Service Alert: The Falvey West book stacks are closed until further notice.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update (July 18, 4:00 p.m.): The Falvey West book stacks are now open. 

By Shawn Proctor

Today is 1842 Day, Villanova’s annual day of giving, the 24-hour event that celebrates the people and programs that are making a difference at Villanova and beyond. While there are so many departments that make the University a special place, we hope Villanovans will take this opportunity to make a gift to Falvey Memorial Library this 1842 Day.

Your gift of any amount will go even further this 1842 Day—University Librarian Millicent Gaskell has announced she will match donations to the Library up to $1842!

“A gift to the Library is a gift to the whole University,” Gaskell says. “Those gifts have a lasting impact.”

The 1842 donations will continue to support and preserve the Library’s distinctive collections, including University Archives and rare materials, aiding students and faculty for years to come.

Typically, the Library receives more than half a million visitors. While this year is anything but typical, Jeehyun “Jee” Davis, Associate University Librarian for Collections and Stewardship, says Falvey’s staff have found ways to keep providing services and support throughout the spring and fall semesters. “It is so important for our students and faculty to have access to Falvey’s online and physical collections. That’s why I am so proud of our successful and safe reopening.”

Funds from 2019 allowed the University to purchase equipment and supplies used in the University Archives and Special Collections to clean and maintain valuable materials and books.

Villanova will feature a livestream broadcast highlighting all that makes the University great. Tune in at villanova.edu and catch featured segments on Facebook @VillanovaU. This year, our livestream coverage will feature hosts Keith Jones ’07, Lauren Dugan ’16, and Darryl “D.Rey” Reynolds ’17.

We hope you will support Falvey and help us continue to make a difference. Every gift, of any amount, makes a difference.

  Shawn Proctor is a Communication and Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Merrill Stein

Empire (Adam Matthew Digital) is a collection of full-text primary documents spanning five centuries, from 1492 to 1962, structured in five thematic sections: Cultural Contacts; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire, Religion and Empire and Race; and Class, Colonialism, Imperialism.

Included are manuscripts, along with printed and visual source materials for the study of ‘Empire’ and its theories, practices and consequences. Material is accompanied by scholarly essays, chronology links shared with a unique Global Commodities collection, brief biographies, external links, interactive maps, and some secondary source documents up to 2007.

Empire (Adam Matthew Digital) is part of a collection of over sixty Adam Matthew Digital projects. look for these other collections on the Falvey Library list of databases or at AM Explorer (Adam Matthew Digital).

Merrill Stein is Political Science Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

This is not just any cart filled with books. These are the newest print titles that the Library has added to its collection of over a million print and electronic books.

Each was selected due to its ability to support the teaching, learning, and research needs of the entire Villanova University community, including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff. It is part of the Library’s effort to advance knowledge on campus, promote information discovery and access, encourage intellectual curiosity, and empower users by providing timely and critical information resources.

The Library understands the impact of evolving information technologies, changing scholarly communication practices, new forms of information seeking behaviors, and learning styles in a networked world.

The library also acknowledges the interdisciplinary nature of academic resources and firmly believe in free and open access to knowledge, freedom of expression, diversity, interculturality, and inclusion in all its collections. As such, it promotes open access educational resources, zero-cost classroom texts, and DRM free e-resources whenever possible when making collection building decisions.

Learn more about the Library’s process of developing its collection here: https://library.villanova.edu/collections/development/collection-development-statements

But we also rely on faculty and students to help guide the selection process.

If you discover a resource that should be added to the collection, the Library staff welcomes you to visit the website and suggest the purchase of a title. It may be just the thing students will need for their next groundbreaking research project!

Shawn Proctor, MFA, is Communications and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library. He most recently read Dar Williams’ book What I Found in a Thousand Towns.