By Ethan Shea

Lake Pocotopaug in Ethan’s hometown of East Hampton, CT

Dear Falvey Patrons,

After midterms week, this Cat in the Stax is dog-tired. I’m sure plenty of you are too, so I hope you’re having a restful Fall Break.

I’m writing this blog from my parent’s home in Connecticut, where I’ll be spending the week. It feels great to return home and see your family for the first time in a while, but if we’re being honest, it feels even better to be greeted by your dogs.

Ethan’s Dogs, Lola and Ted

While I’m away, there are a million and one ways to keep in touch with my human family members.  I can text them, call them, DM them on Instagram, FaceTime them, send them a letter, an email, or even a package in the mail. On the other hand, my dogs are unable to communicate with me when I’m away, as a lack of dexterous digits prevents my pets from responding to my instant messages.

I’m happy to enjoy some repose and sleep like a dog if you will, but as you know, even during break there’s work to be done. Luckily, even when you’re away from the stacks, Falvey Library is just a click away.

I know I’ll be doing some research during break, and having access to a plethora of online material is a life-saver. There are hundreds of well-known databases, such as JSTOR and Project Muse, in addition to way more online books than anyone could read in a week. Not to mention the ability to live chat with librarians at a moment’s notice.

It’s odd that I’m just now noticing the irony in me being a thoroughgoing dog person while also being the Cat in the Stax. What strange double lives we lead…

Anyways, I hope that maybe, for just this week, cats and dogs can get along while I visit my canine companions.

Sincerely,

Falvey’s Cat in the Stax

Ethan Shea is a graduate student in the English Department at Villanova University and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Linda Hauck

Current news databases are used by researchers across disciplines to stay current with developments, construct meaning out of evolving events, and analyze content for political, social, cultural, and public health trends.

Having access to a wide range of local, regional, national, and international sources is key.  Falvey Library has significantly improved access to news by subscribing to Factiva, which adds over 6000 unique, full text titles to our collection, including The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Chicago Daily Herald. Transcripts of National Public Radio’s Code Switch and Fox News’ Hannity are searchable. Many foreign language publications are included as well.

The range of trade news is impressive, from Backpacker to Diabetes Week and Global Warming Focus to Oil Market Intelligence. Factiva is a Dow Jones product so the news coverage and indexing is particularly good for financial, economic, and business topics.

The search interface is flexible.  The “Free Text” search box can be used to replicate a search similar to Google; the “Search Form” provides prompts for more focused queries; and examples of advanced search commands facilitate precision searching.  When using either the “Free Text” or “Search Form” handy options for filtering results by subject, industry, region are available. Factiva’s default is to limit searches to the most recent 3 months, so researchers with a deeper time line will need to modify the date range.

Factiva’s Company/Markets tab is an added bonus. Company profiles describe the business segments, corporate family, financial results, and peers, but their real advantage is the depth and breath of company news provided.  The industry snapshots are less robust, but do rank key competitors, facilitate a deep dive into the news, and offer recent analyst reports.

Factiva compliments our other news aggregators, Access World News, Nexis Uni, and ABI Inform, and our direct subscriptions to top news such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times.

For a full list of news sources including archives see Databases A-Z filtered by newspapers.

Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

Some Falvey Library and Law Library databases may be temporarily unavailable on Wednesday, Aug. 4, between 6:30–8:30 a.m., due to routine server maintenance. If you encounter a problem during this time, please keep trying; we will endeavor to have systems back online as quickly as possible.

Contact libtech@villanova.edu for questions.

By Merrill Stein

The Times of India (1838–2010) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers), reported by some, as the world’s most widely circulated English daily newspaper, was founded in 1838 to serve British residents of West India. This subscription provides access to all available issues of The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce (1838–1859), The Bombay Times and Standard (1860–1861), and The Times of India (1861–2010).

Researchers can use the historical newspaper in studying topics, such as colonialism and post-colonialism, nationalism, biography, British and world history, class and gender issues, business, international relations, comparative religion, international economics, terrorism, cultural studies, and communication. Additionally, coverage of sports, the growing Indian film industry, and other stories of everyday life are available.

The resource is complimented by Falvey Library’s access to India, Raj and Empire (Adam Matthew Digital) manuscript collection (1615-1947) and the current The Times of India news subscription.

For a research example from the Times of India (1838–2010) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers), try examining the 1857 Sepoy Mutinies or “disaffection,” that lead to the last the Mughal Emperor being deposed and direct governance of India by the British. View events as they occurred and in retrospect at 100 and 150 years later.

• SPIRIT OF THE INDIAN PRESS: THE DISTURBANCES AT BARRACKPORE. (1857, Mar 03). The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce (1838-1859)
• (1957, May 14). THROUGH INDIAN EYES: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE GREAT REVOLT. The Times of India (1861-Current)
• Sen, R. (2007, Jan 26). 150 years later: Locating 1857 in the nationalist narrative. The Times of India (1861-Current)
• India, Raj and Empire (Adam Matthew Digital) – Notebook containing a typescript account, made by the 10th Marquess of Tweeddale in 1907, of ‘The So-called Panic at Simla – May 1857’

The Times of India (1838–2010) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  and the India, Raj and Empire (Adam Matthew Digital) are available on Falvey Library’s Databases A-Z list.  All versions of the Times of India can also be found by searching Falvey Library’s Journal and Article Finder.

Merrill Stein is Political Science Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

Please join us on Tuesday, April 13, from 12-1 p.m., for a webinar to learn more about a new Gale primary source collection available at Falvey Memorial Library: British Library Newspapers.

Enhance your understanding of regional life and culture in Britain across parts of three centuries with a trove of local newspaper coverage and first-hand accounts with British Library Newspapers. This resource provides researchers with the most comprehensive collection of national and regional newspapers of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early twentieth-century Britain. Taken directly from the extensive holdings of the British Library, the selected publications provide coverage of well-known historic events, cultural icons, sporting events, the arts, culture, and other national pastimes.

In this webinar, we’ll explore best practices for finding what you need in the collection, how to share it with students, and ways to incorporate it into research and syllabi.

REGISTER here to attend or receive a link to the recording after.

You can browse Falvey’s extensive Databases A-Z list here and dive deeper into British Library Newspapers as well as the countless other databases available to help you with your research needs!

For one-on-one help using Gale, we suggest that you reach out to Sarah Wingo or Jutta Seibert.

Sarah Wingo specializes in the areas of English literature, theatre, and romance languages and literature. More information about how to book an appointment with Sarah is available here.

Jutta Seibert specializes in the areas of history, art history, and global interdisciplinary studies. More information about how to book an appointment with Jutta is available here.

You can connect with one of our other expert subject librarians for help using library resources as well. A full list of Falvey librarians and their subject specializations are listed here.

By Darren G. Poley

Falvey recently acquired online access to over 4,000 peer reviewed and curated articles in the subject area of religion, including the essays from over 100 Oxford Handbooks, all of which are discoverable in Oxford Handbooks Online (Oxford University Press).

For over a decade Oxford Handbooks, a definitive collection of volumes in a variety of academic subjects published by Oxford University Press, have provided essays that survey the current state of scholarly debate and present an original argument about the future direction of research. The content of those volumes has been gathered in Oxford Handbooks Online, an article database which can be cross searched for original, peer-reviewed research reviews covering the key issues and exploring major debates in a growing number of disciplines.

A few advantages of Oxford Handbooks Online (OHO) are that it publishes online individual Handbook chapters prior to their release in print, significantly reducing the lag between when a chapter is written and peer reviewed, and when it is made available to researchers. It also includes online-only essays on emerging areas of research too new and too narrow to be included in a Handbook volume. Finally, Oxford can now at any point update individual articles, whether they originally appeared in a Handbook or were simply published online, and a full version history will be available so scholars can track those updates.

Some of the other subject areas to which Falvey has access in OHO are philosophy, history, political science, classical studies, and psychology.

Darren G. Poley is Associate Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement, and Theology, Humanities & Classical Studies Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. 

Falvey Memorial Library has acquired an extensive new collection of streaming video titles. Academic Video Online (AVON) includes more than 68,000 titles produced between 1901 and 2020,  including documentary films, historical footage, training videos, performances, and television programs. Disciplines include business, counseling, engineering, history, nursing, literature, and music, and publishers include A&E Television Networks, American Academy of Pediatrics, ArtHaus Musik, BBC Worldwide, British Film Institute, Broadway HD, Ford Motor Company, National Geographic, PBS, Sony Pictures Classics, and many more.  Each video includes a searchable transcript, and registering for a free account gives you the ability to create clips and playlists.

Additional streaming collections available to the Villanova community include:

• BBC Shakespeare Plays
• Counseling and Therapy in Video 
• Digital Theatre Plus
• Filmakers Library Online 
• JoVE Science Education Videos
• On the Boards
• Psychotherapy.net
• Royal Shakespeare Company Collection

Plus multi-format collections that include streaming content:

• Books 24/7
• Drama Online
• O’Reilly for Higher Education

Looking for something specific? Get in touch, and we’d be happy to try and help you find it!

Deborah Bishov is Social Sciences & Instructional Design Librarian and Shawn Proctor is Communication & Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library.

From Sept. 30-Oct. 4, Villanova students and faculty have access to the BCC Research Library, a database with thousands of reports, covering the latest news, data, and market forecasting in the following areas:

• Life Sciences (Medical Devices, Surgical, Cell Bio, Pharmaceuticals, Health Maintenance);
• Environment and Sustainability (Water Membrane/Separations, Fuel Cell/Battery, Energy, Manufacturing);
• Commerce (Finance, Startup Venture Capital, IT);
• Sensors (Engineering, Photonics, Safety/Security, Instruments).

To access the trial from databases A-Z, select member login in the top right corner and IP authenticate.

The Communication Abstracts database, formerly on CSA, is now hosted on the EBSCO platform.  You can now search Communication & Mass Media Complete simultaneously with Communication Abstracts.  Near the top center, click Choose Databases.  A list of all the databases Falvey subscribes to will appear.  Check off the ones you would like to search. (more…)