foundation of the collection consists of works that support critical thinking about film history and film theory in a global context. For production courses it is important to have up-to-date books on video and production standards and broadcast engineering. For screenwriting courses it is important to have books relating to screenwriting theory, adaptation studies, and screenwriting as a profession. Film scripts and more popular, non-academic materials on stardom, auteurship, and production are a lower priority.
Responsibility for the Libraries' Cinema and Media Studies collections is distributed among bibliographers system-wide, analogous to print collections. That is, the bibliographer for Literature in English selects films in English, primarily in support of the Cinema and Media Studies Program and the English Department; the Italian literature bibliographer acquires films in Italian; the History bibliographer purchases films, primarily documentaries, for courses in the History Department, etc. The librarian who manages Van Pelt Reserves orders films for reserve use, sometimes with the assistance of the Cinema and Media Studies bibliographer. Films for which no other single bibliographer has clear responsibility are acquired by the Cinema and Media Studies bibliographer, who is the overall coordinator for Cinema and Media Studies collections.
The acquisition of print materials and databases follows a similar pattern. Materials on cinema, television, media, etc. in English that are not specific to a particular country are the responsibility of the Cinema and Media Studies bibliographer.
