There are two self-service print stations in the Library: one on the first floor for all first floor computers and one on the third floor for computers on the 3rd and 4th floors. Villanova University students, staff and faculty can use library public workstations to print from any Internet, email or desktop application. Alternatively, items can be sent to iPrint, the University online printing service, to be picked up at Bartley Print Services.

For self-serve printing:

Choose single- or double-sided, and make sure to note which printer you are sending to (first or third floor). At the print workstation, identify and click on your print job by your username or document name. Click the Print button on the bottom left hand corner. Swipe your Villanova University Wildcard with the magnetic stripe facing to the bottom right. Remember to slide your card all the way through and make sure the card is placed firmly in the reader. This will deduct money from your VPrint account.

For personal laptop printing:

This one-time procedure allows Villanova University students, staff, and faculty to send work to the library printers from their personal (non-Apple) laptops.

• On your laptop, press and hold the Windows key and the letter R.
• In the “Run” window that appears, type goprint and press the Enter button.
• You will then be prompted for your (Villanova email) username and password.
• Username: type VUADusername
• Password: type your password
• Double-click the printer you wish to access (Falvey printers have the prefix FML).

The rest is automatic. The printer has now been added to your computer’s “Devices and Printers” and will be available each time you print from your laptop.

For Graphic Services printing:

Go to the iPrint website and log in with your University username and password. Upload the document to print.  Be sure to choose Bartley as the pickup location.  Choose printing options and quantity, and approve the proof and payment information. Click “Place Order.” You will then get a receipt of your printing job.  Items can be picked up from the Bartley Print Center.

You do not need to be in the library to send items to iPrint!  You can print files from any computer and pick them up in Bartley.

Find other library Quick Tips by clicking here.

Questions? Suggestions? Let us know in the Comments below. Or give us a call at the Information Desk at 610-519-4270.

Also contributing: Gerald Dierkes, Luisa Cywinski, Judy Olsen

You’ve located an article on the “Articles & more” section of the library catalog or from a library database that you want to use for your paper.  But how do you get the full text of the article?

When you click (the Find It button), you are taken to the 360Link page. This page allows you to access the article you found.

Here is what the 360Link page looks like:

(Click the image for larger view)

From this page, you can do a number of things:

1. Click “Article” to get the full text of the article.  You can also click “Journal” to browse the contents of the specific journal the article was published in.  Or click the name of the database to browse or search that specific database.

2. If the full text of an article is not available, you can click a link to request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL), also called ILLiad.

3. You can export the citation of the article to RefWorks.  (Find more information about using RefWorks.)

Note that the Catalog link on the 360Link page will take you to the library catalog if Falvey has a print subscription to the journal you want.

Disclaimer! This article touches on the highlights of the 360Link page.  If you have further questions, or are having trouble accessing articles, please contact us via email or call (610) 519-4270.

More Quick Tips.

The Library is a good place to find quiet study areas — but sometimes you need to work on ideas out loud. We can accommodate this too! Work on group projects or hold study sessions with your classmates in one of our group study rooms, located on the third and fourth floors.

Falvey has six study rooms available for groups of two or more. All rooms have network connections for laptop use and a chalk board.

To use a group study room, ask for a key at the Circulation Desk. You will need to present Villanova Wildcards from at least two group members. Rooms are available on a first come, first serve basis. Reservations are not taken.

The study room may be used for up to 2 hours per group while others are waiting. In consideration of others, we ask that you leave the room in good condition.

Priority for study room access is given to Villanova University students, staff or faculty. Please note that eight weeks prior to final exams, the Library adjusts the group study room policy to restrict use only to undergraduates and non-law graduate students.

For further information, contact Circulation Desk staff at 610-519-4270 or via e-mail.

Four of the 6 rooms are officially known as the Kolmer Group Study Rooms.  The family of John H. Kolmer, III, funded renovations of the rooms in honor of his memory.

Find other Quick Tips.

Many graduate students completing theses and dissertations at Villanova are required to post them to Dissertations and Theses Full Text (ProQuest). Posting your thesis gives scholars all over the world access to your work. Because your thesis becomes fully searchable, students and researchers are able to benefit from the work you put into your project.

But before you sit down to submit your thesis to ProQuest, there are a few things you’ll need to get ready. We’ve prepared this topic guide to help you.

By Luisa Cywinski & Gerald Dierkes

Thanksgiving has come and gone. You’ve got papers to write and final exams looming on the horizon. People are hustling and bustling in preparation for the holidays and trying to juggle their academic demands. We can make these last few weeks less stressful by offering you some time-saving steps. Whether it’s late night studying, last minute research needs, or long papers that need printing, we’re here to help.

How do I check the due dates on my library books or how can I renew them? Click on My Account on the library homepage and login using your email username and password.

Once you are logged in, select “Checked Out Items” on the far right.

Click on the box next to each item you want to renew and then click  “Renew Selected Items.” Or, if you want to renew everything, click on “Renew All Items.”

Is the Library open later than midnight at the end of term? Yes, we stay open until 3:00 a.m. on several nights and the 24-hour lounge will also remain open when the library is closed. All you need is a valid Villanova Wildcard to enter the building.

What research-support services are available?

The research consultation librarians and the information desk staff are here to help you with both short questions and in-depth research. It’s easy to get research help for your paper, class assignment or other information needs.

In the library? Stop by the front desk to query the info desk staff or talk to the research librarian on duty.

Off site? Use “live chat” on the library home page (bottom right) to connect to a research librarian. Post your question on the “Question Center” and you will receive an answer in no time at all. Other questions/answers are listed there as well. Or, contact a research support librarian by email, by telephone or online to talk or to schedule an appointment.

Check the Subject pages to locate the specialist librarian for your discipline.

How can I get help creating and formatting a bibliography? RefWorks can create and format your bibliography for you, if you prefer, as you work on your research project. It can even help you organize your research. RefWorks supports MLA, APA and other styles. Contact a librarian to get started or try the online tutorials.

How do I print? You can find printing instructions on our Quick Tip: How to Print blog article. It tells you everything you need to know about iPrint, the University print program, and about the self-service printers in the Library. Or stop at the front desk – we are happy to help!

From a primer on the Harlem Renaissance to a collection of essays about Michel Foucault, Cambridge Companions are often a great way to begin researching a topic.

Each Companion volume provides a variety of scholarly viewpoints on a major theme, author or time period, written by experts with a student audience in mind. The essays are generally accessible and easy to read, and they serve as an excellent launching point for any humanities research project.

Even better, they’re available online for free. Falvey subscribes to The Cambridge Companions Complete Collection, which allows Villanova University community members full access to Cambridge Companion materials. This includes Cambridge Companions to literature, philosophy, religion, classics and culture.

Try searching the library catalog, VuFind, to get an idea of the wealth of topics covered. You can also search the Cambridge Companions Collection directly here.

To access the full online version, click the “Online version” link in the record.

This will take you to the Cambridge Collections website. Look for the “Table of Contents” box on the right side of the page. Each chapter has its own page, where you can access a PDF of the full essay. Citation information is available on this page as well.

Find other library Quick Tips by clicking here.

Questions? Suggestions? Let us know in the Comments below.

If you’re applying to graduate school, there’s no getting around the fact that you have to take an exam. Whether it’s the GRE, MAT, GMAT or LSAT, you’ll need to log some study hours in order to score well.

But before you shell out a heap of cash for a study guide, let the Library help!

Our collection includes several study guides for each test. These study guides not only include general tips and strategies, they also contain practice tests which allow you to get a feel for the format before taking the real thing.

Some study guides are held at the reference desk, and you can access them by asking there. Others are shelved with the general collection.

As always, the library catalog will note which study guides are held where. And with the new interactive map feature, you can click “Find on Map” to get a detailed view of where to look.

Avoid spending money on study guides when you don’t have to! You can get in plenty of practice tests from the comfort of Falvey.

Find other library Quick Tips by clicking here.

Did a professor give you a long list of “Course Reserves” that you don’t know what to do with?

Course reserves are books, DVDs or other materials that have been taken out of circulation and are being held in a special area of the Library. They are often the most helpful research materials for a class; putting them on reserve ensures that everyone can access them, without any one person getting to them first and hoarding them.

But if you’ve never had to use materials on reserve, you may not know how to access them.

Fear not! It’s really quite easy.

To borrow a book, DVD or other item on reserve, registered students can simply ask for the item at the Circulation Desk. Library staff will retrieve the item and check it out to the student. Students must present their Wildcard in order to access reserve items.

The amount of time students can access these materials will vary based on type of item and professor’s request. Books may have a loan period of 2 hours or 1, 3 or 7 days. DVDs and videos placed on reserve are restricted to an in-house loan period of 3 hours.

Did you misplace your course reserves list, or don’t have it on hand? You can also browse the list of reserves for a particular class through VuFind by clicking here.

Alternately, faculty may request that the library reserve staff make certain readings available online. These may include photocopies of articles, selected book chapters, exams, papers or essays. Students can access Electronic Reserves via “MyNova” and the Blackboard Course Management software. Students must be registered for the class to obtain access to the Electronic Reserve readings.

For more information on Course Reserves, click here.

When you hear the phrase “primary source,” do you imagine dusty archives and special collections shelves? In fact, primary sources are available in all types of collections and formats. Widespread digitization projects have made access to primary sources easier in more than one way: Not only are many primary sources accessible anytime and anywhere on the Web or through the library online collections, but their content can now be viewed much faster through simple keyword searches.

In the past, a scholar had to spend many hours sifting  through page after page of a single source. Today, you can quickly search and find key words of interest in the text of multiple sources with comparatively little effort.

What is a primary source? The Falvey research guide on primary sources states that “Primary sources come in a wide variety of formats, but they all have one thing in common: they are original, unfiltered materials from a specific time period or event.”

Falvey has a wide variety of primary sources in its digital collections and outstanding print collections. Find out more from the History & Sociology blog.

Questions? Ask us!

By Jutta Seibert and Jacqueline Mirabile

Designed with students in mind, a new Bible Research Guide has been added to the library web site. Although finding a copy of the Bible may seem like an easy task in a Catholic university library, it can be confusing. There are many places on the Internet where one can find the text of the Bible in English. There are even a few good web sites for finding a passage if you have the Bible reference with book, chapter and verse.

Here are some quick tips as you start looking for a Bible or Bible commentary. Your teacher may recommend a certain translation. Refer to the Bible Research Guide for a brief overview of different versions.

Looking for books that will help you uncover the significance or meaning of a biblical passage? This section of the research guide, Finding Books about the Bible, will lead you to commentaries in Falvey.

The word canon in relationship to sacred scriptures means the official or most accepted body of writings considered normative for any given religion. The Christian Bible has two principal parts: the Old Testament, part of which is the sacred scripture for Judaism, and the New Testament. Sometimes books or parts of the Bible are published in translation (since the original languages of the Bible are Hebrew and Greek), and very often a commentary is written for only a segment of the biblical canon. Be aware, there are also many extra-biblical religious writings which often read like scripture even though they are not canonical.

Let us know if you find this topic guide useful, or if you need more help.

By Darren Poley