Last updated: 6/8/21 - 6,006 videos totalling 4,402 hours of content.
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What's New: The ESOVDB is now accessible from the easy-to-remember domain names: www.esovdb.org_ and _www.earthscience.tv. So, update your bookmarks!
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In other news, I am putting the finishing touches on an API for the ESOVDB that is free and open to the public to use to query the DB and receive a response in JSON format, and I will be adding RSS and Atom feed endpoints as well. The API itself is preparation for a larger project, in which I am building a more user-friendly front end user interface/experience for the ESOVDB, more of a TV-like, YouTube/Curiosity Stream/etc experience, that will allow users to watch while browsing on the same site, sign up for free, save favorites, make ratings, contribute, get personalized recommendations, etc.
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Welcome to the Earth Science Online Video Database. This originally started life as a recommendation list in a thread on Reddit's r/geology forum. I really wanted to find and showcase more scientific and generally high quality content, compared to the popular predilection for doomsday volcano and dinosaur documentaries, for the benefit of earth science students and all of us interested in the earth sciences.
Eventually the list on r/geology became so big I had to divided it up into multiple posts, and so I moved it to this platform, Airtable, where it grew much larger. While I originally focused more on high-production and intelligent TV documentaries and movies, in my quest for more and more in-depth earth science content, I began to collect university and professional lecture series, seminars, as well as webinars and original internet content.
The database now holds 6,000+ records, totalling more than 4,400 hours of content. This is a work-in-progress. I am always adding new videos, and there is a submission form to submit your own recommendations for review, as well as any issues you might have with the presentation or content. One of the major areas of improvement I am working on is fully tagging every video, which is a very time-consuming process, and requires that I literally watch every single video to do it accurately. The other improvement is geo-coding those videos that focus on specific locations. I am gradually adding this data in as well, and you can now use the "Map View" (click the triangle above next to "Start Here" to find it) to discover content.
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I have implemented this database using Airtable because I think it's user-friendly and easy to browse/search. You could of course simply scroll through the thousands of videos in the database and find something that catches your eye, or you can use the following features:
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There is a built-in search function on Airtable, which can be activated by clicking the magnifying glass in the upper-right or by pressing command/control + F. I have also added a search bar to the same 'blocks' sidebar where this readme is located. Search utilizes all the fields in the database, so your query can match something in a video's title, description, topic, or tags.
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I have created a few ways to browse the videos:
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I have recently added the ability to view videos by geolocation, using a map-based interface. You can access the map by clicking the little triangle next to "Start Here" at the top of this sidebar, and selecting "Map View". Note: I am actively geocoding these videos by hand, so it will take some time to add all the videos that can be added to the map. Not all videos are suitable for geocoding, however ā only videos which feature or discuss a specific or major location.
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The topics should be basically clear, yet there is definitely some overlap, and while some things may fit multiple categories, I had to choose just one to make it work the way I needed it to for browsing. You can filter the table by topic to see only certain topics that interest you, and then search within that filtered view, and I have also made a special 'by Topic' view that can be chosen by clicking where it says "All Videos" in the upper left.
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Unfortunately I have not been able to add as many tags as I'd like, but you can browse by tag the same way as I described for topics. Each video may have multiple tags. Additionally, tags themselves have categories, so for instance I have added a category of tags based on geological time, if you want to browse by geological era, period, or epoch. Another major category is Geographic Location, say if you are interested in a certain part of the world. And there is a Paleogeographic Location category as well, if you are interested in a part of the world that no longer exists. Some other categories include: Geological Events, Surface Geological Processes, Deep Earth Geological Processes, Geological Hazards, Sedimentary/Metamorphic/Igneous Rocks, Geophysics, Geochemistry, Geological Technology, and more.
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Many videos belong to series, and you can browse only those that belong to a series, and see the whole database grouped by series. You can also check out videos published/produced by a given organization, or see all the content from a specific individual lecturer/presenter/host/narrator.
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Airtable allows you to create some fairly complex filters by combining sorting, grouping, and filtering. Combined with some of the other metadata I have included, this can help you find very specific content. For instance if you are looking for high-level, substantive lectures on mantle geodynamics and geochemistry, you can set it up to only show videos longer than 45 minutes, produced after 2015, addressed to an advanced audience, with the format type 'lecture', whose topic is 'mantle geodynamics, geochemistry, convection, rheology, & seismic tomography'. Play around with it! I will be fleshing out the metadata as time goes on.
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It's a lot of work to accurately tag 5600+ videos and requires that I watch all of them, so this will happen gradually.
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I will be adding a geotag field to the database, which will be used for mapping the primary topic of the video. The map view will plot every geotagged video in the database on an "Blocks" sidebar. Because some videos in the database are not based on a specific location, not every video will be included here. However, this view will still be a really awesome way to find videos based on another dimension of interest.
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I would also like to improve the 'Rating' system, which currently is just me rating videos 1-5 (and I haven't rated many). It would be great if anyone who used this database could vote and the average rating could be displayed. I don't think this is possible through Airtable, but more research is needed.
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I have a ton of videos on my backlog to add to this database, so check in often to see what's new. I have created a view called "What's New" that only shows videos added since the last update. I will be updating the database in batches, on a semi-regularly basis.
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A new feature that I've added is the ability to report feedback or issues directly in the ESOVDB. So if you are experiencing a problem with anything, whether it be a broken link, a data quality issue, general feedback, or you don't think some piece of content belongs here, feel free to report it as an issue and I will attend to the matter as quickly as possible. Just click the "Issues" tab at the top to open the reporting form.
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If you have an idea for a video or series to add to the database, you can now add it through the "Submissions" form in the "Submissions" tab at the top of the ESOVDB. Please try to fill out as much information as possible ā this will increase the likelihood of the video being added to the database. After you make a submission, it will be reviewed first by editors before being added to the database.
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Please share this with everyone and anyone! Duplicate it and make a better version yourself. Anything you want - the goal is just to get the content out there to hungry minds. To make sharing specific videos easier, I have added automatically generated HTML and Reddit/markdown link codes for each video.
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If you'd like to help out adding videos, feel free to contact me and let me know how you think you can help. I certainly don't have as much time as I'd like to work on this, and there are always new videos to be added! Additionally, as I mentioned above, I am looking to make this maybe its own standalone web app, or switch to a better platform if one is found, so I am definitely open to help on that front as well.
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This database contains external links to Youtube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion videos that may represent content illegally uploaded. The ESOVDB does not host, nor is it responsible for the uploading of any such content on the external links we list, so if you are the producer/publisher of such content, I will be more than happy to comply with any requests to remove the offending link to an externally-hosted video from this database, but you'll need to contact the video's host to remove it at its source.
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Because many of these videos are posted on Youtube and other such sites, from time to time, the videos may be flagged and removed on those sites, or a user may disappear, causing the links in this database to become broken. If that happens I mark the videos as 'Unavailable', but in case they surface again I will not remove it entirely. If you come across a broken link at any time using this database, please report it using the "Report an Issue" form under the "Issues" tab at the top.
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I should also mention - some videos are marked as 'On-demand'. This means that the video is only available through a paid service such as Amazon Prime Video.
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I started adding podcasts that posted on Youtube, since technically they are videos, but as I have also started cataloging earth science podcasts for another project, I am considering making podcasts a separate thing. What do you think?
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If you think I have added a video that doesn't belong here, feel free to let me know, using the "Report an Issue" form. As far as I know, everything I've added either belongs here explicitly, or is here because it's part of a series that belongs here. In certain cases where a series might have an episode or two that isn't strictly earth science, I opted to keep those episodes in the database for the sake of completeness. I felt if these were omitted, it might seem confusing, and without knowing what the missing videos were, people might not understand why they were missing.
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This is a completely free service project, built purely out of love for the subject and the desire to share it. Having said that, I do pay 24 dollars a month for the Airtable Pro membership in order to be able to have a large enough quota to store all the records. I may consider opening a Patreon account to help meet this small monthly cost, but any small donation (even if you just give a dollar) would go directly to supporting this project.
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Thank you for using the Earth Science Online Video Database! I hope everyone who uses it finds something new and interesting to watch!