Famous Hollywood Hills in California, USA. Hollywood Sign. California Photo Collection.

Church of San Barnaba. Photo Credit: Didier Descouens – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19918379

By Regina Duffy 

This summer Falvey Library is going to the movies! Well, we’re using our beloved Library’s resources to research the coolest film scenes set in libraries. So grab a seat and a box of popcorn because the we’re going to look at when libraries go to Hollywood.

When I think about films with fascinating libraries, something that immediately comes to mind is a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The library in this film plays a pivotal role in helping Indiana Jones reach an initial breakthrough in a mystery he’s trying to solve.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, released in 1989, is the third film in the ever-popular Indiana Jones franchise. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford and the late great Sean Connery, it seems to be one of those films that stands the test of time. It has everything a movie-lover could possibly want—mystery, suspense, adventure, cool scenery, great action scenes, feisty dialogue, and dynamic actors who bring the characters to life on screen.

In the film, which is primarily set in 1938, Dr. Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones, Jr., (Harrison Ford) an esteemed professor and archeologist, sets out on a mission to find his father, Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery), a professor of Medieval literature, who he learns recently went missing. Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. was in Venice, searching for his obsession, the Holy Grail, and suddenly disappeared. According to the New World Encylopedia, “The Holy Grail is a mythical object or symbol associated with Jesus Christ. In earliest Grail literature, it was described as the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, and was said to possess miraculous powers.” In this film, many believe that drinking from the Holy Grail will give you eternal life, so it is a much sought-after artifact by fellow researchers, collectors, and, as it turns out, Nazis.

Setting out on his quest along with family friend Dr. Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), Indiana uses his father’s detailed Holy Grail diary notes to lead him to Venice, Italy, where he meets a fellow researcher, Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody). There they travel to the location where his father is last seen, a picturesque library, where they follow clues to uncover an underground crypt containing vital information needed to unearth the Holy Grail. In the process they also meet members of a fanatical religious group sworn to protect the Holy Grail who tell them that Dr. Jones, Sr. is being held against his will at a castle on the German-Austrian border.

More chaos and hijinks ensue on the path to saving Indiana’s father and in pursuit of the Holy Grail, but you’ll have to watch the film to experience the full cinematic adventure!

When looking up information about this scene, I discovered to my surprise that the library is not actually a library at all! The façade of the library was a church in Venice, Italy, called the Church of San Barnaba. Today, the church features exhibits. I learned that the scenes filmed inside of the library were actually shot in a studio, not in the Church of San Barnaba. Nevertheless, the library represents a gateway to knowledge in this film, so it would make sense that this setting is utilized as one of the major vehicles of discovery for Indiana, a man who values research and education.

Fun fact: there is also an exhilarating library scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This 2008 film received mixed responses from audiences, but I still enjoy going on the nostalgic adventure. The Reading Room in this film reminds me of Falvey’s Dugan Polk Reading Room with its high ceilings.

Want to follow in the footsteps of Indiana Jones and company on their journey? Learn more about the Holy Grail, the city of Venice, and more, below!

The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief  (Richard W. Barber)

Eternal Chalice: The Enduring Legend of the Holy Grail (Juliette Wood)

Servants of the Grail: The Real-Life Characters of the Grail Legend Identified (Filip Coppens)

Venice Walks (Jo-Ann Titmarsh)

Venice, the Tourist Maze: A Cultural Critique of the World’s Most Touristed City (Robert C. Davis, Garry Marvin)

The Cinema of Steven Spielberg: Empire of Light (Nigel Morris)

Excavating Indiana Jones: Essays on the Films and Franchise (Randy Laist)

Borrow Indiana Jones series via Interlibrary Loan:

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The Indiana Jones series is also available via Disney+ for those who have a paid subscription to that streaming platform.

Be sure to check out the final movie in the series, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), in theatres now.

Regina Duffy is a Communication and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Library.

With summer break well underway, campus has been calm and quiet; the usual hustle and bustle has slowed down significantly. Yet, while it may look still on the surface, a lot of activity continues behind the scenes at Falvey Library.

Over the past few weeks, Falvey has had many book returns and check outs, held librarian consultations, hosted events and meetings, and facilitated the purchase and renewal of vital resources like books and databases to aid in scholarship on campus. There is always careful planning and preparation being made to support academic life at Villanova.

Some of this library activity is highlighted in Find it At Falvey!, our monthly e-newsletter. We invite faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends, to subscribe to this e-newsletter, which features current service hours, new resources, special blog stories, news, upcoming events, exhibits, and noteworthy programs.

We look forward to a vibrant and robust campus in just a few weeks. Until then, please subscribe to Find it At Falvey! here so you don’t miss out on the latest updates!

Regina Duffy is a Communication and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Library.

Have you felt overwhelmed by the cost of course materials and options for getting the books you need? You’re not alone. Join us virtually on Tuesday, May 30 from 6-7 p.m. to share tips with your peers and learn how Falvey Library can help. Nicole Daly, Social Sciences librarian, is hosting “Textbook Tuesday” to explore different ways to save money on class materials. Attendees will be able to use their newfound knowledge to check out options for sourcing their course materials with a librarian’s assistance.

This event is free and open to Villanova students, parents, faculty, and staff who are interested!

REGISTER HERE

The Digital Scholarship Lab will have reduced hours for summer starting on Monday, May 15. The Lab is open by reservation-only during the following days and times, except during Villanova holidays and closures:

Mondays: Closed
Tuesdays: Closed
Wednesdays: 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Thursdays: 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Fridays: Closed

The Digital Scholarship Lab is designed to support Villanova faculty, students, and staff who are working on creating digital projects and/or are experimenting with digital media, digital humanities, and data-intensive research and teaching. The Lab offers an expanded range of software covering a variety of digital methods and tasks, including but not limited to geospatial mapping, data visualization, text and data mining, and multimodal publishing.

Please visit the Digital Scholarship Lab webpage to learn more about software, technology equipment loan offerings

If you need assistance with a digital project you are working on or have questions about specific software, you are encouraged schedule a consultation.

Contact us at digitalscholarship@villanova.edu or reach out to Erica Hayes, Digital Scholarship Librarian at erica.hayes@villanova.edu to schedule a consultation.

Attention all undergrad and recent grad researchers!

Have you participated in extensive research this academic year?

Villanova’s very own peer-reviewed journal is seeking submissions from dedicated undergraduates who have developed their own research—both completed and ongoing!

Veritas accepts submissions starting from 250 words. To submit, please contact veritasjournal@villanova.edu. The deadline for article submissions for the 2023 fall issue is on Friday, June 16! More details on the official website below can be found here.

If you’re still not convinced to submit, perhaps the most recent issue of Veritas will persuade you.

Happy researching, everyone!

Isabel Choi ’26, is Communication & Marketing Assistant at Falvey Library.

Villanova faculty, staff, students, and friends are cordially invited to join us on Wednesday, April 26, from 5-6 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for the annual Ida B. Wells Lecture featuring Michael G. Hanchard, PhD, Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor in the Africana Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Marginalized Populations Project.

At this lecture Dr. Hanchard will address some of the social and political challenges facing African-Americans, in comparative perspective with the challenges facing Africans and Afro-descendant populations in the UK and France. In addition, he will draw on themes and research from his recent book, The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy (Princeton University Press).

This ACS-approved event is co-sponsored by the Africana Studies Program,  Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology, French and Francophone Studies, and Falvey Library. Light refreshments will be served.

Please join us on Wednesday, April 19, at 7 p.m. at Villanova University’s Falvey Library for the 2022-2023 Alfred F. Mannella and Rose T. Lauria-Mannella Endowed Distinguished Speaker Series Lecture presented by Peter Spina. Spina’s talk is titled, “The Italian Heritage of American Popular Music.” The talk will be held in the Library’s Speakers’ Corner on the first floor.

The rich musical heritage that Italian immigrants brought with them at the turn of the last century has had a major impact on shaping United States culture.  From the birth of the nation’s commercial music industry in the early 1900’s through its evolution into American post-World War II pop, Italians had an outsized role and impact.  Join us as Mr. Spina delves into how this occurred and discusses some of the key artists that led the way, particularly those from the Philadelphia Italian-American community.

This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by Falvey Library and the Italian Studies Program, is free and open to the public.

About the Alfred F. Mannella and Rose T. Lauria-Mannella Distinguished Speakers Series: 
The generosity of Villanova University alumnus Alfred S. Mannella has made it possible for Falvey Library to sponsor a series of annual events, focusing on scholarship about Italian American history, culture, and the immigrant experience. The endowed lecture series is named for his parents, Alfred F. and Rose T. Lauria-Mannella. The talks in the Speakers series are held in the Library at the heart of Villanova University’s campus. They are open to the wider community and, as always, are free to everyone, including the public.

Map and Directions

Visitor and Guesting Parking 

Faculty, staff, students, and friends are cordially invited to join us on Monday, April 17 from 5-6 p.m. at Villanova University’s Falvey Library for the annual Senghor-Damas-Césaire Lecture for Africana Studies. The event will take place in Speakers’ Corner, located on the Library’s first floor.

The Senghor-Damas-Césaire Lecture focuses on African issues and issues connected to the global Black diaspora. The featured speaker will be Kris Manjapra, PhD, Professor, Department of History, Tufts University. Dr. Manjapra works at the intersection of transnational history and the critical study of race and colonialism. He is the author of five books, including his comparative study of global emancipation processes and the implications for reparations movement today: Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation.

This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by the Africana Studies Program, Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies, and Falvey Library, is free and open to the public. Registration is not required to attend this event.

Faculty, staff, students, and friends are cordially invited to join us on Wednesday, April 19 at 4 p.m. in Villanova University’s Connelly Cinema for a special event titled, “Bridging Cultures: A Celebration of Arab and Palestinian Music.”

The event will feature Issa Boulos, an international award-winning composer, lyricist and songwriter. Issa Boulos studied piano, ‘ud and voice at an early age and later pursued music composition with Gustavo Leone, Athanasios Zervas, and William Russo at Columbia College Chicago and with Robert Lombardo and Ilya Levinson at Roosevelt University.

This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by the Center for Arabic and Islamic Studies, the Department of Spanish, and Falvey Library, is free and open to the public.

Please join us on Thursday, April 13 at 4 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for a Scholarship@Villanova talk featuring Alessandra Seggi, PhD, Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology. Dr. Seggi will present a talk titled “Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: All the Silence We Don’t Talk About.“

A large project, which culminated in the publication of Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: Context, Causes, and Consequences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), examined the portrayal of youth and suicide in American films (N=187) from 1900 to 2019, with particular attention to the context, causes and consequences of suicide. It also teased out insidious yet fascinating social dynamics around suicidality involving both the suicidal individual and their friends and family. The analysis concluded that the portrayal of youth and suicide in film is controversial, or at least unbalanced, inconsistent, limited, and at times simplistic. Other times it can be stifling in its brutal honesty, yet rich and thought-provoking. Hence, rather than obliterate or block certain content from reaching audiences, or suggest certain reactions to audiences, young audiences need to think for themselves and question the media.

A proactive approach for audiences to interpret film messages can help youth—a media literacy strategy to embrace as active social players, while watching these films. This is a tool for empowering audiences, and helping them watch and analyze films as engaged citizens, and ultimately “for strengthening young people’s participation in civic and political life” (Hobbs, 2011, p. 421–422). Indeed, only when audiences are able to tease apart the varied, nuanced, transient, complex media messages, are they able to negotiate meaning for themselves, act as engaged social players, and perhaps begin to comprehend suicidality, and “heal the hearts or settle the minds of those left behind in its dreadful wake” (Jamison, 1999, p. 18).

Importantly, silence, by intruding into several interactions, dramatically alters them. Yet, it rarely gets talked about. So, for example, the physical and emotional consequences of suicidality on the suicidal individual are almost never tackled in film. The consequences of suicidality on the bereaved are even more infrequent object of conversation. There are yet other ways for silence to complicate relationships and affect someone’s suicidality. Silence hides complicity, when not voicing our concerns when we have some, or not speaking up in front of injustice, or not seeking help when in a crisis. It also demonstrates how we become complicit in perpetuating injustice, how we might aggravate our condition, or how we might perpetuate a life in suicidal mode, as well as perpetuating the path of least resistance. Only a few films, notably Captain Fantastic, Permanent Record, and Surviving Family, offer a vivid depiction of the desolation that friends and family experience after a suicide. Beyond the Lights shows how being embedded in a web of social relationships can offer the suicidal individual mixed messages—on the one hand, suicidality is not to be talked about; on the other, asking for and receiving help are essential steps in one’s recovery. A few other exceptional films from different eras and with varying styles, such as A Girl Like Her, Something Wild and Full Metal Jacket, showcase how silence exacerbates the consequences of trauma.

This ACS-approved event, co-sponsored by Falvey Library, the Department of Sociology and Criminology and the Department of Communication, is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

References:

Hobbs, R. (2011). The state of media literacy: A response to Potter. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55(3), 419–430.

Jamison, K. R. (1999). Night falls fast: Understanding suicide. Vintage Books.