We have all had those days — readings never seem to end, lecture notes could use some clarification, research has hit a wall. A break from it all sounds nice, but there is so little time!

The Library might have a solution for you. How something other than textbooks, lecture notes, or journal articles? In addition to widely used resources such as AccessMedicine, ClinicalKey, and Embase, Columbia's libraries also connect you to abundant multimedia resources that might give you just what you need. Here we provide two such examples — videos from Alexander Street and the Merck Manual — available through Columbia's online catalog, CLIO.

Alexander Street

Alexander Street is a publisher that provides curated and discipline-focused streaming video, audio, and text library databases for learning and research. We will focus on its video collection in this article. To get started, let’s look at three curated collections on Alexander Street.

1. Academic Video Online delivers nearly 80,000 videos and is still growing. It offers the widest coverage in disciplines available on the Alexander Street platform and offers diverse content types, such as documentaries, ethnographies, features and short films, interviews, lectures, and trainings.
2. The Docuseek2 Complete Collection™: Second Edition contains nearly 1,800 documentaries exclusive to the Alexander Street platform. This rich selection of issues-based documentary films has a focus on environmental studies and sciences, health, psychology, among many other disciplines.
3. Filmakers Library Online features over 1,500 issue-based documentaries that cross nearly all academic disciplines. The collection aims to educate students and researchers on critical and thought-provoking issues, people, and cultures.

There are two ways to find content on Alexander Street: searching in CLIO or directly within the publisher's website. As are the three examples above, many other collections on Alexander Street are catalogued in CLIO. To locate documentaries by topic, do a keyword search in CLIO, then use the facets on the left side of the page to limit results by Format (Video) and Author (Alexander Street). This method is particularly useful if you are off campus.

If you are on campus, you can also visit Alexander Street directly. The site will automatically recognize the visit as being from Columbia University and grant you access. Given the sheer volume of the collection, you should use the search function to find content of interest (refer to search tips and other help for more assistance). Alternatively, you can browse all channels, which are organized by disciplines. Within each discipline, you can further filter by subject or channel type. We have compiled a list of disciplines that might be of particular interest to you:

• Counseling & Therapy
• Dentistry
• Environmental Studies
• Health Policy
• LGBT Studies
• Medical Imaging
• Nursing
• Psychology
• Rehabilitation Therapy
• Sports Medicine and Exercise Science

Merck Manual

Merck Manual started as a small reference book for physicians and pharmacists and grew to become a comprehensive medical manual used by professionals, students, and consumers alike. The manual is free to use, both the professional version and the consumer version.

The professional version provides two main ways to browse content: by medical topic and by resource format. Under “Medical Topics,” information is organized hierarchically by specialty area→chapter→individual topic (e.g., Pediatrics→Pediatric Cancer→Astrocytomas). Under “Resources,” information is organized by content type, which you can view listed by medical topics or in alphabetical order and can further refine by using keywords.

Studying procedures? The “Procedures” tab currently contains over 150 videos to view. Want to revisit what a particular condition sounds like? Head to “Resources→Audio,” which has 44 recordings. Beyond video and audio, Merck Manual has images, podcast episodes, and three-dimensional models, just to name a few of its features. New content is also added every month.

We hope these multimedia resources will come in handy when you need a break from traditional study and research methods, all without sacrificing your productivity!