Falvey Memorial Library is pleased to announce its recent subscription to ComAnalytics.  CIOS offers ComAnalytics as a way for Communication faculty and departments to assess and compare article publication productivity.

Also, congratulations to our Communication Department for its ranking as  a “Top Ten” department in the study of metaphor!

• ComAnalytics has the only system for calculating the prestige value of publication in a majority of the field’s scholarly journals. While no cross-institutional system for performance analysis can tell the whole story of faculty accomplishment, ComAnalytics provides baseline data that takes account of both quantity and quality of scholarly performance.

• ComAnalytics provides customizable assessments. Compare faculty performance to relevant baselines: other faculty with the same years in service, other faculty at programs granting the same degrees. Compare departments with the same number of faculty. Compare departments to selected peer institutions.

• ComAnalytics’ interactive environment allows subscribers to explore analyses and generate printed reports that can be submitted to administration as part of peer assessments and annual reviews.

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

Have you ever wondered what those cute little hearts in the library’s catalog could do for you?  Did you notice that some catalog records are tagged? Favorites and tags can be used in different ways to organize books into lists for personal use or to share them with students and colleagues.  Here is a short overview of the functionality of these catalog features.

Tags are public, which means that everybody can see them in the online catalog. The creator of a tag does not control its use in the catalog. Others may add the same tag to other records. Take a look at the his8204 tag. Anybody can add the his8204 tag to a similar or a totally unrelated title. Records with the same tag can be retrieved with a tag search, one of the search options in the catalog. Simply type h into the search box. The new search prediction feature of the online catalog will list all existing tags with an initial h, among them his8204. Tags are a social bookmarking feature and are generally used for classification purposes. Each tag represents a piece of metadata contributed by the community. I used the his8204 tag to create a list of selected ancient sources in translation. Tags are great for students collaborating on a project. Just remember that you have no editorial control over the use of a tag. This also means that the community can contribute to your list and expand it.

Use the Favorites feature if you would like to retain editorial control over your lists. You can still share your lists with students and colleagues. Just remember that only public lists can be shared. Simply copy the URL of a list and post it online or distribute it via email. Ready to create a list? Click on Add to Favorites in the record of your first title. You will be prompted to log into your catalog account. You can choose to add titles to a new or to an already existing list. Lists can be edited and records can be enriched with personal notes and tags. Here are some examples:
Academic Writing
American Political History
Contemporary Popular Music

It is easy to create new lists and add tags in the online catalog. Give it a try. To access existing lists in your personal catalog account, simply click on My Account in the top right hand corner of the library’s Web site and log into Catalog Favorites, Tags & Lists.

Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments that you may have.

by Alice Bampton

The invention of the printing press made the works of Saint Augustine more widely available to early modern readers, and he became a bestselling author, as evidenced by the numerous editions of his works published during the 16th through 17th centuries.

“The Printed Saint Augustine: Early Editions in Special Collections,” a major exhibit on display in Falvey Memorial Library until May 30th, features numerous early editions of Augustine’s works, augmented by fascinating commentary.

On display is the first English translation of City of God, published in 1610. Was this edition commissioned to convince investors that English expansion in colonial Virginia was an opportunity to promote Christianity in the New World, as an Augustine scholar suggests?

Also featured is a 1555 critical edition by Erasmus, a reprint of the Complete Works edited by the famous humanist in 1528. Erasmus based his edition on Amerbach’s but included the three works omitted from that 1506 version. “Besides correcting errors in the previous edition, Erasmus added his own observations,” according to the exhibit’s explanatory text in the case “Early Complete Works.”

“The Printed Saint Augustine,” curated by Bente Polites, Special Collections librarian, is on display on Falvey’s second floor. This exhibit evolved from the small display Bente created to celebrate both Augustinian Heritage Month and the marathon reading of Saint Augustine’s Confessions in November, 2010.

Bente explains that while Special Collections had a collection of early works by Saint Augustine, she has made “an effort to acquire 15^th and 16^th century editions of Saint Augustine’s  Confessions.” Special Collections owns approximately one thousand volumes by Saint Augustine and also collects works by other Augustinians for the Augustiniana collection.

This exhibit focuses on early editions, from the 15^th through 17^th centuries, of Saint Augustine’s works, although one case, “Early English Translations,” features works from the 19^th century.

Of interest to art lovers is the open volume, Principalium Sententiarum in Explanationem Libri Psalmorum, printed in Paris, 1529, which has a placard stating the “Border of the title page [is] attributed to Hans Holbein the younger.” Holbein the Younger (1497/98 – 1543) was an important Northern Renaissance painter and draftsman. This book is in case 11, located adjacent to the Special Collections department. (more…)

Writing your own survey or conducting research interviews can be very challenging.  Luckily, there are resources available to help.

Begin with the E-Reference Resources for Research Methods.  These online encyclopedias can clear up any questions you have about research methods or statistical analysis you may have at any stage of the research process.

If you intend to use a survey or questionnaire as part of your research project, take a look at these books regarding survey methods.

Administer your survey online!  Survey Monkey is a web-based survey platform.  The free version is suitable for most projects.  Google Forms can also be embedded into emails or webpages, or sent as links to collect data for a quick questionnaire or survey.

Conducting research interviews can be even more intimidating than writing your own survey.  Before you dive in, research techniques and best practices with these books about research interviews and focus groups.

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

By Merrill Stein and Kristyna Carroll

Recently many patrons have been seeking information about places, political leaders and events in the Middle East and Northern Africa, described as “history in the making.”

Here are some substantive sources:

BBC News, specifically their special reports and country profile pages, provides current information. For another point of view, try Al Jazeera, notably their in depth reports and programs.  CNN and Reuters also provide late breaking news. Follow these in news feeds, podcasts and Twitter.

You may also want to check out the Dubai School of Government, Arab Social Media Report.

Obtain more news from library subscription services such as ProQuest Newspapers, Lexis Nexis Academic, and Academic OneFile: these are updated daily. For more scholarly discussion, use Worldwide Political Science Abstracts.  Try CQ Global Researcher for the latest Sub-Saharan Democracy report.

Take a multidisciplinary approach and use resources from several library subject guides or course & topic guides available under History, Geography or Political Science.

Using resources listed under Databases A – Z on the library home page, you can discover additional background information, further reading and other resources in Oxford Islamic Studies Online.

CIAO – Columbia International Affairs Online provides working papers, policy briefs, case studies and other information like The Tunisian Revolution: An Opportunity for Democratic Transition and  Juan Cole’s Informed Comment section . (more…)

The Outstanding Faculty Research Award for 2010 has been given to Charles L. Folk, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and the director of the Villanova University Cognitive Science Program. Dr. Folk will speak about his research in the Falvey Memorial Library first floor lounge on Wednesday, Mar. 9, at 3:00 p.m.

“When we decide to pay attention to something in the environment,” Dr. Folk explains, “we are allocating limited cognitive resources to the processing of that object or event. Certain kinds of events, however, seem to have the ability to ‘capture’ attention, such that we involuntarily allocate attention to them.”

Dr. Folk’s talk will summarize the research on attentional capture and the implications of this phenomenon for real-world circumstances such as driving. He has also co-edited a book on research in this area, Attraction, Distraction and Action: Multiple Perspectives on Attentional Capture.