A number of openly accessible Internet sites provide access to streaming videos. These sites may host content or merely point to content hosted elsewhere. Advertising supports some of these sites. Others are the official site for a producer, distributor, series, or festival. Searching functions on these sites vary widely, and content can change or be removed without notice. For additional information or to connect to any of these sites, click on the site name, below.
Disclaimer: RWU Libraries is not responsible for any of the content linked from these sites. We cannot guarantee availability of the content they provide, nor assume responsibility for the functionality of these sites.
Connect to American Experience
View complete episodes of select films from the acclaimed PBS documentary series.
The American Memory project from the Library of Congress provides access to several hundred early motion pictures, organized into 11 discrete collections:
Not all series listed on the site are available for streaming. This graphic marks programs available for online viewing 
. Videos stream in Flash. Many of the videos include closed captioning. Users accessing the site on a PC have greater control over the size of the playback window.
Connect to The Archive of American Television
Hosted by the TV Academy Foundation this archive provides access to hundreds of in-depth video interviews with TV's greatest legends and pioneers.
These television history interviews can be browsed by person, show, topic or profession. New interviews and indexes are added regularly.
Connect to Civil Rights Digital Library
Provides access to online films, texts, images, and audio recordings related to the Civil Rights movement in the United States in the 1950's and 1960's.
CRDL is a partnership among librarians, technologists, archivists, educators, scholars, academic publishers, and public broadcasters. The initiative receives support through a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The site provides both simple keyword searching and advanced searching. Content also can be browsed by Events, Places, People, Topics, Media Types (including print, government records, correspondences, etc.)
Other features of the site include numerous instructional materials, including lesson plans, quizzes, slide shows, study guides, and worksheets.
Provides streaming access to a large collection of documentary films about American folk, or roots, cultures. Includes essays about the traditions and filmmakes, transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites.
Site provides simple keyword and advanced searching, as well as ability to brose by subjects, regions, titles, filmmakers, and other categories. Video displays include links to additional, related films.
View complete episodes of a large selection of films from the acclaimed PBS public affairs series.
Connect to HealthLibrary Online
The Stanford Health Library provides a collection of online videos covering various health topics, including health and society, cancer support, and women's health.
A partnership between NBC and ABC (Disney), Hulu is predominantly a site for television content.
Hulu distributes video both on its own website and syndicates its hosting to other sites, and allows users to embed Hulu clips on their websites. In addition to NBC, ABC and FOX programs and movies, Hulu carries shows from other networks such as Comedy Central, PBS, USA Network, Bravo, FX, Syfy, Sundance, E!, and other commercial producers.
The Channel link at the bottom of the Hulu homepage provides a broad subject organization of its content, including "News and Information" which includes sub-categories of Current News, Documentary & Biography, Live Events & Specials, and Politics.
Connect to The Internet Archive
The Moving Image Archive within the Internet Archive provides access to nearly a quarter million films, uploaded by Archive users, and ranging from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts.
Videos in the Archive are organized into 15 broad sub-categories: Animation and Cartoons, Arts & Music, Computers & Technology, Cultural & Academic Films, Ephemeral Films, Home Movies, Movies, News & Public Affairs, Open Source Movies, Spirituality & Religion, Sports Videos, Video Games, Vlogs, and Youth Media.
The Archive also contains the Prelinger Archive, the most complete and varied collection of ephemeral films (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) in existence.
Connect to Internet Movie Database
Provides access to full-length films and television episodes, many in the public domain. The alphabetic listing of titles links to the IMDB page that describes the film and provides a link to stream the video. The link may redirect or pull the stream from another site such as the Internet Archive, SnagFilms, or Hulu.
This is a comprehensive site providing thousands of streaming and downloadable video lectures, live nnline Tests, and other materials in the fields of Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Dentistry, Engineering, History, Language Training, Law, Literature, Management and Accounting, Mathematics, Medicine, Nursing, Physics, and Psychology.
The site provides free video and audio lectures of whole courses conducted by university faculty from around the world. Most of the materials offered are licensed by the respective institutes under a Creative Commons License.
Connect to Media That Matters Film Festival
Annual collection showcasing twelve short films on important topics of the day. Seven years of films available on the site, organized alphabetically by title, by year. A simple search interface facilitates finding films by keyword.
Films may also be browsed by one of 15 issues: Criminal Justice, Economic Justice, Environment, Family & Society, Gay/Lesbian, Gender/Women, Health/Health Advocacy, Human Rights, Immigration, International, Media, Politics/Government, Racial Justice, Religous Freedom, and Youth.
Provides more than 12,000 short clips from feature films licensed from Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. The Movieclips player can be embedded in social networks as Facebook and MySpace, and shared on blogs, Twitter and other personal websites, and used in PowerPoint presentations.
In addition to searching by title or actor, the site provide additional search capabilities for dialogue, genre, action, occassion, theme, and mood and categories including best kiss, tearjerkers, birthdays, holidays, awkward moments, action moments, bad guys and fight scenes.
Reuse of the clips requires registering with the site.
Provides access to selected programs from the acclaimed PBS science series. Programs are divided into chapters and have closed captioning.
Available videos are organized by broad subject categories: Anthropology, Disasters, Earth, Exploration, Flight, Health, History, Investigations, Nature, Physics & Math, Space, and Technology.
Provides access to selected programs from selected PBS series (such as Nature, American Experience, Nova, and Frontline, among others.) Users can browse by Programs, Topics, or Collections. Individual programs are subdivided into smaller segments.
Connect to Scripps Library and Multimedia Archive
From the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, the Scripps archive provides a unique collection of material on U.S. public policy.
The Library's collection includes streaming video of State of the Union addresses from Kennedy to Obama. The multimedia archive also includes more than 2,500 hours of secret White House recordings, hundreds of presidential oral history interviews, audio and video recordings of Miller Center Forums, and documents related to the executive branch of American government.
Connect to TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design
Makes available the best talks and performances from TED and partners. More than 500 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. Videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.
Talks are organized under broad subject categories: Technology, Entertainment, Design, Business, Science, and Global Issues.
Connect to UC Berkeley Media Resources Center Online Media
A collection online video and audio recordings of notable lectures, events, and readings held at University of California, Berkeley. This database includes both video materials accessible by the general public, and videos licensed for access by current University of California, Berkeley students, faculty, and staff only (CalNet authentication required). Audio recordings in the collection are accessible by all users.
The site includes a simple keyword search interface.
Linked from within this site are audio, video, and text files from the UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording Project. This collection includes information on the Free Speech Movement, the Black Panther Party, Anti-Vietnam War Protests in the San Francisco Area and Beyond, and LGBT History.
Provides access to videos from major content publishers
like CBS, ABC, WB, MTV Networks, ESPN, Sony/BMG and Lions Gate, other video
sites like YouTube and Hulu, as well as independent filmmakers and content
producers.
Brief commercials precede video playback.
Watching full-length videos via Veoh requires installation of the Veoh Web Player.
Provides online access to unique and historically important content produced by the public television and radio station WGBH. The ever-expanding site contains video, audio, images, searchable transcripts, and resource management tools, all of which are available for individual and classroom learning.
Perhaps the best known of all steaming video sites, YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, Inc . The site displays a wide variety of user-uploaded video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos.
Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, but some media corporations including CBS, the BBC, and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.
Due to the 10 minute limit on YouTube uploads (partners can load longer videos), many programs on the site are divided into several parts.
YouTube can be a source of last resort for out-of-print and hard-to-find content.