Informit Media: a reflection one year on

RMIT Publishing launched the Informit Media databases TVNews and RequestTV in late 2007. TVNews is an index of Australian free-to-air television news and current affairs items, with links enabling the video download of the respective stories. RequestTV allows the ordering of DVD programs by searching an electronic program guide. The key feature of the databases is that video access operates under the existing Screenrights Remuneration Sampling Agreement. Working within this regime enables libraries to better utilise the resources to which they already have access rights. A key criterion of the project was to utilise existing technologies and to be able to interface with existing library systems. The databases are mounted on the Informit service and use the same access points and search syntax as other Informit databases. To ensure that the product was relevant to libraries' needs, RMIT Publishing consulted closely with several libraries during development. Swinburne University Library gave valuable feedback throughout the process and contributed to the improvement of the service. This paper will look at the issues that dominated development of the databases and their implementation at Swinburne University Library.