Access to Villanova’s electronic journals and databases was interrupted over the weekend, and service has now been restored.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

The Library is a busy place, but during finals Falvey Memorial Library becomes even more of a hub for studying students. In Learning Support Services (located in the Learning Commons), we are keen observers of student study habits. As the campus population prepares for final exams, we want to share our top Do’s and Don’ts:

Do get enough sleep.

Even though Falvey Library’s 24-hour lounge is available, pulling an all-nighter is rarely a good idea. If you are too tired to think, you probably will not do well on your exam. Try using our end of semester calendar (found on our website) to plan out your prep so you don’t leave it all until the night before the big exam.

Don’t let distractions get the best of you.

Without the structure of regular class sessions leading up to and during finals week, it is easy to get swept up in a variety of tempting distractions. Netflix binge? Sure! A day lounging on Sheehan Beach? Why not?! Have fun, but strike a good balance between studying and free time.

Do find a study buddy.

Speaking of distractions, working in pairs or groups can be beneficial as long as you don’t use it as an excuse to procrastinate. Even if you prefer to study alone, consider teaming up with a friend while prepping for exams or working on that term paper. By choosing to study in the same place at the same time, you can support each other in achieving your goals.

Try pausing every hour to either quiz each other on material or read aloud sections from your essays. Have trouble resisting your phone or the pull of social media? If you are working at the same library table, trade phones with your study buddy for brief periods of time and agree to not answer them. That way, you know your phone is within reach, but you are not tempted to look at it every two minutes.

Don’t forget to test yourself.

The way students study is just as important as the time they devote to test prep.  If you are not seeing as much success as you would like on your exams, there is a good chance you need to inject more self-testing into your study plan. Sites like Quizlet and Study Stack can be helpful. Notecards or two-column notes are old standbys. Practice tests and questions from the back of the chapter can also do the trick. The bottom line is: simply looking over your notes is not going to be as effective as self-testing.

We welcome the throngs of students who are about to come join us in the Learning Commons, and we wish you all luck on your final exams and papers! For additional learning strategies and stress management tips, check out the LSS website.

Article by Nicole Subik, learning specialist, Learning Support Services

The Library is closed on Monday, Jan. 20, in recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Regular hours are in effect for the rest of the preceding weekend.

To provide students with additional late night study facilities, the main Library will have extended hours beginning today, Monday, Dec. 9th. We’ll be open most nights until 3:00 a.m. As always, the 24/7 lounge is accessible via wildcard access. Check the Hours link on the library homepage for a full listing of extended hours.

And, now open for its inaugural finals season, the Falvey Hall lounge and Reading Room provide a cozy and inspirational space for quiet study.

From everyone at Falvey, good luck on your papers and final exams!

By Darren Poley

It is a new era. I first found out about the ancient tradition of the white smoke created by the burning of the ballots from the papal election by an alert from PopeAlarm.com. White smoke indicated a new Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church had been chosen, and he had accepted. “Friends” were buzzing about it on Facebook.com. We watched the video streamed live from the Vatican City over the Internet by the Eternal Word Television Network. And finally the announcement came on Twitter. Cardinal-electors of the Catholic Church had inaugurated a pope of firsts. He is the first pope from Latin America. He has chosen a papal name never before used, Francis. And while some popes in the history of the Church have been members of religious orders, Francis I is the first Jesuit. He is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and until March 13, 2013, he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The official Vatican Web Site is slow to come up, probably due to the amount of cyber traffic it is getting. But nearly every news outlet by now has announced the election of a new Bishop of Rome, the visible head of the Catholic Church. For the statement on the election of Pope Francis by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, visit the USCCB Web Site.

Darren Poley is the theology and religious studies subject librarian.

By Darren G. Poley, theology and religious studies subject librarian

If you were to search by subject in Falvey’s catalog using the term “Feminist theology,” it would be clear that this is a subject heading which will give good results—too many perhaps. So using a more specific descriptor such as “Ecofeminism” or “Womanist theology” may be the way to go. One can also find additional materials by searching a related subject term. Some examples are “Liberation theology,” “Feminist ethics,” “Feminism Religious aspects,” “Women and religion” and “Women’s studies.”

Although the New Catholic Encyclopedia has an article on “Feminist Hermeneutics,” to find works of biblical interpretation by feminist authors it is better to use the subject phrase: “Bible Feminist criticism.” And instead of Latina theology use the broader subject heading: “Hispanic American theology.”

What about searching databases for articles? When searching in the ATLA Religion database, ProQuest Central, JSTOR or Humanities Full Text database, the search phrase “Feminist theology” will work very well. When searching Project Muse, enter the terms “Feminism” and “Theology” using the AND operator to combine them.

There are also some very good handbooks in the Falvey West stacks: The Oxford handbook of feminist theology, Handbook of Latina/o theologies and Handbook of gender and women’s studies. Falvey has The Cambridge companion to feminist theology available in both print and online formats.

Image courtesy of Librarything.com

Nikolaus Fogle, Falvey’s philosophy librarian, publishes news from the world of philosophy. Read it here on a regular basis.

Stay connected. The Falvey Blogs cover library news, history, political science, social sciences, business, philosophy, nursing, digital humanities, library technology development and the Digital Library.

There appears to be a network outage in the Philadelphia area on one of the routers utilized by the University’s internet service provider (ISP). UNIT is working with them to resolve the routing problem.

In the meantime, using the University’s Virtual Private Network (VPN) appears to be an acceptable short term work around  for faculty and staff. Here are instructions on how to install/use it.

http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/unit/MobileComputing/gateway0.html

Students who live outside of the Philadelphia area may contact us directly for research assistance at either 610-519-4270 or at ref@villanova.edu. Our online chat may also be available from the homepage. Look for the green “Ask a Librarian: Live Chat” button in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

We apologize for any inconvenience this network outage may cause our users and colleagues.

By Linda Hauck and Merrill Stein

E-Book Survey at Falvey, Spring 2012

Anyone with even a passing interest in reading books, book publishing, libraries or gadgets has noticed that e-books have finally reached that long predicted tipping point to become mainstream. They’re not just for geeky gadget lovers anymore. To glean a clearer picture of how they’d like to see the library collection evolve, we took a closer look at how students and faculty are using our e-books.

History of e-Books at Falvey

E-books (not just digital encyclopedias) have been a part of Falvey Memorial Library’s collection mix since well before the tipping point. In the 1990s Falvey joined a library consortium to purchase a collection of individual titles via NetLibrary, an academic e-book pioneer that has since been acquired by EBSCO Publishing.

Our very first e-books weren’t online at all. In the mid 1990’s the Library purchased CDs with the text of Past Masters and the Library of Latin Texts , both of which were not online. We subscribed to our first online e-book collection, Patrologia Latina, in 1997.

In 2008, the reference librarians undertook a major initiative to shift our reference book collection from print to online. In that year we significantly expanded access to digital encyclopedias, directories, compendia and handbooks. Since we started tracking e-book purchases as a distinct “book” material type, spending on e-books vs. print books has grown from 9.9% in 2007/8 to a plateau of 12.6% in 2008/9 and 12.4% in 2009/10 with a jump to 22.6% in 2010/11.

Falvey’s absolute spending on e-books is much closer to the average spent on e-books in 2011 by graduate and professional libraries than undergraduate libraries, according to a 2011 Library Journal article. However, at 2.9% it is well below the median for graduate/professional libraries (4.5%), undergraduate libraries (3.4%) and also $1million-acquisitions-budget libraries (4.4%).

Our Survey

Until now our understanding of e-book usage patterns by Falvey Memorial Library patrons has been viewed through the prism of usage statistics and unstructured conversations with students and faculty. To view e-book usage from another angle, an online survey was made available, via a link on our website banner, to self-selected respondents during four weeks in the spring of 2012. Six questions looked at the use of Falvey e-books, purpose for use, device used for access, perceived usability and discovery modes. To encourage participation, respondents were entered into a random drawing for one of three $20.00 gift cards.

In total, 88 participants responded, including nearly even numbers undergraduate (45.6%) and graduate students (43.3%). Of the remaining respondents, seven (7.8%) were faculty members and six (6.6%) were staff members or other. The low response rate by faculty makes any conclusions about e-book behavior and preferences for these community members tenuous. (more…)