Decker Library’s media collection is comprised of DVDs, videos, and other media as needed to support the curriculum of the college. Selections for the media collection are made to represent important works of filmmaking, current artistic trends, and movements, to highlight specific and outstanding artists, provide background on techniques and styles, as an art piece in and of itself, and to support the Humanistic Studies curriculum. The library currently collects in DVD format and purchases in VHS format only when a DVD format is not available and the title is essential to the curriculum. The library purchases Blu-ray only when needed.

The library collects actively in the following areas:

• Critical pieces of filmmaking
• Art history - documenting the history of art and artists and especially the art of the twentieth and twenty-first century; films illustrating critical, contextual, and aesthetic issues.
• Studio art – material on techniques and processes, such as bookmaking, bookbinding, printmaking, photography, paper making, graphic design, painting and drawing, illustration, and computer-generated art
• Liberal Arts – literature, general history and science, anthropology, and archaeology.

Videos on topics outside the areas of art, design, and art practices are selected based on their direct applicability to the curriculum. All purchases are selected for  Decker Library based on the following criteria:

• Artistic quality and/or academic value
• Format
• Relationship to and usefulness in the curriculum
• Quality of the production
• Cost

Because of the cost of many films or productions, the library actively promotes the use of streaming video, which allows one-time or short-term use of a title for a class or event. Where possible the Subject Librarian works with individual faculty to develop an appropriate and cost-effective way to bring these visual resources to the classroom that remains with budgetary restrictions.

Compact Discs (and similar physical storage medium)

• Free or bundled with a print subscription or book purchase
• Unavailable as a Web-based resource