If you’ve been keeping up with the events in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, you may be interested in these books on the relationship between new media and democracy.

Digital media and democracy: tactics in hard times
Online version
edited by Megan Boler
MIT Press, 2008

Media and political engagement: citizens, communication, and democracy
by Peter Dahlgren
Communication, Society, and Politics Series
Cambridge University Press
2009

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Wired and mobilizing: social movements, new technology, and electoral politics
by Victoria Carty
Routledge Studies in Science, Technology, and Society
Routledge
2011

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Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

This year’s annual Black History Month lecture brings two Philadelphia Inquirer journalists to the Library to discuss Civil War history. Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin, co-authors of Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America, will speak in the first floor lounge on Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 4:30 p.m. This event, presented by Africana Studies and co-sponsored by the history department and the Library, is free and open to the public.

Octavius Catto was an educator, Civil War activist and well-known baseball player in 19th century Philadelphia. He attended the Institute for Colored Youth, which would later become Cheyney University. At the age of 20, he returned to the school as a teacher and became known for his excellent oratorical skills.

“By the early 1860s Catto had become outspoken about the evil of slavery and the need for black rights.” Additionally, he was among the few black officers in the army, serving as a major in the First Division of the state’s National Guard.  He later worked to protect African American voting rights through the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. (African American National Biography)

Tasting Freedom provides an in-depth look both at Catto’s life and the history of the fight for black rights in America.  Library Journal calls it a “captivating story” that “illustrates the too often neglected street battles for black rights in northern cities long before the hot summers of the 1960s” (starred review).

Biddle and Dubin have recorded a video interview that provides a great introduction to Tasting Freedom and the upcoming lecture.  Extensive excerpts of the book are available to read for free at their website.

Photo courtesy of the Urban Archives, Temple University

Databases Beyond Communication

There are many databases that cover the social sciences generally, as well as those that fall under different disciplines entirely, that may be helpful for finding scholarly articles related to your research.

Sociological Abstracts
Covers sociological topics in fields such as anthropology, economics, education, medicine, community development, philosophy, demography, political science, and social psychology. Journals published by sociological associations, groups, faculties and institutes, and periodicals containing the term “sociology” in their titles are abstracted fully.

Social Sciences Full-Text
Index to international, English language journals in psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, political science and law.

Business Source Premier
Business Source Premier is a full text business database, covering management, economics, finance, accounting, international business.

PsycINFO
Indexes journals, dissertations and some books in the fields of personality psychology, social psychology, educational psychology and more.

Ethnic NewsWatch
A comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press.

GenderWatch
A full text database of unique and diverse publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas.

Getting to the Full Text 

Although it can be appealing to check the “Full Text Only” box as you search, resist the temptation!  Checking that box will eliminate articles owned by the library through different vendors, as well as articles not owned by the library, from your results.

Articles owned through different vendors can be easily accessed through the FindIt button.  Articles not owned by Falvey Library can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.  These requests are usually fulfilled electronically within 5 to 7 days.

_________________________________
Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

The Free Library of Philadelphia‘s Rare Book Department is hosting an exhibit featuring vintage theater lobby cards now through June 17th.  Read more at their blog.

Finding scholarly articles is an important step in shaping your research project.  This post outlines the key databases for finding scholarly articles in communication.  These databases are all very specific to research in the communication arts.

Communication & Mass Media Complete (EBSCO)
CMMC offers cover-to-cover (core) indexing and abstracts for over 300 journals, and selected (priority) coverage of over 100 more, for a combined coverage of over 400 titles. This database includes full text for nearly 200 journals. Many major journals have indexing, abstracts, PDFs and searchable citations from their first issues to the present.

Communication Abstracts (EBSCO)
Abstracts articles from journals, conference proceedings and hard-to-find documents. Includes scientific research and government policies. Distinct from ComAbstracts and ComIndex, Communication Abstracts is produced at Temple University and provides abstracting coverage of books and journals in all areas of communication studies (mass, interpersonal and new communication technologies).
*Can be searched simultaneously with Communication & Mass Media Complete.

CIOS/ComAbstracts
The ComAbstracts database contains abstracts of articles published in the primary professional literature of the communication(s) field.

Film & Television Literature Index
A comprehensive bibliographic database covering the entire spectrum of television and film writing. It has been designed for use by a diverse audience that includes film scholars, college students, and general viewers. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
*Can be searched simultaneously with Communication & Mass Media Complete and with Communication Abstracts.

Getting to the Full Text

Although it can be tempting to check the “Full Text Only” box as you search, resist the temptation!  Checking that box will eliminate articles owned by the library through different vendors, as well as articles not owned by the library, from your results.

Articles owned through different vendors can be easily accessed through the FindIt button.  Articles not owned by Falvey Library can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.  These requests are usually fulfilled electronically within 5 to 7 days.

Check back Thursday for more great article resources!

_________________________________
Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute

By Alice Bampton

“Black History in Special Collections,” Falvey Memorial Library’s tribute to Black History Month, is on display in two cases near the first floor elevator. This compelling exhibit of six books from the 19th century provides a fascinating look into an earlier time in our nation’s history. Laura Bang, the Special and Digital Collections curatorial assistant, selected the texts and composed the explanatory placards.

The first book, Hampton and its Students, written in 1875 by two teachers at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Va., is opened to an illustration of “The Assembly Room.”  Note that in the Assembly Room, students are not separated by gender. Be sure to read the text in which the authors comment on the students’ “marked eagerness to learn.”

Peter Jackson

Founded after the Civil War, Hampton, now Hampton University, helped former slaves achieve self-sufficiency, and, in fact, developed “a system of industrial education that became the model for African American education in the post-Civil War era.” (Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience)

The central book in the same display case is a large volume, The Portrait Gallery of Pugilists of America and their Contemporaries, by Billy Edwards (himself a boxer), published in Philadelphia in 1894. Here we see an impressive photograph of Peter Jackson, an Australian boxer. Laura provides a brief biography of Jackson, known as the “Black Prince,” who had “a significant international career.” (more…)

If you’ve run a search on the Digital Library in the past week, you may have noticed a big change.  Search results are now delivered through VuFind, the same way the general catalog results are.

In addition, Digital Library items will now appear when you search the catalog as a whole.  As a default, these results will appear at the very bottom of a search.  They can be weeded out by choosing “Catalog” under “Refine Search”  in the righthand column on the “Books & more” search results page.

For more information about the Digital Library’s use of VuFind, read Demian Katz’s blog on the Blue Electrode.

Industry reports come in a bewildering array of  shapes and sizes.  Some industry reports are written primarily for the investor class, others for management strategists and yet others for marketing professionals.  Some reports focus on small enterprises and others on multinationals.  The scope of industry reports vary significantly, with many corresponding to NAICs or SIC codes, others surveying broad industries from a macro perspective and yet others focusing on emerging niches or sectors not easily categorized.  What they all have in common is that they can bring their users up to date fast on the economic, demographic, regulatory and technological impacts on an industry.  The career conscious senior proceeds at her own peril if she chooses not to take advantage of the research and analysis in industry reports before interview season.

The library currently subscribes to the broad scoped S&P Industry Reports in NetAdvantage, Datamonitor,  BMI, and Freedonia reports via ReferenceUSA, BIZMiner especially for small start ups,  and Mintel for consumer goods & services sectors.  One would think these would adequately meet any serious student’s needs, but there are occasions when they don’t.  Hence we are offering campus wide trials for two additional industry report databases:  IBISWorld and Frost & Sullivan.

The library currently has trial access to IBIS World until March 7th.  “IBISWorld’s unrivalled range of industry analysis is available online [on campus] whenever you need it. Whether your company requires a better understanding of market conditions and forecasts; whether you need a clearer picture of a supply chain, or whether you need to keep abreast of competitor activity in your industry, IBISWorld’s comprehensive reports will keep you informed.”

Additionally we have a trial to Frost & Sullivan’s research.  Go to Member Logon and enter email address: user@villanova.edu and password:  password.   “Frost & Sullivan provides in-depth research coverage of these industries: Aerospace & Defense; Automotive & Transportation; Chemicals, Materials and Food; Electronics & Security; Energy & Power Supplies; Environment & Building Technologies; Healthcare; Industrial Automation & Process Control; Information & Communication Technologies; Measurement & Instrumentation.”

Let me know what you think, by taking this very short survey.

By Alice Bampton

Phylis Wright, manager of Access Desk Services and the Library’s University Staff Council (USC) representative, announced that Michael Murray is Falvey Library’s first Student Worker of the Month for 2011.  Michael, a senior English major, works for Darren Poley, outreach librarian, helping set up library events, and for Stephen Spatz, assistant outreach librarian, working on the Community Bibliography.

Darren commented that “Michael is a hard-working member of our student employee crew . . . He is a model student, as well as an excellent employee, with a dedicated service orientation. No one will soon forget his smile and sunny disposition.”

Michael, from Sicklerville (N.J.), likes to read, play basketball and work with the youth group at his church. He has worked for Darren and his team since August of 2009.

The Student of the Month idea originated with Phylis who then consulted Library Director Joe Lucia and members of the Falvey USC team who agreed that this is an appropriate way to honor student workers. At the start of the semester Phylis asked for nominations of outstanding students. She noted that the USC team “received so many [nominations] that our . . . team is finding it a difficult task to choose . . . [the winners]” – a very nice comment on the quality of Falvey’s student workers!

Portrait by Joanne Quinn; photograph by Alice Bampton

ICPSR holdings include several time series and other types of aggregate data, its holdings consist mainly of raw data derived from surveys, censuses, and administrative records. The data holdings contain some 6,000 studies and 450,000 files that cover a wide range of social science areas such as population, economics, education, health, social and political behavior, social and political attitudes, history, crime, aging, and substance abuse.

ICPSR is a great resource for those times when you would like to complete a project that involves manipulating data, but you do not have time to collect your own.  Or, use the data to support your own research.

In order to download data, you will need to create a MyData Login.

For example, see this description of a 2007 study – Interest Group Activism on the Web: The Case of Environmental Organizations.

Or, use the Variables Database to search for variables across different datasets.  And, you can even analyze data online without having to download the data files!

You can also deposit your own data to be shared with the consortium.

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Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391