By Katy Shenk
Student Life Editor
Although movie streaming services have made life more convenient, we all know the feeling of frustration when a last-minute Netflix search fails to produce results.
Before resigning yourself to paying to rent a film on YouTube or Amazon Prime, try scanning Miller Library’s new Pop DVD collection on the first floor of the library.
The collection is comprised over 700 DVD’s that were formerly the personal collection of Patricia Molloy, a Washington College Academy of Lifelong Learning instructor from 2001-2006. The entire assortment was donated by Molloy’s sister, Eileen Shepard, in memory of her sister.
When the DVD’s were first donated in 2016, library staff began the process of fully cataloging the collection, intending to make them searchable by title, actor, and director among other categories in the online catalog.
When Jackie Delong started her position as the director of Miller Library Resource Management last year, only 70 DVD’s had been cataloged.
“When I arrived, the collection was just sitting back there. I wanted to get them out here [on the main floor] so students could see them,” she said.
Delong decided to forgo fully inventorying the DVD’s by entering only film titles into the catalog.
“The best way to discover if we own a title is through a keyword search for the title. Most of the Popular DVD’s do not have actor or director information available for search, only title. It is also easy to browse the collection, they are shelved alphabetically by title,” Delong said.
A number of classic films are available for viewing, including Miracle on 34th Street, To Kill a Mockingbird, and, for a younger generation, Mean Girls.
“They cover all genres and are from various years; everything from the Bing Crosby classics to Beetlejuice to World War II sagas to West Side Story,” Delong said.
Freshman Xierra Franklin, a student library worker, also assisted with processing the DVD’s.
“I didn’t recognize any movies I had previously seen but I saw a few that I would be interested in watching. I think that students will take advantage of the collection,” she said.
DVD’s can be checked out at the circulation desk and must be returned in seven days.
This Pop DVD collection differs from the library’s current DVD selection, which is mostly used by professors, according to DeLong. These DVD’s can also be checked out by students.
“We do have another media collection. It is a larger collection and has a more educational focus with documentaries and educational films,” she said.
Both Pop DVD’s and DVD’s are searchable from the library catalog under the “Library and Archives” link on the left-hand column of the library homepage.
Freshman Joee Folb also assisted with assembling the DVD’s, hanging posters around campus, and selecting the first student “picks of the week.”
“I do think students will want to rent them, but I’m afraid that a lot of students have MacBooks and don’t have DVD players so I just hope that we’ll be able to get them checked out more and more each week,” she said.
Students who don’t have a personal DVD player can take advantage of library PC’s on the main floor with DVD drives or the study room on the second floor (RM210). Headphones can be borrowed from the circulation desk if necessary.
Additionally, some common rooms on dormitory floors have DVD players.
Within the first week of the collection opening, 30 DVD’s have already been checked out.
“We are hoping the students will enjoy them. Some of the titles are not available via services like Netflix or Hulu. Faculty may use them in their courses and we hope they do,” Delong said.