GEN: Media Dist Sys (Again)

["Hilary A. Whitehill" <hwhitehi@PEN.K12.VA.US>]

        A week into the new school year we are looking toward
next September already!  We are scheduled to get a media
distribution system then, and in spite of all that has been
written here on the subject, we still have questions.
        We are a high school (10-12) of about 165 teachers in
about 130 class areas, and our video use is very high.  In the
discussion last spring, nobody really indicated that they were
in this sort of situation.  It is easy to see how a MDS would
work in a small school, but has anyone used one in a setting
like ours?  We're wondering if we need to lobby for an
additional staff person to feed VCRs all day every day.
        Also, what happens if a teacher wants to show parts of
several videos in one class period?
        Our final question was partly answered in Donna
Walters' hit a few days ago, but my version came out garbled.
We are concerned about the copyright implications of
broadcasting videos to multiple classrooms at once -- is there
no better solution than having the principal write us a
directive to do it?  That just seems to be shifting the
copyright violation to another person...???
        Thanks, as always, for your collective wisdom!
--
Hilary Whitehill - hwhitehi@pen.k12.va.us
Librarian, T.C. Williams High School, Alexandria, Virginia