Short Course: Researching the C-SPAN Video Library

shortcourse_sc20Researching the C-SPAN Video Library

Professor Robert X Browning
Purdue University and C-SPAN

9:00 am – 5:00 pm

The C-SPAN Archives are twenty-eight years old and now contain over 220,000 hours of digital video, all indexed, with full text in the C-SPAN Video Library. Three research and teaching conferences have been held in the past three years where scholars have presented papers utilizing C-SPAN video. This short course will provide hands-on instruction in searching and researching the Video Library. Participants will attend introductory and advanced sessions on the search engine for the Video Library where the categorization and organization of the videos will be explained, the text searching explored, and the ways that videos can be retrieved will be reviewed. There will be panels of scholars who will talk about how they have used the Video Library as well as discussion of teaching and classroom uses. The C-SPAN Video Library contains the complete video record of all House and Senate proceedings, congressional committee hearings, news conferences, almost all presidential speeches, news conferences, addresses, and appearances. C-SPAN’s coverage of campaign coverage includes campaign speeches, formal and informal appearances, debates, and conventions. C-SPAN is the network of record for political events and the Video Library has it all recorded, indexed, and transcribed. It is a tremendous resource for political scientists and there is a great deal of interest in learning how to access it. There will be interest in this session by legislative, presidential, judicial, and election scholars. Both researchers and teachers in these fields will find the depth of the C-SPAN collection with videos dating back to the 1980s to be of tremendous value. Two books containing the proceedings of previous conferences have been published by the Purdue University Press and a third is in production. Participants will receive a copy of the first volume and as well as other background materials from C-SPAN. The short course will be directed by Professor Robert X Browning, the founding director of the C-SPAN Archives who has directed its design, software, indexing, and digitization since its founding in 1987. Browning is an associate professor of political science and communication at Purdue University where he uses the videos extensively in his classes. In 2010, the C-SPAN Archives was awarded a George Foster Peabody Award, the highest award in electronic media.

**All Short Courses will take place on Wednesday, August 31 at the APSA 2016 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.