DVD-LEND at the Music and Media Library  

The Lending Collection includes many recent, popular or in-demand titles. It excludes very expensive and hard-to-obtain discs. Titles frequently used for classes are in the Lending Collection only when the library holds more than one copy. In keeping with the library's emphasis on supporting research and instruction, DVD-LEND items may be booked by instructors for classroom use or put on course reserve and thus restricted to use in the library. Any title may removed from the lending collection if the library staff determines that is in the best interest of the Emory community.

DVDs are lent for the purpose of viewing in the home or showing in official Emory classes only. Other uses, including showings on campus, may violate terms of the license pertaining to the title. The borrower is responsible for observing all licensing restrictions and pertinent laws. Please contact me if you need further information.

I am pleased to announce that the Music and Media Library is rolling out a greatly expanded collection of DVDs for checkout under the DVD-LEND program. About 9,000 titles are now DVD-LEND, or more than half of the approximately 15,000 total DVDs in the collection. Previously, about one third of the collection has been DVD-LEND. (For more information about DVD-LEND circulation policies, click here.)

The purpose of this change is to make the media collection more easily accessible to the Emory community as a whole. Considering the high circulation rate of DVD-LEND items, only a small number of individual DVDs have turned up lost or damaged, suggesting that we could expand the collection further. Special thanks to Colin Bragg and Alfredo Villar for developing streamlined methods to process the DVDs, and to the student assistants at Music and Media for doing the bulk of the work.

Some highlights in the expanded DVD-LEND collection include the classic 1968 rock documentary Monterey Pop (DVD 2034), Steven Soderbergh's epic Che (DVD 13748) and Seasons 1-4 of the TV series The O.C. (DVD 14332-14335).

As always, the Music and Media Library may remove a title from DVD-LEND at any time if it is booked for class by an instructor or placed on reserve. Typically, high-cost items or rare and out-of-print items are not eligible for DVD-LEND. If you wish to suggest a particular title for consideration, please feel free to email me. Please include: your full name; email address; title of DVD; call number of DVD.

James Steffen
Film and Media Studies Librarian

The Lending Collection at the Music and Media Library consists of a selection of DVDs (about 3,700 titles) from the general media collection that are available for two-day checkout to Emory students as well as to other selected borrowers. These appear in EUCLID and DiscoverE with the item type DVD-LEND next to the call number:

Claude Chabrol, one of the founding members of the French New Wave, has passed away on September 12 at the age of 80. Together with Éric Rohmer, he co-authored one of the first books on Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock, the First Forty-Four Films). His suspense thrillers are often compared to Hitchcock, but Chabrol succeeded at developing his own approach which empahsized psychological subtlety and often included incisive depictions of French provincial and bourgeois life.

Many of Chabrol's best films were made in the late Sixties and early Seventies with the actress Stéphane Audran, to whom he was married at the time. These include La Femme infidèle (1969), Le Boucher (1970) and the decidedly offbeat La Rupture (1970).

He also worked closely with Isabelle Huppert, creating some of her best roles. In particular, La Cérémonie (1995) represented a major career comeback for Chabrol and remains one of his masterpieces. Also worth checking out are Chabrol and Hupper's acidic satires of French bourgeous society Merci pour le chocolat (2000) and La Fleur du mal (2002).

A number of Chabrol's films are available for checkout on DVD-LEND at the Music and Media Library.

His brilliant two first features, Le Beau Serge (1958) and Les Cousins (1959), have not been distributed on DVD in the U.S., but the Music and Media Library has imported DVDs for viewing within the library. Les Cousins (DVD 14399) contains an excellent commentary track by the film scholar Adrian Martin.

James Steffen - September 13, 2010.
Originally posted on the Woodruff Library Blog.