We know you do it.  Heck, we do it too.  There is even a host of researchers out there studying and publishing books about it.  The library wants to make it even easier to do…with downloadable audiobooks!

Wouldn’t you like to download an audio book for one of your classes and listen to it while on a long run this evening?  Or how about listening while eating breakfast or driving home for the weekend?  We know that busy graduate students are downloading audio books and “reading” during commutes, because they tell us so.

EBSCOhost one of the library’s vendors is now offering downloadable audio books.  The audio books can be downloaded to your computer and transferred to either your ipod or MP3 player after installing a EBSCOhost download manager application and creating an EBSCOhost account.  Access to the audio file would vary by check out time.  Our trial only includes a few titles, but the titles available via a library subscription would be much expanded.   For instance the business collection includes classic titles such as The Wealth of Nations and recent bestsellers such as Sorkin’s Too Big to Fail or Jeffrey Sach’s End of Poverty Let us know what you think!

This post highlights the November book arrivals in communication.  See the full list or check out a few interesting titles below.

The Aging Intellect
by Douglas H. Powell
Routledge
2011
–

We Are the Champions:  The Politics of Sports and Popular Music
by Ken McLeod
Ashgate
2011
–

How Television Invented New Media
by Shelia C. Murphy
Rutgers University Press
2011
–

The Handbook of Media Audiences
edited by Virginia Nightingale
Online Edition
Wiley-Blackwell
2011

The Handbook of Internet Studies
edited by Mia Consalvo and Charles Ess
Online Edition
Wiley-Blackwell
2011

Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife
edited by Jonathon H.X. Lee and Kathleen M. Nadeau
Online Edition
ABC-CLIO
2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 20th International Conference of the Simone de Beauvoir Society will take place at the University of Oslo, Norway, from June 20-23, 2012, hosted by the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art & Ideas in cooperation with The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.

Keynote speakers:

• Associate professor Nancy Bauer, Tufts University
• Professor Barbara Klaw, Northern Kentucky University
• Professor Toril Moi, Duke University

We welcome submissions on Beauvoir’s life and works from a broad range of perspectives, disciplines and locations, addressing the impact in her own time as well as her significance for the 21st century.

Also welcomed are perspectives, interpretations, analyses and discussions on how Beauvoir can shed light on the interaction between theory and practice, between academia and contemporary society. In particular, we encourage presentations exploring how Beauvoir’s works can contribute to recent discussions on the values and utility of the humanities.

Call for papers in French

Conference home page

To submit your proposal, please send an abstract of no more than 800 words in English, French, Norwegian, Danish or Swedish, and a short Curriculum Vitae including your contact details and institutional affiliation, if any, to both conference organizers:

Associate Professor Annlaug Bjørsnøs, (annlaug.bjorsnos@ntnu.no) and Professor Tove Pettersen, UiO (tove.pettersen@ifikk.uio.no) by April 1st, 2012.4/1/12

Philosophy Graduate Student Association Nineteenth Annual Graduate Conference in Philosophy

March 1 & 2, 2012

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Helen Longino (Stanford University)

Submission Deadline: January 2, 2012

We welcome high quality submissions from graduate students in all areas of philosophy. Papers in the areas of philosophy of science, objectivity, pluralism, and social epistemology will be given special consideration. Given Dr. Longino’s work on gender theory and feminism we particularly encourage submissions in these areas as well.

Submission Requirements:

Papers should be between 4000 and 5000 words. They must be prepared for blind review and must include, on a separate cover sheet, the following information:

• Paper title

• Author’s name

• Institutional affiliation

• E-mail address

• A short abstract

• Word count

Please e-mail your submissions in any of .doc, .docx or .pdf format to: pgsa@uwaterloo.ca

For more information about the University of Waterloo Philosophy Graduate Student Association and its activities, please visit: http://artsweb.uwaterloo.ca/~pgsa

Coordinating with the campus community’s marathon reading of the Confessions on November 7, Bente Polites, Special Collections librarian, has mounted a small exhibit of the early editions of Saint Augustine from Special Collections.

Laura Bang, Special and Digital Collections curatorial assistant, created a complementary online exhibit.

Housed in two glass cases on Falvey’s first floor, the first case features four small books and one large one, all published in the 16^th century in various places: Dillingen (1659), Cologne (1569),  Louvain (1573), Rome (1589) and Würtzburg (1581). The four small Confessions are opened to their illustrated title pages; the large central volume displays text only.

The second case houses three 17^th century editions and one unusual volume published in 1900. The three works from the 1600s are opened; two have illustrated title pages.

The larger volume of Confessions is one of 400 limited-edition copies published in London by Kegan Paul, Trench Trübner & Co. Ltd. Falvey’s copy is number 227. Its decorative cover, which includes gold leaf and inlaid mother-of-pearl and was designed by Cedric Chivers (1853-1929), is made with vellucent, a process invented by Chivers. The book cover was painted on paper which was then covered with very thin vellum, or calfskin.

This small exhibit provides a glimpse of the larger collection housed in Special Collections. Polites has made an assiduous “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 its Augustiniana collection.

This exhibit will remain on display throughout November.

Contributed by Alice Bampton

The library website’s search feature has been recently updated. There are two important improvements: better website searching and easier holds and recalls of books in the collection.

The new library website search helps you find pages within the library’s website. Pages searched include this blog, the help center, librarian-provided research guides, and our knowledge base of useful databases and links. New faceted search capabilities in the “Refine Search” sidebar allow you to easily narrow in on your area of study.

Holds and recalls are useful ways of making sure that you get the books you need. A hold allows you to request that an on-shelf book be set aside for you. A recall is a way of requesting the return of a book checked out by another person.

Placing holds and recalls in the online catalog is much more convenient than it used to be. Simply log into the catalog through the “My Account” link at the top of the page using your Villanova username and password. The first time you use this feature, you will be prompted to enter your Wildcard number, but the catalog will remember this for you in the future.

If an item is available, click “Place a hold.”

If an item is checked out, click “Recall this.”

If you need an item quickly and do not want to place a recall, you can also request it through E-ZBorrow or ILL.

Questions or problems? You can always contact the library’s information desk at (610) 519-4270.

Contributed by Demian Katz and Alexandra Edwards

Why is there a tent in Falvey? A camp site? A new study space? No, this tent was erected by Nova 99%, a group of Villanovans who sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Occupy Wall Street and other Occupy locales represent people“discontented with a corporate run America, growing inequality, destruction of the middle class, and the unregulated, avaricious financial gambling that brought on the world-wide recession,” according to one handout.

Ward Barnes staffing the Nova99% table in the Library.

Nova99% evolved from a message posted on the University student newswire by Karyn Hollis, PhD, and William (Will) Stehl. Dr. Hollis is a member of the English department. Stehl is the associate director of Campus Ministry-Center for Peace and Justice Education.

Luisa Cywinski, team leader of Access Services, Falvey Memorial Library, attended the meeting called to gather support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. On behalf of Nova 99%, Cywinski obtained permission from Joe Lucia, library director, to set up the tent in Falvey where it serves as a symbol for the movement. Cywinski noted that the tent will remain “as long as there is a need  to support Occupy Wall Street.”

Nova99% members hope that others will post comments on the tent. Cywinski also said that Paul Sheldon, PhD, a member of the Psychology department, who, along with Dr. Hollis, is an advisor for Villanovans for Peace, has been an “amazing resource.” Dr. Sheldon, manning the information table in Falvey one afternoon, commented that he has been protesting a long time, since the Vietnam War era.

Join the national conversation. Add your thoughts below.

Article and photograph by Alice Bampton

Introducing two new library guides!

Finding Full Text

This guide includes several video tutorials demonstrating different methods for accessing the full text of library materials.  Topics include how to access the full text when you have a full or partial article citation, how to link to full text when searching a library database, how to find full text from the library’s online catalog, and how to link to the library’s full text subscriptions through Google Scholar.

DOI: Digital Object Identifier

Have you been painstakingly searching out DOIs for your reference lists but don’t really understand what they are all about or how they are useful to you?  This guide covers what a DOI is, where to find it, how to cite it, and how to use it to quickly find articles.

Melanie Wood, a native of Newark, N.Y., recently joined Falvey as an Academic Integration support specialist, filling the position previously held by Anne Ford. Wood came to Villanova from Athens, Ga., where she worked as the Public Service/Reserves Coordinator at the University of Georgia’s main library. She will provide clerical assistance to the subject librarians and also work at the information desk.

Wood earned an associate in arts degree from Finger Lakes Community College, Canandaigua, N.Y. From there, she moved to Athens where she attended the University of Georgia, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies. She hopes to complete her degree at Villanova.

In her free time, Wood enjoys reading, watching movies and baking.

Photo by Alice Bampton

Joan L. Saverino, PhD

Falvey Memorial Library is proud to announce this year’s Alfred F. Mannella & Rose T. Lauria-Mannella Distinguished Speakers Series, featuring Joan L. Saverino, PhD. The event will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. in the library first floor lounge.

Dr. Saverino, adjunct professor at Arcadia University in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice, will present a lecture entitled “Embroidery as Inscription in the Life of a Calabrian Immigrant Woman.” This talk explores the intersection of needlework, personal narrative, gender and artistic creativity in one woman’s extraordinary life in two out-of-the-way places—Calabria and Appalachia—over the course of nearly a century.

A lively close reading of one Italian woman artist’s lived experience and self-representation through her artistic repertoire provides the perfect context to discuss change over time in the social and economic lives of Italian women and the communities in which they lived on both sides of the Atlantic. The talk raises larger concerns surrounding issues of women’s role in the (re)production of culture, expands recent research on Italian and Italian immigrant women, and touches on the role of dialogue and reflexivity in the ethnographic process. Dr. Saverino is developing her work into a book-length manuscript.