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Database Trial: Access World News

By Susan Turkel

Falvey Memorial Library is hosting a trial to Access World News, a full-text gateway to articles from local, regional, and international newspapers and magazines, as well as television and radio transcripts. It combines full-text articles, web-only content, and PDF image editions into a single interface, and includes both archival and current content.

Access World News offers more than 12,000 different news sources, including the Philadelphia Inquirer (full images of every page since 2018, and full text since 1981), NPR’s Morning Edition and Fresh Air, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Miami Herald, the Jerusalem Post, and the Irish Times. It excels in providing local news, and offers more than 300 Pennsylvania news sources, including the Main Line Times, State College’s Centre Daily Times, the Reading Eagle, Philadelphia Magazine, and a variety of college and university newspapers. Explore the full title list.

Browse Access World News by location

Search the full database, or browse by location, by date, or by topic. The front page allows you to view a world map and navigate to a country or state, seeing the list of news sources from that region as you focus your inquiry. If you need help thinking of a topic, use the subject browser that allows you to drill down through a series of layers to get to a useful list of articles on a timely subject.

Explore Access World News and let us know what you think! We simultaneously have trials to two competing news databases, Factiva and ProQuest’s Global Newsstream. Please take a moment to share your feedback on these resources with the library. The trials run through Sept. 30, 2021, and all of these resources will be available from the Databases A-Z list during the trial period.


Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Summer Movie Nights

By Susan Turkel

Have you watched everything on Netflix? Are you done with Amazon Prime and Hulu? Are you ready for something different? The Library can help!

Falvey Memorial Library provides the Villanova community with access to thousands of videos via our streaming subscriptions. We have an online guide —  Streaming Video at Falvey — that will help you get started in your cinematic explorations.

Read on for a taste of the resources and films that are available to you.

Theater on Video

Theater fans will enjoy viewing a variety of filmed stage performances. On the Boards features contemporary works by both international and U.S.-based artists in dance, theater, music, and more. BBC Shakespeare Plays and the Royal Shakespeare Company Collection offer many interpretations of classic works by the Bard. Broadway HD features filmed productions from the iconic theater capital of the United States.

UK-based Digital Theatre+ includes a wide variety of filmed performances, from 21st century pieces by Eclipse Theatre (the UK’s leading Black-led national touring company) to works by Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller, and Sophocles. A highlight of Digital Theatre+ is the National Theatre Collection, which includes high quality recordings never previously seen outside of the NT’s Archive. 

Feature Films and Documentaries on AVON

Not into theater? There is something for everyone in Academic Video Online (AVON). Despite its name, AVON offers award-winning dramas, love stories, animated films, and comedies, as well as gripping documentaries. Search by title, actor name, director, or keyword to get started. 

Two excellent collections within AVON are Sony Pictures Classics, mainly for feature films and foreign films, and Film Platform, mostly for documentaries from the U.S. and around the world. See below for a selection of their offerings.

More Great Films on Swank and Kanopy

Packages like AVON are a grab bag; Villanova has no control over which films we can offer you on their platform. The Library also licenses individual films based on faculty requests, for use in specific courses. Once we’ve licensed the film, we are able to offer access via the library catalog to anyone at Villanova for your individual viewing enjoyment. 

These films can be found on two platforms: Kanopy and Swank. There are many great films available to the Villanova community on these platforms in a variety of genres.

Our current Kanopy list includes many foreign films and documentaries, including Rashomon, Stonewall Uprising, YI YI, and Paris is Burning.

You’ll find more popular, “big screen” films on Swank, including Get Out, Black Panther, Dallas Buyers Club, and The Silence of the Lambs.

All of these licenses are limited-term; you’ll see the end date near the access link in the library catalog.

Falvey is happy to help keep you entertained this summer. Pop your popcorn, fluff up your pillows, and settle in for a night at the movies! 


Susan Turkel, MA, MLS, is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Free and Open Resources for Academic Research!

Open the door to research! (Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash)

By Susan Turkel

Villanova University spends a large part of its library budget on online journals, electronic books, and specialized scholarly search engines. These resources, such as Oxford Bibliographies Online, PsycINFO, the ATLA Religion Database, Compendex, and Advertising Age Datacenter, are invaluable resources for students in relevant fields.

The problem, however, is that the Library is essentially renting these resources from vendors, and we are therefore limited in how much we can share and with whom. For example, we would love to make these resources available to Villanova alumni and guests, but the Library is required to sign license agreements with resource vendors that restrict access to current students, staff, and faculty (plus walk-in users, when the building is open to guests). This means that as a student, after you graduate, your remote access to these resources disappears within several weeks.

Start your research here (Photo by Surface on Unsplash)

We have good news! Some publishers and authors choose to make their work available to all, regardless of university affiliation (“open access” resources), and we’ve created a guide listing free and openly available academic search engines, e-book collections, and e-journal collections, along with links to more extensive listings from other libraries.

View the new research guide here: Open Access and Freely Available Resources.

As the guide suggests, a great place to start your research is Google Scholar. This powerful database indexes the full text of online journals in all fields, as well as electronic books and materials in academic repositories. It provides links to full text when possible; if a free version of the item is not available, you can use the author/title/publication information in Google Scholar to request the full article or book via Interlibrary Loan from your public library.

You can also download browser extensions, such as Unpaywall, CORE Discovery, or the Open Access Button, to help you find or request free versions of a resource.

Many of the resources on the new guide are available to all, rather than hidden behind a paywall or licensing restrictions, because they are published as Open Access (OA) projects. Guided by the principle that it is beneficial for society when scholarly research is available without barriers, OA materials are online research outputs that are made available without cost to the reader. Instead, the expenses associated with OA publications are covered by the authors, their institutions, and/or grant funding. There are a variety of OA publications, repositories, software, and projects out there; read more about OA in Peter Suber’s Open Access Overview.

Falvey Memorial Library places a high value on openness. As stated in the Values statement on the Library website,

Openness

We believe that the broad sharing of information, ideas, knowledge, skills, and tools benefits society by enabling information equality, facilitating life-long learning, and driving innovation. We support and encourage open access publishing, open content, and open source software. We strive to make our resources accessible to all. We promote the open exchange of ideas and transparency in communication and decision-making.

Many Falvey initiatives demonstrate our commitment to openness. Here are some examples.

Read freely! (Photo by Ying Ge on Unsplash)

Falvey Open Access Collections

Falvey Open Access Support for Faculty, Staff, and Students

  • Falvey provides financial support to qualifying VU researchers who need help paying processing fees in order to publish open access via the Scholarship Open Access Reserve (SOAR) Fund program.
  • Sarah Wipperman joined Falvey in early 2020 as our first Scholarly Communications Librarian. Sarah is our expert on helping Villanova researchers navigate copyright, author rights, and making their work more visible and openly accessible.
  • Villanova University’s Affordable Materials Project is a campus-wide collaboration that intended to help faculty select high-quality, affordable course materials. The library’s participation includes helping instructors find and adopt open educational resources (OER), which are online, open access course materials.

Falvey Open Software

  • Falvey supports open source software: our Technology Team developed and maintains VuFind, a widely used open source library resource portal. When you search our library catalog or look for articles via the library’s search box, you’re using VuFind!

For more information about Open Access, please explore the websites linked above, and/or contact Sarah Wipperman.


Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. Thanks go to Michael Foight, Rebecca Oviedo, Jutta Seibert, Marianne Watson, and Sarah Wipperman for their input on this article.

 


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It’s Women’s History Month! Read, Watch, Learn

In 1987, the U.S. Congress declared March to be National Women’s History Month. Coordinated by the National Women’s History Alliance, this annual celebration seeks to recognize “the diverse and significant historical accomplishments of women.”

This year’s theme is Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to be Silenced in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

Want to read about women’s suffrage? Historian Susan Ware recommends these five books:

1. The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault (e-book or print book at Falvey)

2. The Concise History of Woman Suffrage by Mari Jo Buhle & Paul Buhle (order via Interlibrary Loan)

3. All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900 by Martha S. Jones (e-book or print book at Falvey)

4. The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss (order via Interlibrary Loan)

5. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexander Keyssar (e-book or print book at Falvey)

 


Are you doing research on a gender-related topic? Falvey has you covered! We have everything you need: journals, books, search engines for finding resources, and databases containing primary source materials to answer all of your gender and women’s studies questions! Visit the our Subject Guide on Gender & Women’s Studies, and be sure to check out these resources:

We subscribe to all of the top journals in the field, including:

Great interdisciplinary databases to help you find journal articles, books, news, and more:

GenderWatch

GenderWatch includes indexing, abstracts, and full text of scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and reports in many disciplines on topics relevant to gender studies. This database is particularly strong in its coverage of dissertations and non-mainstream magazines and newspapers.

Gender Studies Database

Gender Studies Database provides indexing and abstracts for academic and professional journals, conference papers, books, book chapters, government reports, discussion and working papers, theses & dissertations and other sources. GSD combines Women’s Studies International and Men’s Studies databases with the coverage of sexual diversity issues, and is very strong in its coverage of health sciences journals as well as other academic journals.

 

Primary sources and historical documents:

Source: Digital Transgender Archive

Digital Transgender Archive (Free to all users)

This resource provides “an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world” related to transgender history. The project is based at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and is searchable and browsable by map, institution, collection, topic, and genre. The contents of the collection focus on materials created before 2000.

 

Source: Adam Matthew Digital

Gender: Identity and Social Change

This database provides access to primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Offers sources for the study of women’s suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics. Falvey licenses this resource from Adam Matthew Digital.

The Gerritsen Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs

The Gerritsen Collection features digital copies of more than 4000 books and pamphlets and complete runs of more than 200 periodicals related to women’s history in general and the movement for women’s rights in particular. It includes materials addressing both the pro-feminist and anti-feminist case, as well as other materials that provide an objective look at the condition of women in a given time of place. Its coverage is international, and extends from the middle of the 15th century to the middle of the 20th century. Each of the books, pamphlets, and periodical titles has its own listing in Falvey’s library catalog.

 

E-Book Collections:

Duke Gender Studies e-book Collection

The Duke Gender Studies e-book collection includes “essential titles and field-defining scholarship in queer theory, gay and lesbian studies, transgender studies, feminist theory, and women’s studies.” This collection is comprised of more than 500 titles published between 1990 and the present. Each book is fully downloadable and printable (chapter by chapter), and is accessible by an unlimited number of VU community members at once.

Perdita Manuscripts

Offers digital copies of writings by early modern women (1500-1700). The name of the collection, derived from the Latin word for “lost,” alludes to the ephemeral nature of women’s writings which were rarely published and widely shared. Genres represented in the collection range from poetry and religious writings to letters, recipes, and account books. Includes manuscript descriptions with partial transcriptions and detailed annotations where available. The collection is part of the Perdita Project. The manuscripts are held by libraries and archives in the US and UK. Includes pdf files for all manuscripts. Licensed from Adam Matthew Digital.

 

Film and Video:

Academic Video Online

Academic Video Online, or AVON, offers more than 70,000 films and documentary TV episodes from distributors including PBS, the BBC, Bullfrog Films, Ro*Co Films, California Newsreel, and many others. Most films include searchable full text transcripts. Here are some subcollections focused on women’s history:

Women’s and Gender Studies Video Online

– Women’s History Month: Celebrating Artists Who are Women

Films on Women’s Suffrage

 

Data and statistics:

Source: WomanStats Project

WomanStats Project (Free to all users)

The WomanStats Project is the most comprehensive compilation of information on the status of women in the world with qualitative and quantitative information on over 260 indicators of women’s status in 174 countries. To view the data, you first need to create a free account.

 Women, Peace and Security Index (Free to all users)

Measures women’s well-being in 167 countries around the world. It examines three dimensions of women’s lives: inclusion (political, social, economic); justice (formal laws and informal discrimination); and security (at the family, community, and societal levels). A score between 0 (worst possible) and 1 (best possible) is generated for each country, ultimately determining their rank. Begun in 2017/18, the index was created by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security in partnership with the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

Statista

Statista is a user-friendly data portal offering tables, graphs, reports, and more on over 80,000 topics from more than 18,000 sources. Women- and gender-related data points covered include information on health, employment and career, consumer behavior, women’s portrayal in media, political behavior, demographics, and public opinion.

For help with your research in Gender and Women’s Studies, please contact the GWS Librarian Jutta Seibert.


Susan Turkel, MA, MLS is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

 

 


 


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Black History in Documentary Films

February is over, but at Falvey, Black history is always part of our collections. One way to learn about facets of this vital component of American history is through documentary films. Read on to learn about some library-subscribed streaming video platforms, and to get some great film recommendations!

Falvey offers Villanova’s students, staff, and faculty access to thousands of documentaries via our streaming subscriptions. Most of our documentaries come to us via Academic Video Online (also known as AVON). AVON offers more than 70,000 films and documentary TV episodes from distributors including PBS, the BBC, Bullfrog Films, Ro*Co Films, California Newsreel, and many others. Most films include searchable full text transcripts. Browse the Film Platform and Black Studies subcollections to get a sampling of AVON’s contents.

Academic Video Online (ProQuest) – Images from the Black Studies film collection

We also license a changing set of documentaries and feature films on the Kanopy platform. You can think of these films as long-term rentals, selected on the basis of faculty requests. Once campus-wide access is purchased, the film remains available via the library catalog for up to three years. Click here to view the films currently available to the Villanova community via Kanopy.

Here are ten documentaries currently screening via AVON and Kanopy that relate to the history of Black Americans. Click the image to access the film.

Banished: A History of African American Expulsion (2007)

 

Black and Blue (1987)
On the history of race and policing in Philadelphia

 

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2016)

 

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

 

John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020)

 

Let the Fire Burn: Tragedy in Philadelphia (2013)

 

Olympic Pride – American Prejudice (2016)
On the other 17 Black athletes who participated in
the 1936 Berlin Olympics… beyond Jesse Owens.

 

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow (2002; 4 episodes)

 

T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s (2013)

 

Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (2014)

Enjoy exploring these great films!


Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Ten Resources to Explore for Black History Month

By Susan Turkel

February is Black History Month, and Villanova kicked off its observance last week with the MLK Keynote Address by Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on Wednesday and the Freedom School day of learning on Thursday.

Celebrate Black history anytime by visiting these online resources made available to you by Falvey Memorial Library!


1. African American Studies Center (Oxford University Press)

The African American Studies Center is a comprehensive collection of scholarship focusing on the individuals and events that have shaped African American history and culture. It includes more than 15,000 biographical entries, and thousands of encyclopedia articles and images. You’ll also find more than 500 primary source items, such as speeches, letters, legal documents, and poems.


2. Civil Rights and Social Justice collection (HeinOnline)

The Civil Rights and Social Justice collection brings together a variety of legal materials related to civil rights broadly defined, including protection from discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, religion, age, and ability.

CRSJ includes full text access to legislative histories, hearings and prints, Supreme Court briefs, government reports, law review articles, and publications from the Commission on Civil Rights.


3. Black Drama, Third Edition (Alexander Street Press)

Playbill for “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope”
by Vinnette Carroll and Micki Grant

Black Drama contains more than 1700 full text works by playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. These plays were written between 1850 through the present.

Black Drama contextualizes these plays by providing detailed information about productions, theaters, production companies, as well as ephemera such as playbills and posters.

Many of the works are rare, hard-to-find, or out of print. This unique database includes a large number of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Derek Walcott, Alice Childress, Amiri Baraka, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.


4. Oxford Bibliographies on African American Studies

The Oxford Bibliographies are a set of peer-reviewed, annotated bibliographies with expert commentary on scholarship in a wide variety of disciplines. They’re a great place to start any research project!

Each bibliography entry includes a “FindIt” link, to help you access the recommended book or article via Falvey’s collections.

The African American Studies series includes bibliographies on a wide variety of topics; examples include Political Resistance, African American Doctors, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Ida B. Wells, and Pan-Africanism.


5. Black Historical Newspapers (ProQuest) & African American Newspapers (Accessible Archives)

Newspapers are essential primary source documents, presenting commentary on political, social, and economic events as well as photographs, cartoons, and advertisements.

There have been newspapers published by and for African American in the U.S. since the early 19th century. For more information on using newspapers and magazines as primary source documents, see this guide.

Falvey offers two majors sources for finding these useful materials:

  • African American Newspapers covering the 19th century (including Philadelphia’s Christian Reporter, Douglass’s Monthly, Freedom’s Journal, and the Weekly Advocate)
  • Black Historical Newspapers covering the 20th century (including the Philadelphia Tribune, Chicago Defender, Baltimore African-American, New York Amsterdam News, and many more).

6. Ethnic Newswatch (ProQuest)

Ethnic Newswatch is a news database that provides a direct window into non-mainstream perspectives.

Use Ethnic Newswatch to find newspapers and magazines published by ethnic, cultural, and community presses, mostly in the United States.

This resource contains current content as well as material going back to the 1950s, and includes publications from African American, Hispanic, Arab/Middle Eastern, Jewish, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Indigenous communities.


7. Academic Video Online (Alexander Street Press)

Looking for something to watch? Academic Video Online offers more than 70,000 films and television episodes on a huge variety of topics.

The Black Studies in Video channel offers award-winning documentaries such as John Lewis: Good Trouble and Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, and TV series such as Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and American Experience: Eyes on the Prize.

Each film can be streamed online, and comes with a searchable transcript and the ability to create and save film clips.


8. Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice (Adam Matthew)

Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice is an archival collection of scanned manuscripts, court documents, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps, and some secondary sources on many topics relating to slavery and abolition. It covers the period from 1490 to 2007.


9. African American Communities (Adam Matthew)

African American Communities is a multimedia collection of oral histories, correspondence, newspapers, pamphlets, images and official records that provides insights into a variety of African American experiences in the 20th century.

This resource draws its source materials from archives in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina. Explore 360 views of objects, read letters and articles, watch videos, and listen to oral history interviews on a variety of topics.


10. Research Guides

Falvey Librarians have created curated research guides to help you get started with your research. Each guide provides recommendations for encyclopedias and other reference works, primary source materials, and databases for locating relevant journal articles.

Check out any of the following:

 

Stay tuned for more blog posts throughout the month featuring documentaries, books, and more, all with a focus on Black history!


Susan Turkel, MA, MLS, is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

 


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The Long Distance Library: Accessing Falvey’s Resources Off Campus

Person typing at a computer

The library is anywhere you are! (Photo from pexels.com)

By Susan Turkel

If you’re a Villanova researcher, you know that Falvey is your go-to source for articles, e-books, and much, much more.

It’s easy to access these materials online when you’re on the Villanova campus because the publishers and database vendors recognize your VU affiliation via your computer’s IP (Internet Protocol) address.

When you’re away from campus, however, you may need to take an extra step or two to ensure smooth access to our millions of pages of subscribed content.

Here’s a quick rundown of tips that will keep you connected!

Start at the Falvey website

The easiest way to ensure success is to use the library website as your portal to databases, articles, e-books, streaming video, and the other resources.

We authenticate Villanova users via an online service called a proxy server. The links on the Library website and in the Library catalog run through the proxy server; if you are coming in from a network that’s not on campus, you’ll be asked to verify your VU affiliation by entering your Villanova username and password. Once you’ve logged in that first time, you will have seamless access to the library’s subscription resources for the rest of your login session.

You’ll use your regular Villanova username and your email password to log in to the proxy server; there’s no need to enter your WildCard number. It’s simple!

Install a browser bookmarklet

If you’re poking around on the web without having visited the library website, you can still take advantage of the library’s many subscriptions to journals, magazines, and other sources.

We offer browser bookmarklets that allow you to instantly access subscribed content that you come across in your internet travels. You’ll drag a little bit of code to your Safari, Chrome, Firefox, or Edge bookmarks toolbar—that’s the bookmarklet.

Then, when you find an article that asks you to pay for access, simply click the bookmarklet. This will rewrite the URL and ask you to authenticate through the library’s proxy. If our subscriptions allow access to the item, you’ll get right in!

(If that doesn’t work, it’s still worth a try to copy the article’s title and paste it into the library’s main search box; we may have access to the same item through a third party database rather than directly through the publisher’s website.)

Using Google Scholar? Set up your Library links

Are you a Google Scholar fan? If not, you might want to give GS a try! Google Scholar is a powerful, free search engine that indexes scholarly articles, books, theses, dissertations, pre-prints, reports, and patents across disciplines, time periods, and languages.

Anyone can search Google Scholar, but many of the items in its results lists are locked behind a paywall. You can bypass the paywall by customizing your Google Scholar Preferences. This instructs Google Scholar to provide links that will work for Villanova students, staff, and faculty members on or off campus.

In this image, you’ll see a “linked up” list of Google Scholar search results. Since I adjusted my settings, Google Scholar has displayed “Click here for full text” links next to each item.

Google Scholar Results with access links highlighted

Unfortunately, Villanova does not have subscription access to every journal or e-book. Never fear! Once you’ve set up your preferences, Google Scholar will provide you with a shortcut for placing an interlibrary loan request for any non-subscribed item. It’s a win-win situation!

Still have questions?

If you still have questions, we have answers! Visit our troubleshooting your off-campus access problems page.

If you still need assistance, ask a librarian! There are lots of ways to find us:

– Contact your subject librarian directly
– Reach out to Falvey via Live Chat
– Fill out our Ask a Librarian form, or
– Email ref@villanova.edu

Librarians and staff are available 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday, during the semester, and we are always happy to help.


Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. 

 

 


 


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Read The New Yorker Online!

By Susan Turkel

Did you know that you can access more than 50,000 online journals, magazines, and newspapers through Villanova’s online subscriptions?

Some of these journals are very niche, such as the Journal of Crustacean Biology and the International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics.

Others are very well known, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Sports Illustrated.

We also provide the Villanova community with access to some old favorites, including The New Yorker. Founded in 1925, The New Yorker is one of the most well-known and influential magazines in the U.S. Whether you’re a fan of the magazine’s cartoons, its in-depth articles, short fiction, featured poetry, movie reviews, or famous covers, you’re in for a treat!

Every issue of The New Yorker is available in a full-color, page-flippable interface from OpinionArchives. Villanova faculty, staff, and students can access it by clicking the FindIt button in the catalog record and selecting the OpinionArchives option.

The interface provides a full-page view of the cover and instructions for navigating the site.

New Yorker cover and navigation instructions

Click Browse Issues (under the three horizontal lines / “hamburger” icon on the upper-right hand corner of the page) to view the list by year. From there, you can click the cover image to view any issue.

New Yorker covers - clickable thumbnails

To read an issue, use the arrows on the screen to turn pages. Click This Issue to see thumbnail images of each page which allow you to navigate the magazine. You can zoom in for a closer look, and you can print either the full issue or a selection of pages.

To search the archive, click the magnifying glass icon in the upper right. You may find that the Advanced Search is more helpful than the Basic Search.

For an alternate way to search New Yorker content, you can try Reader’s Guide Retrospective (covers 1940-1982) and Readers’ Guide Full Text Mega (covers 1983 to present). These databases provide indexing of authors, titles, and subject headings for the content of a variety of general interest and popular magazines. Search for New Yorker in “SO Journal Name” and put your other search terms in another search box.

 

Once you find an article of interest in Reader’s Guide, click the FindIt button to return to the OpinionArchives interface. You may need to navigate the issue using the thumbnails and Table of Contents to get to the specific article.

Take some time to enjoy flipping through this friendly interface to The New Yorker; read a story, enjoy a cartoon, find a movie recommendation. Or, dive into the archives – almost 100 years’ worth! Either way, it’s a great rabbit hole to fall into.



Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. She has a giant pile of old print New Yorkers on her bookshelf.


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New Guide to Finding Film Reviews

By Susan Turkel

Image of movie theater by Nathan Engel via pexels.com

 

Are you taking a film studies class… or just looking for a good movie to watch on Friday night? Depending on your interest, come to (virtual) Falvey for help finding a film review or some film criticism!

The library has put together a guide to finding both reviews of movies (typically found in newspapers, magazines, and on websites), and works of film criticism, which are scholarly works on films and filmmakers that are usually found in scholarly books and journals.

Film reviews are usually published soon after a film or DVD is released. They describe the film and provide some sort of evaluation, to help potential viewers decide whether to watch the movie. Film criticism or film critique is more analytical, and may include references to film theory and other kinds of literary or cultural theory.

The Finding Film Reviews guide offers links to free websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which collate film reviews and provide “what to watch” lists. The guide also provides links and search tips for using library-subscribed academic resources that delve into film studies scholarship.

This guide and many others are linked from the Library’s How-to Guides list, which is linked under Research Services at the top of every page. You’ll find tips there on finding information in various formats, getting your scholarship published, annotating PDFs, using e-books, and more.

As a reminder: Falvey offers access to thousands of streaming films for your edification and viewing pleasure! Please visit the Streaming Video at Falvey guide for more information.

If you need more help finding film reviews, film critiques, or any other type of information, please contact your friendly librarian. We are always happy to help!

 


Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. 

 

 

 


 


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Let’s Take a Trip! Primary Sources on the History of Travel and Tourism

By Susan Turkel

Stuck at home and feeling antsy? You’re not alone! Humans have experienced the travel bug for a long, long time. If you’d like to experience some armchair tourism, read on to learn about digitized collections that let us travel the world—and back into history—through the magic of library and archival collections!

Travel and tourism blossomed for Americans and Europeans during the 19th century, thanks to developments in technology and increasing prosperity for many people. The Villanova community now has access to an amazing set of primary resources that document this growth in tourism: the online collection Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism, produced by Adam Matthew Digital. This resource is linked from the Library’s Databases A-Z list.

Leisure, Travel, & Mass Culture: The History of Tourism (Adam Matthew Digital) splash page

This online collection is comprised of digitized guidebooks, brochures, leaflets, travel journals, maps, and promotional films sourced from a variety of libraries and archives in the US and UK. Key themes covered include accommodation, hospitality, and entertainment; the great outdoors; health and medical travel; historical, cultural, or religious travel; package tours, cruises, and organized travel; road, rail, and air travel; urban tours and city breaks; and women and tourism.

Inspired to dip a toe into this rich collection? Start with this online tour, and then read the essay Travel Chronicles: Tourism, Memory, and the Emergence of Modern America by Anthony Stanonis, PhD, lecturer in the School of History and Anthropology at Queen’s University, Belfast, written specifically to provide context for this resource.

The collection includes online exhibitions focusing on eyewitness travels (detailed, illustrated accounts of travel by seven different adventurers); a comparison between two iconic seaside resorts, Coney Island, N.Y., and Blackpool, England; and a detailed listing of tourism businesses and organizations that are mentioned throughout the resource.

You might also want to visit the image gallery which allows browsing and searching of photographs, illustrations, and maps, indexed by key themes. Another useful feature is the interactive world map, which allows you to find documents by clicking through locations on a spinning globe.

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Can’t get enough of these historical travel materials? Falvey Memorial Library’s Special Collections holds a wide array of materials documenting travel and tourism, including hundreds of items that have been scanned and made available to the public via our Digital Library! Here are three online exhibits that feature such treasures.

Are We There Yet? exhibit sign

Are We There Yet? Travel, Tourism and Exploration is a digital exhibit that highlights many interesting items. This exhibit was co-curated by Kayla Van Osten (Digital Library Intern, Spring 2016) and Laura Bang (Distinctive Collections Librarian), with graphics by Joanne Quinn (Director of Communication and Marketing). It features narrative essays, images, and links to scanned documents on such diverse themes as modes of travel, guidebooks & travel narratives, around the world, religious travel, and imaginary travel.

Exhibit sign featuring a decorative scrapbook cover with the title.

Scraps for Keeps exhibit sign

You’ll also find travel memorabilia in our recent scrapbook exhibition, Scraps for Keeps: Scrapbooks and Photo Albums from Distinctive Collections, which was also curated by Laura Bang with graphics by Joanne Quinn. This exhibit includes scrapbooks and photo albums produced during the 19th and 20th centuries by people in the US and western Europe. The section on Travel & Tourism includes images of scrapbook pages highlighting postcards, photos, and colorful receipts collected during memorable trips. To find more scrapbooks that have been digitized by Falvey’s Special Collections team, try a keyword search in the Digital Library for scrapbook or album.

Finally, our digital exhibition Rambles, Sketches, Tours: Travellers & Tourism in Ireland, again curated by Laura Bang with graphics by Joanne Quinn, “highlights Irish travel narratives and related materials, primarily from the Joseph McGarrity Collection, in Falvey Memorial Library’s Special Collections. The site is broken into sections that highlight the methods of travel to and within Ireland, the motives of some of the most influential and popular writers, and the development of the tourism industry. In addition, there are five sections that look at some of the most popular travel destinations.”

In addition to these online exhibitions, you may wish to browse all of our Digital Library offerings with the subject label “Description and travel.” Highlights include a recently transcribed manuscript, Tour of Spain, 1896, in which the traveler provides a firsthand description of political unrest in Spain as well as observations about Spanish customs, architecture, and ancient Moorish ruins. This travel journal also includes hand-drawn route maps and ink sketches.

Enjoy your trip!


Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. When this is all over, she hopes to travel to Italy.

 

 


 


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Last Modified: May 6, 2020

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