Kanopy is Kool! - HKUST Library Stories

Kanopy is a streaming video database the Library subscribes to for you. I knew about it before, but I never really explored it until recently.

There’s a lot more there than I thought, and it’s also much easier to use than I thought!

Access to Kanopy is available from a web browser, or from a variety of apps for different platforms. I use the app on my office PC, on my iPad and on an AppleTV at home.

To check it out, you can view our catalog record, or go directly to the Kanopy website.

Kanopy is constantly adding new films. If you want to explore titles in our catalog instead of from the Kanopy’s site or apps, you can browse them – over 20,000 film records have been added to PowerSearch! Of course, Kanopy’s website and apps will be the most up-to-date – title lists are always changing.

Lots of current films are available, along with many, many awesome older classic films – I love black and white Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant films especially.

World Cinema is well represented – for example, one of my favourites is Akira Kurosawa, whose film Ran is available.

Documentaries – Oh my, there are documentaries on everything, from every era. I especially enjoy more recent additions, like Helvetica, and 2023’s Lil Nas X – Long Live Montero.

Kanopy also includes “The Great Courses” series – I’m about to embark on the 24-part Practicing Mindfulness series 🙂

And there are loads more – language learning series, children’s storybooks and animations, etc.

The app playback controls could be better, but they get the job done and I don’t have to watch any advertisements – very happy making for me.

Using Kanopy everywhere is easy – grab the app(s) for your platform(s) and authenticate as an HKUST member – use your ITSC e-mail account for your username, and connect the first time from an on-campus IP address. (Remember not to use your ITSC password, make a simple one for Kanopy.) You can then connect from anywhere in the world (I used it a lot while on holiday in the USA); you only have to log in from an on-campus IP address about once per month.