C-SPAN Searchable Video Archives - Free

Below is an announcement from C-SPAN to teachers about their free searchable video library. While you can watch the videos, you will need to pay (typically $29.95-$44.95) for a copy if you want the footage on DVD. No word on if they will offer a teacher discount

Today, C-SPAN officially launches the C-SPAN Video Library, a free, searchable online collection of every C-SPAN program aired since 1987. This means teachers will now have access to over 160,000 hours of searchable digital video. You will also be able to create your own embeddable clips for lessons and presentations in your classroom.

C-SPAN’s Video Library easily equips teachers with thousands of free resources to create authentic learning experiences for students that deepen their understanding of U.S. and world history, the workings of governments, the role of the media, and current political events.

Key features of the C-SPAN Video Library (www.c-spanvideo.org):

· Over 160,000 hours of searchable and watchable digital C-SPAN video
· All C-SPAN videos dating back to 1987, and certain older videos from C-SPAN’s earliest years
· A comprehensive search engine, developed exclusively for the Video Library
· Flash player with clipping and sharing features
· Share buttons for e-mail and social media (Facebook and Twitter)
· Transcripts, photo galleries, statistics and more
· User-friendly

Some Ideas to Get You Started:

• Take a look at the C-SPAN Video Library Blog. We have linked to several historical 20th Century moments that you may find useful in your classroom.
• Discuss this week’s impeachment hearings of Judge Thomas Porteous by using video of past impeachment hearings. You can show the Senate’s impeachment process with video from former President Clinton’s impeachment trial. Here’s a link to C-SPAN’s coverage of the trial.
• Have your students try the C-SPAN Video Library image quiz. Name the faces that appear on the page. Check their answers by scrolling over the images.

Share Your Ideas:

• Now that we have given you some ways to use C-SPAN’s Video Library, we would like you to share your own ideas. Join C-SPAN’s Ning Community, where teachers are already sharing their ideas about using C-SPAN in their classrooms.



While you’re looking at C-SPAN’s Video Library, make sure to go to the Congressional Chronicle. It is an index to C-SPAN video recordings of the House and Senate floor proceedings - organized by speaker - with full-text and full-video search and an extensive Congressional database going back to 1993.

The C-SPAN Video Library will be helpful to show your students the political and policy process from events which occurred in the past or just earlier that day. Its extensive holdings will allow students to see how elected officials, politicians, journalists, experts, authors, and other opinion leaders present themselves on the issues of the day and over time. We hope it will quickly become a resource for your classroom. The C-SPAN Video Library and its Congressional Chronicle truly offers ‘Washington your way’.”