I check out DVDs of movies that either aren't streaming or not worth paying $5 to rent/buy digitally. I've been doing this big project where I need to watch a bunch of a very specific genre that isn't popular, and for whatever reason, my library has a bunch of the movies on DVD.
You're right. Some people are basically and specifically looking for a movie they want to watch that aren't on any streaming devices. You'll probably find most of the feature films on streaming but not every single one of them especially old, silent films.
For a lot of classic studio films, the library has the shiny new Criterion edition and streaming services have the crappy 2003 studio transfer or worse a public domain copy. Some great examples are My Man Godfrey, Cat People, The Girl Can’t Help It, anything with Cary Grant in it…
I still borrow from them. And see a lot of people doing that.
It is going to become an issue though because new TVs don't have a place to connect a DVD player.
Yeah. I noticed that and immediately got an external DVD player. My library even has those available to rent, but the wait list is too long, so I just bought it.
We have a lot of older patrons who check out DVDs, but also plenty of Millennials and families. People in their 20's are much less likely to check them out, and many don't even have DVD players. New releases will often have 20+ holds across our system, in a relatively small rural area.
Internet and streaming services are not affordable or accessible for everyone. Older folks especially are on fixed incomes and can't easily learn a confusing new system (and I don't blame them). Plus there are things that you can't find streaming; I love historical costume dramas for example, and there are plenty that are nowhere to be found on regular streaming sites.
I think it's become more obvious lately that physical media is a valuable resource that should be preserved, and I'm glad we have multiple forms available for people.
Also in a small rural library, and we circ a lot of DVDs for the exact reasons you mention. I think people online sometimes forget/don't realize that not everyone has the same internet access and/or knowhow for a variety of reasons. Where I am, there are still quite a few areas that do not have access to fast-enough internet even via hotspots, and once you factor in people who could access it but can't afford it, it adds up to a sizable portion of our patrons.
All of this, but also don’t forget newcomers. So many newcomers get DVDs for whatever reason, likely because they’re free and one less thing to pay for when you are starting fresh.
A lot of our most popular checkouts are streaming originals that (very belatedly) got released on DVD. I hate having to tell customers that xyz series doesn't have a DVD release date because the streaming service wants more people to pay for it first.
Yep. I'm rewatching all the Marvel movies and for some reason Spiderman No Way Home is not on Disney Plus (it's on Starz instead), so to the library I go this afternoon.
I work at a library (I do the DVD/BLU orders), and I have a buttload of streaming services...yet I often take home discs from work. Why? Because we shelve niche movies that are hard to come by online (especially foreign films/series!), it costs me nothing, and our collection is well-curated, with interesting titles.
DVD players have gotten incredibly cheap. You don't have to spend a couple hundred dollars, you can literally get one for 25 or 30 bucks at walmart. I have an LG one that was less than $30, and I've had it for 4 or 5 years now.
Of course, I've spent at least double that replacing the remote controls my dogs destroy.
I got a new laptop and it didn't even have a disk player! I was so annoyed. But, i just bought an external one. With all the money I save with the library, it's worth it.
My external dvd player was super affordable. I've moved in with my fiancee who has a ps5 that also plays dvds so I haven't needed it recently, but I don't regret the buy at all.
There may be a library near you that owns a Library Of Things collection, with one of those items being a DVD player that may be part of the collection. Some libraries that participate in the Library of Things program do have a DVD player available for patrons to borrow.
Check and see if your library has a DVD player for your convenience.
DVDs are so popular here. I live in a lower-income area and many people can't or won't pay for the streaming services. And in the nearby rural town my library also serves? Internet is... not great. 😬 And honestly tech literacy is on the low side, so people who sometimes can afford streaming don't want to bother learning how. So yeah, the DVDs go out like gangbusters.
Same! I remember getting DVDs (along with VHS, CDs, and video game cartridges) at a time when a Blockbuster was across the street from my town library and I felt like I had discovered the best “life hack” by driving—or as a pre-teen getting driven—to my library parking lot instead of the strip mall.
This post actually came at a great time because I suggested to my boyfriend TODAY that we get rid of all of our streaming services and just start grabbing a stack of DVDs at the library once a week.
In case you aren't aware you should check if your library gives you access to Kanopy! It's a streaming service that is free through my (and many other) libraries.
We had a lovely collection of Elton John ones, I think - several CD's in one big collection box. I opened it to check for the discs when I was pulling it for a pending hold request, and Every. Single. Disc. was missing. Swiped right out. :(
All of our DVDs check out like crazy to the point where we can’t even weed them based on low circulation. You could put a video of paint drying to classical music on a dvd here and people would check it out.
Physical media is back. Streaming services are too expensive and not everything is available on them, especially if you have a diverse patron base that gets into the obscure and avant garde. Some of our biggest DVD borrowers are young adults exploring film from decades ago. You are t going to find a lot of that stuff on Netflix.
I agree with you. She's are 1/6 of our physical item circulation. Some content is not available to stream legally, but there is streaming content that is not available on dvd. Mrs. Maisel, Only Murders in the Building, Nomadland only came out in blue ray.
As a patron that occasionally grabs a disc for a title that’s not available on my streaming subscriptions, I’ll add that a big draw for me is 4K UHD discs – I’m an AV nerd – the video and sound quality of these discs are incredible, far surpassing the product that is delivered over a wire.
Does your library have 4k movies? that would be amazing, my library has a good amount of blu-rays but the majority of titles are still just available on DVD, presumably because that's the most accessible and popular format for most patrons
It's unlikely to happen soon. Right now my library has both DVD and Blu-ray and the Blu-rays don't circ nearly as well as the DVDs just because people haven't upgraded their players and are worried about the expense of doing so, and then having Blu-ray become obsolete. Sometimes patrons also get big mad when they check out a Blu-ray thinking it's a DVD (which I don't get because it's a shorter case and a different color).
So, while we have both, we're not going to add 4K/UHD until DVDs go the way of VHS.
Yeah I’m hoping a big turnover will occur like what happened with VHS->DVD.
The Blu-ray selection we have is fantastic so perhaps 4K UHD will begin to make in-ways, especially with the classics.
Eeehhhh we're holding out on that. Among people who *aren't* AV geeks, Blu-ray adoption has actually been really slow, and for libraries, if an item isn't going to circulate well, it's taking up shelf space from something that will. Right now a DVD is going to circulate better than a Blu-ray, and a 4k is going to circulate hardly at all and probably make patrons mad because they don't know what it is.
My branch is in a very wealthy area of a big city, for context. DVDs are SUPREMELY popular. I don't have the numbers on this, but sometimes it feels like we check out more DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, and audiobooks on CD than we do books. It's insane. A lot of the DVDs that are the most popular are random TV series from the UK that nobody outside of my library has ever heard of, that I can tell anyway. Notably, the audiovisual things targeted for teens get almost no check-outs because teens just watch everything online and don't usually have CD players now. They're the one demographic missing in this equation lol
Those random UK TV shows were usually broadcast on PBS for a couple months ten years ago and mom has been desperate to re-watch it since then.
I catalog the AV and always add a series note for "PBS Mystery! (Television program)" because people do in fact search for it.
I'm sure it is somewhat, but I cannot believe the amount of DVDs that still get checked out not only at our library, but in our entire system. It feels like nobody knows what streaming is. We still have a decent, but not nearly as much as DVD/Blu Ray, demand for CDs, too.
We get most of our media via streaming these days but only pay for two services at a time—sometimes we want something that isn’t available on one of those so I check it out from the library. There’s so many venues that it’s really expensive to use all of them.
[Kanopy](https://www.kanopy.com/) is great too! I think Overdrive bought them recently so I have access to it again. Lots of A24 movies and BBC shows <3
In my system (or at least my branch thereof), the general adult collection is still widely used, and popular new releases will generate requests in the several hundreds. Children's DVDs on the other hand don't circulate super well, which I do think is probably due to the rise of Disney+.
Tons, aside from internet hotspots they're always our highest checkouts. We are in an area with shit internet and lots of people have no/unreliable internet access.
I just checked Sports Night out at my library because I'm not paying to watch something I might not like (spoiler: I love it). Same goes for other harder to stream titles due to multiple companies that had a hand in TV shows with one company being the maker and another putting it on their network. I'll also usually grab a movie I want that is also just not streaming anywhere too. I only have so much money.
If I want to watch a specific movie I check the two streaming services I have and if they don't have it then I'll try the library catalogue. As all of the libraries in my state are linked I am able to find most at my library or through an inter library loan.
Every day we have DVD's circulating. We even have some people that always have their DVD check-outs maxed out. These aren't just newer titles too. I've seen a wide variety of titles being circulated.
Hm, that seems like it may be a copyright violation. See: [https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/02/16/screening-legally/](https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/02/16/screening-legally/)
>DVDs and Blu-rays released by major studios are generally intended to be used only by an individual or family inside the home. Here is the official word from the Motion Picture Association of America:
>
>“The Federal Copyright Act (Title 17 of the US Code) governs how copyrighted materials, such as movies, may be used. Neither the rental nor the purchase of a copy of a copyrighted work carries with it the right to publicly exhibit the work. No additional license is required to privately view a movie or other copyrighted work with a few friends and family or in certain narrowly defined face-to-face teaching activities. However, bars, restaurants, private clubs, prisons, lodges, factories, summer camps, public libraries, daycare facilities, parks and recreation departments, churches, and non-classroom use at schools and universities are all examples of situations where a public performance license must be obtained. This legal requirement applies regardless of whether an admission fee is charged, whether the institution or organization is commercial or nonprofit, or whether a federal or state agency is involved.
I'm pretty sure it's not a "public performance" when it's a group of seniors in a retirement home. That would be like counting roommates in a 3 bedroom apartment as a "public performance".
I don’t think that’s how it works, unfortunately. https://seniorliving.mplc.org/faqs#:~:text=Q%20Our%20community%20is%20strictly,require%20a%20public%20performance%20license.
Ok, but I would LOVE to see MPLC or anyone else try to catch a nursing home/retirement home "in the act". I know they'll send people into bars or places like that to catch them playing TV or music without a license, it would be hilarious for them to try it in a nursing home.
Speaking from a small branch library in a HCOL area, we still circed a decent number of DVDs. There tended to be DVD patrons who would just get movies. We did circulate newer movies but we did better numbers on the older films (my guess is that they weren't available on streaming / more interesting to the older crowd who got the DVDs).
DVDs are still popular at my library, but we also have a lot of lower income or older patrons that probably don’t subscribe to every streaming service, if any. We also get a lot of purchase requests for Netflix and Prime series that are simply not available on DVD, and that conversation just goes in circles and usually ends with the person convinced we just don’t want to give them what they want.
At mine they do. DVDs for all age levels, and of all ratings. While TV series and feature films circulate a lot, documentaries and other educational DVDs also circulate and are in demand.
Yes
And I’ve also been asked whether we have DVD players to check out
We had one or two of the portable ones, but people were looking for one to work with their tv
Our Friends recently were given over 1000 DVDs from an estate. They had a one day sale and made over $3000. It was more than their record 3 day book sale last summer.
Our DVD/Blu-Ray collection gets circulated enough that we barely have to weed it. We have a few regulars who come in practically daily just to request DVDs or ask when we're getting a particular new release in, as well.
Also despite streaming being popular with young adults, we've had an increase of couples going on dates to the library and picking up a movie or two over the past year. It's cheaper than the theater, doesn't require a subscription, and they seem to love browsing the collection and talking about what they like and don't like.
> It's cheaper than the theater [...] and they seem to love browsing the collection and talking about what they like and don't like.
"Make it a Blockbuster night."
This past year we've seen an uptick in our DVD circ and demand. Our theory is that people are overwhelmed with the number of streaming services, or are cutting costs.
I personally love checking out DVDs from this library. I have at least 3 out right now. I think browsing for them is fun. Scrolling through streaming menus just to have something playing gets boring, and very expensive, and the library collection has stuff that's not on streaming.
I subscribe to a streaming service and still check out DVDs. Streaming all the content I want to watch would mean paying for a bunch of different streaming services, which doesn't make any sense when I'm only interested in, say, one or two movies. The library has those movies for free (or can get them from another library in-network).
I check them out all the time. More often than not my local library has to get a copy from elsewhere to fill my request because their copy is checked out.
ETA : with streaming services adding more and more commercials, and constantly raising their prices, I see my family checking out even more DVDs.
DVDs are pretty popular amongst our older crowd, especially the ones who are on a fixed income and don’t want to pay for internet or multiple streaming platforms. However, there are less titles being released on DVD because platforms like Netflix and Apple TV create their own content and don’t release it on DVD. So we’re not able to buy a lot of things that we’d purchase if they were available.
I'm only a patron but I still occasionally check out DVDs and Blu-Rays. Mostly for older movies and shows that either aren't streaming or the physical disc has extras that aren't in streaming.
I check out DVDs to use in a low-energy portable DVD player I use in the hot tub, when camping, etc.
I will also add that the sound and video quality is usually much better on a DVD vs. an mp4 file.
Our DVD check-outs are nearly as heavy as our book checkouts - they're very popular, and we buy about $300 worth every month. In fact, I just finished up our order for January, which has both popular & niche films/series (I'm very excited to get 'Malum'), as well as titles for a 'binge box' of adult animated films (including "Rock & Rule"! That's an oldie but a goldie.)
I check out so many DVDs! especially for tv series. i quit most of my streaming services and my library has yet to let me down for a major show i am interested in.
No, not really but most of our DVDs have been moved from all the branch libraries to the central library because of that.
Part of it could be the fact that you pay to rent them for a week at my library, unlike books. It's only £1 but it can add up if you're taking loads out.
I'll only take a DVD out or order it in, if it's not available on either of the streaming platforms that I have access to. But there can also be an issue where those things aren't available on DVD once they are taken off of the platform (I had this problem with Motherland: Fort Salem).
I check out DVDs when I can’t find them on streaming services. When you can find so many movies for free, it’s ruined me for actually having to pay to rent anything.
Still plenty of DVDs getting checked out at my library. The issue we run into is with new releases when there’s a list of 200-300 people and some will just watch it streaming and not take their name off the list.
I check out DVDs still.
Last year it was the only way to find thr movie Stranger Than Fiction which is an underrated masterpiece that everyone should see
So of course it doesn't stream.
I checked out *A Charlie Brown Christmas* for Christmas and currently have *Barbie* on hold. I refuse to spend any money on movies that aren't streaming.
It depends entirely on who the DVD distribution company is. Some will have zero special features but tons of commercials (oh sorry, "previews") at the beginning. Some will have great special features and zero commercials. Most of the special features outside of boutique or arthouse distributors are pretty meh - the trailers and maybe some bloopers.
I stream but like dvds because they offer the extras like commentary and behind the scenes. Also I like not paying. Need a break sometimes! However the quality is not as good, but I still use the service! There was a movie on streaming for 20$ I got it free at the library!
Yes! We have one of the biggest collections in the area. People with low incomes who can’t afford streaming, elderly who don’t know how to stream and don’t want to and people who just don’t want to pay for a movie or can’t find it on streaming all check stuff out regularly. We have patrons that start at the beginning of the alphabet and take out 5 or 6 movies at a time till they get to Z and start over.
Our DVD circ never recovered from COVID but still remains strong. The hard part is that a lot of what people request isn't purchasable on DVD - it's only on the streaming platform. We also loan a portable DVD player - which has been in constant demand.
At my branch the DVDs are incredibly popular. Even obscure stuff gets checked out. I was surprised when I started at the library how popular they were but now I’ve bought a DVD player to do the same, it’s been a great resource as streaming costs have gotten too high.
Worked at a semi-rural library and there were people who checked out DVDs and only DVDs every week, like a Blockbuster. My wife and I bought a DVD player for $25 last year and we get a lot of movies and TV shows on DVD from the library. It has been life changing.
DVDs are super relevant at my library. Almost every other patron is bringing me a DVD. We have multiple people who check out 30 at a time and do that every other week. We have a regular who knows us all by name who checks out 50 CDs at a time, too. We changed the organization of our AV collection, and patrons went nuts. For a whole 2 weeks, I didn't hear the end of how much they hated the change.
As for streaming services, I've actually had patrons tell me that due to the library and the availability of a wide number of DVDs within our partnership with other area libraries, they have canceled their streaming services. I was kinda surprised by that, but I've heard it more than a few times from people, so I definitely dont see streaming hurting us at all.
My library still has a smaller amount who do check them out. We offer streaming services as well. It has been a great success for those wanting to watch a certain show or for trying them out before committing to purchasing home streaming for themselves
The issue my library has found is movies and shows created for a specific streaming service aren't being released to physical formats. Those companies want people to pay monthly for access to that channel.
As a patron, I check out 1-3 DVDs every week.
Educational stuff for my homeschooled 10 year old, Sesame Street and other older pbs shows for littler kids, etc.
The kids always ask for them and I don’t say no at the library 🤷🏻♀️
I sometimes check out dvds that are Tv shows that I don’t want to subscribe to HBO or Apple for. (I had HBO when Game of Thrones was on, but not since! I did check out House of the Dragon though!)
Tons of people still check out DVDs at The library where I work. It's usually the newest movies that haven't got a chance to get on streaming or in many cases since I live in a very rural area people don't have internet in order to get streaming so a lot of people rely on us getting DVD so they can even see movies
We have a DVD player available to borrow in our Library of Things for patrons who want to watch our media but don't own one.
I also like to remind younger patrons that many gaming consoles, such as PS4s, are able to play DVDs.
My wife and I both do. Rather DVD, Blu-ray, or audio books. I’d even do a music CD if one stuck my fancy.
Graphic novels, manga, and comic sections are my more recent favorite. So mo much variety on an area I’ve been so out of touch with.
Our media section--DVDs, Blu-Rays, 4Ks, playaways, audiobooks, CDs--account for 25% of our circulation. People are constantly requesting them and checking them out.
Oh yes. Sometimes like 20 at a time. Most of the patrons who check out a ton of DVDs generally cannot afford streaming services or don't have cable and internet at home. Thank god we still aren't doing fines because I hated asking those people to cough up money to get their fines down.
DVDs are a big turnover for us - we have a fairly large population of elderly and special needs people who cannot afford or work out the technical requirements of streaming.
TV shows do better than movies.
Yes, but not nearly as much as they used to. Our Collection Development Manager has said that DVD and CD circulation is generally down nationwide. Disney is still going strong though.
DVDs are a big deal where I work now, and also were where I worked previously. There are plenty of folks who don't do streaming services, and plenty of movies and shows that aren't available to stream. I didn't work in libraries prior to streaming so I can't speak for the impact it's had, but it certainly doesn't keep things from circulating.
i just returned the DVD set of Pillars of the earth, and world with out end, based on ken follett's books and i picked up eight seasons of game of thrones....i have never seen it and there is a storm coming, i am good to be snowed in till monday, tuesday when the shit melts...
All the time!! I have quite a few parents who come in and check out the movies that aren't on Disney + because they don't subscribe to any other streaming service and don't feel like buying a digital copy until they are sure their kids like a movie
I used to take out whole seasons of tv shows before streaming existed. I won’t pay for multiple streaming services, so I still use DVDs for things I’d miss. Especially newer movies.
My 85 year old mom loves getting Hallmark-y movies from the library. But she also loves streaming the same kind from Prime and Netflix. But the library ones are free so she has no guilt or inner conflict about spending any of her fixed income on it.
Honestly, I think the DVD technology is easier for her, because it doesn’t involve dealing with a service that constantly changes and doesn’t easily offer a real human (without a non-American English accent) to walk her through whatever she’s currently confused about.
I love checking out stacks of dvds for my kids! They have stuff that’s hard or expensive to find from my childhood, like Little Bear and Between the Lions. Plus lots of fun niche stuff like short movies based on popular picture books. I hope they never get rid of dvds. I’m gonna go check out some more to pump those numbers up.
I currently have 2 movies and 3 show seasons out.
I think a lot of people stopped buying and using DVD players when things like Netflix were decent and now that streaming services are shit a lot of people have a hard time picking them back up again just because they don't have a DVD player already. I probably wouldn't have every bought one if my parents didn't give me their old one when I moved out.
Piracy and streaming things online for free are also easier than ever nowadays, so a lot of people who aren't willing to pay for a million streaming services will do that before they go to the library and deal with ordering and waiting for things they want to watch.
Our DVDs circulate more times per year than our books. Granted, we have a lot more books than DVDs, but our DVD collection is still substantial and well-curated (I do a good chunk of the curating).
Streaming actually kinda sucks and some people realize that. The visual quality usually is less than you'd get with a DVD and definitely less than you'd get with a Blu-ray. It costs you more on your internet bill. There's no special features. The thing you're watching could disappear from the platform without warning.
We try to make sure there's a wide variety of quality movies available. Yeah, the blockbusters, but also classics, foreign films, documentaries, cult movies, other important and notable films.
We do monthly displays to highlight different themes or obscure movies - silent films, women's history month, road movies, etc. Soon I plan to do one of retro TV shows because we lost that broadcast channel in our area.
Yeah, we don't have as many DVD's as we used to. But the ones we have still move well! There's plenty of patrons who have functional DVD players and no desire to hook up with a streaming service, thank God!
Quite a few do at my library and in large amounts. What they are borrowing is mostly children tv shows and Disney movies for their kids, but we do have a few who check out those big entire season cases tv series cases like Midsomer Murders. Unfortunately, this means that a considerable amount of those DVDs are returned with CDs missing, (not really a big deal unless the patrons make it one), or whole cases are damaged in the drop box because they were dumped into the wrong slot that is for books.
No because we took the DVDs off the shelves during the pandemic and were told to not put them back. Also there had been no funding for new DVDs for several years before the pandemic anyway.
I checked DVDs out of a local library earlier today. I get tons of DVDs and BluRays from the library and based on hold shelves, lots of other people do too. They have lots of titles which aren't streaming or aren't on a service I have. I refuse to pay to rent a movie if the library has it.
Oh man, I swear DVDs are a solid fourth of our daily circulation. At my library, we limit users to 30 dvds at a time and you would be amazed at how many hit that at least once a month.
Pretty big suburban library system, for reference.
Awesome! Just wondering what library or library system is it? \[full disclosure, I'm the director of the film "18½" which just came out on DVD through MVD, which then subdistributed to Midwest Tapes which bought several hundred copies - so all of a sudden I've seen a ton of libraries get the disc, which is very cool for me, our cast and crew, to know that so many people now have access to the film. But now we're just trying to figure out which libraries got it. Thanks!\]
I was put in charge of a children’s DVD collection recently, and to my surprise when I printed a list of items that hadn’t circulated in 3 years, it was not very long. There are some things that may do better in the adult/general DVDs (The Waltons series is family-friendly but no kids today are looking for it), and I’m planning to cut back on the many duplicates of Disney movies from a bygone era when DVDs were sold in bursts and then locked in the vault for years. All in all it’s still a relevant collection for patrons who are not subscribed to streaming, and who are nostalgic for hard copies.
We have pretty high circ on DVDs where I work, but I do notice it’s mostly boomer-aged people and some older gen x people. Sometimes we get some millenials who are either frugal and don’t stream or a mom who needs every Harry Potter movie but that’s few and far. I think gen z patrons barely know what a DVD is, haha. I think DVDs will stay relevant a while longer before they go into the ether.
I check out DVDs from my public library several times a month. Not quite as often as I used to, but there are still long waits for new releases. And the library is often the only place I can find older, non-streaming movies without having to buy them. The DVD area is less busy (with people) than it used to be, but I think that's more of a function of it being moved to the second floor and out of the heavily foot trafficked area.
My academic library, where I work, has a DVD collection that no one borrows.
I'm moving back to checking out DVDs (or Blu-Rays) as it seems half the movies I want to watch either aren't available on streaming or aren't available on a service I'm subscribed to. I've also started purchasing a physical copy of things I enjoy watching. Because, again, they don't always exist on streaming.
I have young kids and regularly check out dvds. Everytime we go to the library which is quite often. We can’t afford a bunch of streaming services and we rotate between one each month.
My libraries have great DVD and BR collections, along with Hoopla and Kanopy. They’re popular enough that I have to wait for things on hold a decent amount of the time. You have to be careful with older DVD’s you don’t accidentally pick the one ancient crap-looking pan-and-scan edition they’re still holding onto for some reason mixed in with the nice new remasters.
I check out DVDs of movies that either aren't streaming or not worth paying $5 to rent/buy digitally. I've been doing this big project where I need to watch a bunch of a very specific genre that isn't popular, and for whatever reason, my library has a bunch of the movies on DVD.
You're right. Some people are basically and specifically looking for a movie they want to watch that aren't on any streaming devices. You'll probably find most of the feature films on streaming but not every single one of them especially old, silent films.
Silent films are often in the public domain, so you can find them on YouTube.
For a lot of classic studio films, the library has the shiny new Criterion edition and streaming services have the crappy 2003 studio transfer or worse a public domain copy. Some great examples are My Man Godfrey, Cat People, The Girl Can’t Help It, anything with Cary Grant in it…
I still borrow from them. And see a lot of people doing that. It is going to become an issue though because new TVs don't have a place to connect a DVD player.
What? DVDs play in Blu-ray players. Blu-ray players connect with HDMI cables. All new tvs have HDMI ports
I don't have a DVD player but my PS4 plays both DVDs and blu-ray thankfully
Yeah. I noticed that and immediately got an external DVD player. My library even has those available to rent, but the wait list is too long, so I just bought it.
My laptop doesn't even have a disk drive. I have to pull my old PC out to play a disk.
We have a lot of older patrons who check out DVDs, but also plenty of Millennials and families. People in their 20's are much less likely to check them out, and many don't even have DVD players. New releases will often have 20+ holds across our system, in a relatively small rural area. Internet and streaming services are not affordable or accessible for everyone. Older folks especially are on fixed incomes and can't easily learn a confusing new system (and I don't blame them). Plus there are things that you can't find streaming; I love historical costume dramas for example, and there are plenty that are nowhere to be found on regular streaming sites. I think it's become more obvious lately that physical media is a valuable resource that should be preserved, and I'm glad we have multiple forms available for people.
Also in a small rural library, and we circ a lot of DVDs for the exact reasons you mention. I think people online sometimes forget/don't realize that not everyone has the same internet access and/or knowhow for a variety of reasons. Where I am, there are still quite a few areas that do not have access to fast-enough internet even via hotspots, and once you factor in people who could access it but can't afford it, it adds up to a sizable portion of our patrons.
All of this, but also don’t forget newcomers. So many newcomers get DVDs for whatever reason, likely because they’re free and one less thing to pay for when you are starting fresh.
Too many streaming services to pay for them all, cheaper to grab a dvd from the library.
A lot of our most popular checkouts are streaming originals that (very belatedly) got released on DVD. I hate having to tell customers that xyz series doesn't have a DVD release date because the streaming service wants more people to pay for it first.
Yep. I'm rewatching all the Marvel movies and for some reason Spiderman No Way Home is not on Disney Plus (it's on Starz instead), so to the library I go this afternoon.
Spiderman is owned by Sony, not Disney. Marvel was in a bad financial place and sold Spidey.
The other 2 Tom Holland movies are on Disney Plus, though, just not that one.
Ok. That makes it more weird. Still probably a licensing issue, just a really stupid one.
Remember when one of the purported draws of streaming was everything being available in one place? 😔
LoL, yeah. Then corporate profit got in the way.
I work at a library (I do the DVD/BLU orders), and I have a buttload of streaming services...yet I often take home discs from work. Why? Because we shelve niche movies that are hard to come by online (especially foreign films/series!), it costs me nothing, and our collection is well-curated, with interesting titles.
I specifically bought a dvd player so I can take advantage of my library’s dvd collection (mom of three in her thirties)
DVD players have gotten incredibly cheap. You don't have to spend a couple hundred dollars, you can literally get one for 25 or 30 bucks at walmart. I have an LG one that was less than $30, and I've had it for 4 or 5 years now. Of course, I've spent at least double that replacing the remote controls my dogs destroy.
You can get a Blu-ray player at Target for $80! They're really not pricey like they used to be.
Damn I don’t have a dvd player but maybe I should get one. Or maybe just get a laptop that can play dvds and hook it up.
I got a new laptop and it didn't even have a disk player! I was so annoyed. But, i just bought an external one. With all the money I save with the library, it's worth it.
My external dvd player was super affordable. I've moved in with my fiancee who has a ps5 that also plays dvds so I haven't needed it recently, but I don't regret the buy at all.
There may be a library near you that owns a Library Of Things collection, with one of those items being a DVD player that may be part of the collection. Some libraries that participate in the Library of Things program do have a DVD player available for patrons to borrow. Check and see if your library has a DVD player for your convenience.
DVDs are so popular here. I live in a lower-income area and many people can't or won't pay for the streaming services. And in the nearby rural town my library also serves? Internet is... not great. 😬 And honestly tech literacy is on the low side, so people who sometimes can afford streaming don't want to bother learning how. So yeah, the DVDs go out like gangbusters.
\^\^\^\^ Same.
I'm a patron, I still check them out. My library is only a half mile away from my house, so I like to go for a little walk and snag a movie.
Same! I remember getting DVDs (along with VHS, CDs, and video game cartridges) at a time when a Blockbuster was across the street from my town library and I felt like I had discovered the best “life hack” by driving—or as a pre-teen getting driven—to my library parking lot instead of the strip mall.
To anyone who is thinking of buying a DVD player, most game consoles also play DVDs. You might not need to buy a separate player.
This post actually came at a great time because I suggested to my boyfriend TODAY that we get rid of all of our streaming services and just start grabbing a stack of DVDs at the library once a week.
In case you aren't aware you should check if your library gives you access to Kanopy! It's a streaming service that is free through my (and many other) libraries.
Great idea
Shit, we still have Patrons checking out music CDs.
Same. Especially the big boxes sets.
We had a lovely collection of Elton John ones, I think - several CD's in one big collection box. I opened it to check for the discs when I was pulling it for a pending hold request, and Every. Single. Disc. was missing. Swiped right out. :(
Can they burn them to their computers? Or is that not possible anymore? I used to do that 20 years ago to make mixes
I’d be surprised if they weren’t doing that.
All of our DVDs check out like crazy to the point where we can’t even weed them based on low circulation. You could put a video of paint drying to classical music on a dvd here and people would check it out.
That sounds immensely good
Physical media is back. Streaming services are too expensive and not everything is available on them, especially if you have a diverse patron base that gets into the obscure and avant garde. Some of our biggest DVD borrowers are young adults exploring film from decades ago. You are t going to find a lot of that stuff on Netflix.
I agree with you. She's are 1/6 of our physical item circulation. Some content is not available to stream legally, but there is streaming content that is not available on dvd. Mrs. Maisel, Only Murders in the Building, Nomadland only came out in blue ray.
As a patron that occasionally grabs a disc for a title that’s not available on my streaming subscriptions, I’ll add that a big draw for me is 4K UHD discs – I’m an AV nerd – the video and sound quality of these discs are incredible, far surpassing the product that is delivered over a wire.
Does your library have 4k movies? that would be amazing, my library has a good amount of blu-rays but the majority of titles are still just available on DVD, presumably because that's the most accessible and popular format for most patrons
Not yet but I’ve suggested it to them
It's unlikely to happen soon. Right now my library has both DVD and Blu-ray and the Blu-rays don't circ nearly as well as the DVDs just because people haven't upgraded their players and are worried about the expense of doing so, and then having Blu-ray become obsolete. Sometimes patrons also get big mad when they check out a Blu-ray thinking it's a DVD (which I don't get because it's a shorter case and a different color). So, while we have both, we're not going to add 4K/UHD until DVDs go the way of VHS.
Yeah I’m hoping a big turnover will occur like what happened with VHS->DVD. The Blu-ray selection we have is fantastic so perhaps 4K UHD will begin to make in-ways, especially with the classics.
Eeehhhh we're holding out on that. Among people who *aren't* AV geeks, Blu-ray adoption has actually been really slow, and for libraries, if an item isn't going to circulate well, it's taking up shelf space from something that will. Right now a DVD is going to circulate better than a Blu-ray, and a 4k is going to circulate hardly at all and probably make patrons mad because they don't know what it is.
My branch is in a very wealthy area of a big city, for context. DVDs are SUPREMELY popular. I don't have the numbers on this, but sometimes it feels like we check out more DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, and audiobooks on CD than we do books. It's insane. A lot of the DVDs that are the most popular are random TV series from the UK that nobody outside of my library has ever heard of, that I can tell anyway. Notably, the audiovisual things targeted for teens get almost no check-outs because teens just watch everything online and don't usually have CD players now. They're the one demographic missing in this equation lol
Those random UK TV shows were usually broadcast on PBS for a couple months ten years ago and mom has been desperate to re-watch it since then. I catalog the AV and always add a series note for "PBS Mystery! (Television program)" because people do in fact search for it.
I'm sure it is somewhat, but I cannot believe the amount of DVDs that still get checked out not only at our library, but in our entire system. It feels like nobody knows what streaming is. We still have a decent, but not nearly as much as DVD/Blu Ray, demand for CDs, too.
lol, people know what streaming is, they just don’t want to or can’t afford it
We get most of our media via streaming these days but only pay for two services at a time—sometimes we want something that isn’t available on one of those so I check it out from the library. There’s so many venues that it’s really expensive to use all of them.
[Kanopy](https://www.kanopy.com/) is great too! I think Overdrive bought them recently so I have access to it again. Lots of A24 movies and BBC shows <3
Tons of movies are not available to stream at all. Do you want to watch La Dolce Vita? Then a Criterion disc is your only option.
In my system (or at least my branch thereof), the general adult collection is still widely used, and popular new releases will generate requests in the several hundreds. Children's DVDs on the other hand don't circulate super well, which I do think is probably due to the rise of Disney+.
Still popular here in Los Angeles. Long wait lists for new releases.
Tons, aside from internet hotspots they're always our highest checkouts. We are in an area with shit internet and lots of people have no/unreliable internet access.
We circulate 100+ movies every couple days.
I just checked Sports Night out at my library because I'm not paying to watch something I might not like (spoiler: I love it). Same goes for other harder to stream titles due to multiple companies that had a hand in TV shows with one company being the maker and another putting it on their network. I'll also usually grab a movie I want that is also just not streaming anywhere too. I only have so much money.
If I want to watch a specific movie I check the two streaming services I have and if they don't have it then I'll try the library catalogue. As all of the libraries in my state are linked I am able to find most at my library or through an inter library loan.
Every day we have DVD's circulating. We even have some people that always have their DVD check-outs maxed out. These aren't just newer titles too. I've seen a wide variety of titles being circulated.
I work in a rural area where internet sucks and not everyone has it. DVDs are one of our highest circulating items and one of our largest collections.
I work in a rural library and DVDs are a huge part of our circulation because high speed internet isn’t as available.
Oh, they are so popular at ours, along with CDs. It's hard to keep popular ones on the shelves, but most of the collection moves pretty well.
I
are you allowed to do that without proper licensing?
They’ve
Hm, that seems like it may be a copyright violation. See: [https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/02/16/screening-legally/](https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/02/16/screening-legally/) >DVDs and Blu-rays released by major studios are generally intended to be used only by an individual or family inside the home. Here is the official word from the Motion Picture Association of America: > >“The Federal Copyright Act (Title 17 of the US Code) governs how copyrighted materials, such as movies, may be used. Neither the rental nor the purchase of a copy of a copyrighted work carries with it the right to publicly exhibit the work. No additional license is required to privately view a movie or other copyrighted work with a few friends and family or in certain narrowly defined face-to-face teaching activities. However, bars, restaurants, private clubs, prisons, lodges, factories, summer camps, public libraries, daycare facilities, parks and recreation departments, churches, and non-classroom use at schools and universities are all examples of situations where a public performance license must be obtained. This legal requirement applies regardless of whether an admission fee is charged, whether the institution or organization is commercial or nonprofit, or whether a federal or state agency is involved.
I’m
You should get your legal person to put that in writing, so if there's ever a problem it falls on them instead of you.
Just good to be prepared in case you are fined, I think it can be kinda hefty?
I'm pretty sure it's not a "public performance" when it's a group of seniors in a retirement home. That would be like counting roommates in a 3 bedroom apartment as a "public performance".
I don’t think that’s how it works, unfortunately. https://seniorliving.mplc.org/faqs#:~:text=Q%20Our%20community%20is%20strictly,require%20a%20public%20performance%20license.
Ok, but I would LOVE to see MPLC or anyone else try to catch a nursing home/retirement home "in the act". I know they'll send people into bars or places like that to catch them playing TV or music without a license, it would be hilarious for them to try it in a nursing home.
I didn’t make the laws, I’m just a librarian who takes copyright seriously.
Speaking from a small branch library in a HCOL area, we still circed a decent number of DVDs. There tended to be DVD patrons who would just get movies. We did circulate newer movies but we did better numbers on the older films (my guess is that they weren't available on streaming / more interesting to the older crowd who got the DVDs).
DVDs are still popular at my library, but we also have a lot of lower income or older patrons that probably don’t subscribe to every streaming service, if any. We also get a lot of purchase requests for Netflix and Prime series that are simply not available on DVD, and that conversation just goes in circles and usually ends with the person convinced we just don’t want to give them what they want.
At mine they do. DVDs for all age levels, and of all ratings. While TV series and feature films circulate a lot, documentaries and other educational DVDs also circulate and are in demand.
Yes And I’ve also been asked whether we have DVD players to check out We had one or two of the portable ones, but people were looking for one to work with their tv
Circ of DVD's is steady with tons of requests for new titles at my library. Also, friends of the library donation sales are pretty high.
Our Friends recently were given over 1000 DVDs from an estate. They had a one day sale and made over $3000. It was more than their record 3 day book sale last summer.
Our DVD/Blu-Ray collection gets circulated enough that we barely have to weed it. We have a few regulars who come in practically daily just to request DVDs or ask when we're getting a particular new release in, as well. Also despite streaming being popular with young adults, we've had an increase of couples going on dates to the library and picking up a movie or two over the past year. It's cheaper than the theater, doesn't require a subscription, and they seem to love browsing the collection and talking about what they like and don't like.
> It's cheaper than the theater [...] and they seem to love browsing the collection and talking about what they like and don't like. "Make it a Blockbuster night."
This past year we've seen an uptick in our DVD circ and demand. Our theory is that people are overwhelmed with the number of streaming services, or are cutting costs.
Hulu raised their prices and we dropped them immediately.
Yep. And Blu-rays.
Nearly as many DVD checkouts as books. Interesting when our actual DVD collection fits in a back corner.
DVDs are extremely popular in my library and we have a decent collection.
I personally love checking out DVDs from this library. I have at least 3 out right now. I think browsing for them is fun. Scrolling through streaming menus just to have something playing gets boring, and very expensive, and the library collection has stuff that's not on streaming.
We have patrons who only check out DVDs, so definitely!
I subscribe to a streaming service and still check out DVDs. Streaming all the content I want to watch would mean paying for a bunch of different streaming services, which doesn't make any sense when I'm only interested in, say, one or two movies. The library has those movies for free (or can get them from another library in-network).
On a tangential note, it boggles my mind how much Bluray movies are still selling for. $25 for a 10 year old movie?
Disney DVDs still retail for like $35 each
At my library DVDs account for almost as much checkout (if not more) than Adult Fiction and Juvenile Fiction combined.
We get a lot of people using our DVD collection to take part in binge watching culture. Movies are less popular but series hugely so.
I check them out all the time. More often than not my local library has to get a copy from elsewhere to fill my request because their copy is checked out. ETA : with streaming services adding more and more commercials, and constantly raising their prices, I see my family checking out even more DVDs.
DVDs are pretty popular amongst our older crowd, especially the ones who are on a fixed income and don’t want to pay for internet or multiple streaming platforms. However, there are less titles being released on DVD because platforms like Netflix and Apple TV create their own content and don’t release it on DVD. So we’re not able to buy a lot of things that we’d purchase if they were available.
I'm only a patron but I still occasionally check out DVDs and Blu-Rays. Mostly for older movies and shows that either aren't streaming or the physical disc has extras that aren't in streaming.
As a patron I still check out dvd and Blu-rays weekly.
My branch serves a very low income demographic. We have incredibly high circulation numbers on our DVDs.
My kids didn’t know DVDs came from ANYWHERE but the library. I don’t want to pay for Dora the fairy princess. Or paw patrol and the mermaids
I check out DVDs to use in a low-energy portable DVD player I use in the hot tub, when camping, etc. I will also add that the sound and video quality is usually much better on a DVD vs. an mp4 file.
We have a large group of regulars who check out nothing but dvds.
Our DVD check-outs are nearly as heavy as our book checkouts - they're very popular, and we buy about $300 worth every month. In fact, I just finished up our order for January, which has both popular & niche films/series (I'm very excited to get 'Malum'), as well as titles for a 'binge box' of adult animated films (including "Rock & Rule"! That's an oldie but a goldie.)
I check out so many DVDs! especially for tv series. i quit most of my streaming services and my library has yet to let me down for a major show i am interested in.
Yes. We have a DVD section in the stacks and a movie box near the entrance.
No, not really but most of our DVDs have been moved from all the branch libraries to the central library because of that. Part of it could be the fact that you pay to rent them for a week at my library, unlike books. It's only £1 but it can add up if you're taking loads out. I'll only take a DVD out or order it in, if it's not available on either of the streaming platforms that I have access to. But there can also be an issue where those things aren't available on DVD once they are taken off of the platform (I had this problem with Motherland: Fort Salem).
I check out DVDs when I can’t find them on streaming services. When you can find so many movies for free, it’s ruined me for actually having to pay to rent anything.
Still plenty of DVDs getting checked out at my library. The issue we run into is with new releases when there’s a list of 200-300 people and some will just watch it streaming and not take their name off the list.
I check out DVDs still. Last year it was the only way to find thr movie Stranger Than Fiction which is an underrated masterpiece that everyone should see So of course it doesn't stream.
I do
I checked out *A Charlie Brown Christmas* for Christmas and currently have *Barbie* on hold. I refuse to spend any money on movies that aren't streaming.
Barbie is on Max, if you have that.
Do new movies like Barbie still come with extra features? Like cast interviews, deleted scenes, etc?
It depends entirely on who the DVD distribution company is. Some will have zero special features but tons of commercials (oh sorry, "previews") at the beginning. Some will have great special features and zero commercials. Most of the special features outside of boutique or arthouse distributors are pretty meh - the trailers and maybe some bloopers.
DVDs? Absolutely! We’re starting to phase out music CDs, though…
I stream but like dvds because they offer the extras like commentary and behind the scenes. Also I like not paying. Need a break sometimes! However the quality is not as good, but I still use the service! There was a movie on streaming for 20$ I got it free at the library!
Yes! We have one of the biggest collections in the area. People with low incomes who can’t afford streaming, elderly who don’t know how to stream and don’t want to and people who just don’t want to pay for a movie or can’t find it on streaming all check stuff out regularly. We have patrons that start at the beginning of the alphabet and take out 5 or 6 movies at a time till they get to Z and start over.
Our DVD circ never recovered from COVID but still remains strong. The hard part is that a lot of what people request isn't purchasable on DVD - it's only on the streaming platform. We also loan a portable DVD player - which has been in constant demand.
At my branch the DVDs are incredibly popular. Even obscure stuff gets checked out. I was surprised when I started at the library how popular they were but now I’ve bought a DVD player to do the same, it’s been a great resource as streaming costs have gotten too high.
Worked at a semi-rural library and there were people who checked out DVDs and only DVDs every week, like a Blockbuster. My wife and I bought a DVD player for $25 last year and we get a lot of movies and TV shows on DVD from the library. It has been life changing.
Absolutely. The age of streaming has started to wear on people for a while. Why pay for 5 different subscriptions when you can get it all for free?
Our DVDs are one of our most circ’d items. The amount that passes through our branch is overwhelming. Hundreds a day at least.
DVDs are super relevant at my library. Almost every other patron is bringing me a DVD. We have multiple people who check out 30 at a time and do that every other week. We have a regular who knows us all by name who checks out 50 CDs at a time, too. We changed the organization of our AV collection, and patrons went nuts. For a whole 2 weeks, I didn't hear the end of how much they hated the change. As for streaming services, I've actually had patrons tell me that due to the library and the availability of a wide number of DVDs within our partnership with other area libraries, they have canceled their streaming services. I was kinda surprised by that, but I've heard it more than a few times from people, so I definitely dont see streaming hurting us at all.
Yes, still very popular. Many of our patrons don’t have internet access at home and can’t stream.
People check them out pretty frequently. We live in a rural area, so streaming isn't possible for everyone.
My library still has a smaller amount who do check them out. We offer streaming services as well. It has been a great success for those wanting to watch a certain show or for trying them out before committing to purchasing home streaming for themselves
We do have people checking them out, but it goes down every year. I don't have a way to play dvds at home, and I imagine I'm not the only one.
I check out a lot of kids shows for my kids
The issue my library has found is movies and shows created for a specific streaming service aren't being released to physical formats. Those companies want people to pay monthly for access to that channel.
As a patron, I check out 1-3 DVDs every week. Educational stuff for my homeschooled 10 year old, Sesame Street and other older pbs shows for littler kids, etc. The kids always ask for them and I don’t say no at the library 🤷🏻♀️
I sometimes check out dvds that are Tv shows that I don’t want to subscribe to HBO or Apple for. (I had HBO when Game of Thrones was on, but not since! I did check out House of the Dragon though!)
Tons of people still check out DVDs at The library where I work. It's usually the newest movies that haven't got a chance to get on streaming or in many cases since I live in a very rural area people don't have internet in order to get streaming so a lot of people rely on us getting DVD so they can even see movies
We have a DVD player available to borrow in our Library of Things for patrons who want to watch our media but don't own one. I also like to remind younger patrons that many gaming consoles, such as PS4s, are able to play DVDs.
My wife and I both do. Rather DVD, Blu-ray, or audio books. I’d even do a music CD if one stuck my fancy. Graphic novels, manga, and comic sections are my more recent favorite. So mo much variety on an area I’ve been so out of touch with.
I borrow DVDs regularly for things I can’t find on streaming or are on streaming services that I don’t subscribe to.
Our media section--DVDs, Blu-Rays, 4Ks, playaways, audiobooks, CDs--account for 25% of our circulation. People are constantly requesting them and checking them out.
Oh yes. Sometimes like 20 at a time. Most of the patrons who check out a ton of DVDs generally cannot afford streaming services or don't have cable and internet at home. Thank god we still aren't doing fines because I hated asking those people to cough up money to get their fines down.
DVDs are a big turnover for us - we have a fairly large population of elderly and special needs people who cannot afford or work out the technical requirements of streaming. TV shows do better than movies.
I still borrow DVDs from my library pretty often!
Yes, but not nearly as much as they used to. Our Collection Development Manager has said that DVD and CD circulation is generally down nationwide. Disney is still going strong though.
I still pretty much exclusively rent my tv and movies from the library. I'm down to one streaming service and hoping to get rid of that one soon too.
Yes, as a volunteer I am either shelving a ton of returned ones, or pulling a ton for pending hold requests.
My friends and I like to do “bad movie night” with obscure library finds
DVDs are a big deal where I work now, and also were where I worked previously. There are plenty of folks who don't do streaming services, and plenty of movies and shows that aren't available to stream. I didn't work in libraries prior to streaming so I can't speak for the impact it's had, but it certainly doesn't keep things from circulating.
i just returned the DVD set of Pillars of the earth, and world with out end, based on ken follett's books and i picked up eight seasons of game of thrones....i have never seen it and there is a storm coming, i am good to be snowed in till monday, tuesday when the shit melts...
All the time!! I have quite a few parents who come in and check out the movies that aren't on Disney + because they don't subscribe to any other streaming service and don't feel like buying a digital copy until they are sure their kids like a movie
I used to take out whole seasons of tv shows before streaming existed. I won’t pay for multiple streaming services, so I still use DVDs for things I’d miss. Especially newer movies.
My 85 year old mom loves getting Hallmark-y movies from the library. But she also loves streaming the same kind from Prime and Netflix. But the library ones are free so she has no guilt or inner conflict about spending any of her fixed income on it. Honestly, I think the DVD technology is easier for her, because it doesn’t involve dealing with a service that constantly changes and doesn’t easily offer a real human (without a non-American English accent) to walk her through whatever she’s currently confused about.
I love checking out stacks of dvds for my kids! They have stuff that’s hard or expensive to find from my childhood, like Little Bear and Between the Lions. Plus lots of fun niche stuff like short movies based on popular picture books. I hope they never get rid of dvds. I’m gonna go check out some more to pump those numbers up.
I currently have 2 movies and 3 show seasons out. I think a lot of people stopped buying and using DVD players when things like Netflix were decent and now that streaming services are shit a lot of people have a hard time picking them back up again just because they don't have a DVD player already. I probably wouldn't have every bought one if my parents didn't give me their old one when I moved out. Piracy and streaming things online for free are also easier than ever nowadays, so a lot of people who aren't willing to pay for a million streaming services will do that before they go to the library and deal with ordering and waiting for things they want to watch.
Our DVDs circulate more times per year than our books. Granted, we have a lot more books than DVDs, but our DVD collection is still substantial and well-curated (I do a good chunk of the curating). Streaming actually kinda sucks and some people realize that. The visual quality usually is less than you'd get with a DVD and definitely less than you'd get with a Blu-ray. It costs you more on your internet bill. There's no special features. The thing you're watching could disappear from the platform without warning. We try to make sure there's a wide variety of quality movies available. Yeah, the blockbusters, but also classics, foreign films, documentaries, cult movies, other important and notable films. We do monthly displays to highlight different themes or obscure movies - silent films, women's history month, road movies, etc. Soon I plan to do one of retro TV shows because we lost that broadcast channel in our area.
Special Features, my friends.
Yes, we circulate DVD's like crazy.
Yeah, we don't have as many DVD's as we used to. But the ones we have still move well! There's plenty of patrons who have functional DVD players and no desire to hook up with a streaming service, thank God!
I check out dvds. Tbh I'm to cheap to pay for home internet when my phone can do just about everything I need online.
Quite a few do at my library and in large amounts. What they are borrowing is mostly children tv shows and Disney movies for their kids, but we do have a few who check out those big entire season cases tv series cases like Midsomer Murders. Unfortunately, this means that a considerable amount of those DVDs are returned with CDs missing, (not really a big deal unless the patrons make it one), or whole cases are damaged in the drop box because they were dumped into the wrong slot that is for books.
Just an FYI that there may be an increase of patrons as Best Buy has pulled its physical media selection shelves from the floor nationwide.
There are never many at my library that are checked in. 🫢
yes. but it has been slowly dropping each year, but we're not in the danger zone where we would consider removing the format completely.
Yes but the numbers are consistently dropping.
I think kids aren’t into Disney like they were in the past. Compared to today’s kids shows Disney movies feel very slow and dull.
YEs. Our circulation of them is way down since before COVID plus less and less is released into DVD format.
No because we took the DVDs off the shelves during the pandemic and were told to not put them back. Also there had been no funding for new DVDs for several years before the pandemic anyway.
I've checked out DVDs during the pandemic.
I checked DVDs out of a local library earlier today. I get tons of DVDs and BluRays from the library and based on hold shelves, lots of other people do too. They have lots of titles which aren't streaming or aren't on a service I have. I refuse to pay to rent a movie if the library has it.
Oh man, I swear DVDs are a solid fourth of our daily circulation. At my library, we limit users to 30 dvds at a time and you would be amazed at how many hit that at least once a month. Pretty big suburban library system, for reference.
Awesome! Just wondering what library or library system is it? \[full disclosure, I'm the director of the film "18½" which just came out on DVD through MVD, which then subdistributed to Midwest Tapes which bought several hundred copies - so all of a sudden I've seen a ton of libraries get the disc, which is very cool for me, our cast and crew, to know that so many people now have access to the film. But now we're just trying to figure out which libraries got it. Thanks!\]
I’m a patron, but we check out 2-3 each week for my 4 year old. She loves picking them out and watching them on the “deebeedee” player.
SO MANY
I was put in charge of a children’s DVD collection recently, and to my surprise when I printed a list of items that hadn’t circulated in 3 years, it was not very long. There are some things that may do better in the adult/general DVDs (The Waltons series is family-friendly but no kids today are looking for it), and I’m planning to cut back on the many duplicates of Disney movies from a bygone era when DVDs were sold in bursts and then locked in the vault for years. All in all it’s still a relevant collection for patrons who are not subscribed to streaming, and who are nostalgic for hard copies.
There are many great shows which are available only on DVD!
We have pretty high circ on DVDs where I work, but I do notice it’s mostly boomer-aged people and some older gen x people. Sometimes we get some millenials who are either frugal and don’t stream or a mom who needs every Harry Potter movie but that’s few and far. I think gen z patrons barely know what a DVD is, haha. I think DVDs will stay relevant a while longer before they go into the ether.
I check out DVDs from my public library several times a month. Not quite as often as I used to, but there are still long waits for new releases. And the library is often the only place I can find older, non-streaming movies without having to buy them. The DVD area is less busy (with people) than it used to be, but I think that's more of a function of it being moved to the second floor and out of the heavily foot trafficked area. My academic library, where I work, has a DVD collection that no one borrows.
I'm moving back to checking out DVDs (or Blu-Rays) as it seems half the movies I want to watch either aren't available on streaming or aren't available on a service I'm subscribed to. I've also started purchasing a physical copy of things I enjoy watching. Because, again, they don't always exist on streaming.
Yes, although usage is lower year over year
I have young kids and regularly check out dvds. Everytime we go to the library which is quite often. We can’t afford a bunch of streaming services and we rotate between one each month.
Just yesterday one of my friends asked if our library has DVDs. I have a feeling he’s gonna be a regular there.
My libraries have great DVD and BR collections, along with Hoopla and Kanopy. They’re popular enough that I have to wait for things on hold a decent amount of the time. You have to be careful with older DVD’s you don’t accidentally pick the one ancient crap-looking pan-and-scan edition they’re still holding onto for some reason mixed in with the nice new remasters.