Marshall Public Library’s ‘Kanopy’ subscription offers educational and entertainment outlet for locals

“The Man Who Invented Christmas” is one of the films on Kanopy | Courtesy Facebook
POCATELLO — Ever wonder what made “Lady Bird” an Academy Award winner for best picture? Or wondered what it was like inside the mind of comedy legend Robin Williams?
Wonder no longer, because Marshall Public Library can provide the answers.
Through the online video-streaming platform Kanopy, anyone with a public library card or university login (from any university nationwide) can peruse the collection of more than 30,000 films. With Christmas break fast approaching, the need for entertaining children will be in high demand. By simply entering a library card number, patrons can choose from documentaries and educational materials, as well as rare, foreign and classic films.
The service subscription through Marshall Public Library was launched last October, following a trial run.
“You’re not going to find things like big blockbuster movies,” library spokesperson Amy Campbell told EastIdahoNews.com. “But you’re going to find documentaries for adults, you’re going to find classic movies — a lot of educational material for kids.”
Campbell said that the library’s experience with Kanopy has been positive, as has that of the patrons who have spoken with library staff. The company lifting viewing restrictions when many Americans were stuck at home due to COVID-19 restrictions struck a chord with some users, while access to films from the French Noir genre intrigued others.
In its one year of use through the Marshall Public Library, around 4,000 users have taken advantage of it, library representatives said.
And Kanopy is just one of the ways the library has attempted to modernize its ability to serve the people of Pocatello. At some point in the near future, the recently acquired Glowforge 3D laser printer, which uses a laser the width of a hair to etch, carve and cut, will join the 3D printer already available at the library.
This is all part of what the library is calling “21st-century literacy.”
“The idea before was that literacy was the ability to read and write, to comprehend what someone else had written,” Campbell said. “But 21st-century literacy is the idea that learning is all around you all the time, which includes social literacy, historical literacy, it includes technological literacy. All these things, like the Glowforge, the 3D printing … all of that folds into and encompasses 21st-century literacy. Kanopy compliments that.”
Learn more about Kanopy here.
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Source: eastidahonews.com