Have you noticed that people don’t hold onto their old newspapers like they used to? We do. If you want to read more about Villanova Wildcats sports history, we’ve got digitized back issues of The Villanovan before they started publishing online editions.
NCAA 1985 Division 1 Men’s Championship Bracket, The Villanovan, March 22, 1985
I’m Michelle Callaghan, a first-year graduate student at Villanova University. This is our column, “‘Cat in the Stacks.” I’m the ‘cat. Falvey Memorial Library is the stacks. I’ll be posting about living that scholarly life, from research to study habits to embracing your inner-geek, and how the library community might aid you in all of it.
St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and right now you can’t turn on the morning news without hearing that chipper jig jingle introducing the Irish segment between the politics and the weather—not that I’m complaining! I, like many people, am a fan of that traditional Irish dance music. And speaking of morning news features, the subtle jealously I experience while watching a crew of kids step-dancing away is pretty amusing (I so could’ve done that! How hard can it be?). I really don’t claim to know much about Irish culture, my Callaghan-Gallagher bloodline and having completed James Joyce’s Ulysses en totale notwithstanding, but luckily Falvey has enough information to keep me in the know. When thinking about that traditional music, I decided I wanted to know more about the actual instruments involved in making that Irish sound—you know that sound. The sound.
With the help of resources archived in the Philadelphia Ceili Group collection, hosted by Villanova’s Digital Library, I listened a little more closely to the individual instruments that make up that St. Patrick’s Day sound. A little light Google research has led me to believe (and experts, correct me if I’m wrong) that the traditional Irish sound is typically made up of Uilleann pipes, fiddles, tin whistles, and flutes. Click on the names of the instruments to listen to recordings from past Philadelphia Ceili Group events!
Uilleann Pipes
Uilleann pipes are nifty because if, like me, you don’t have a honed ear for those bag instruments, you might have expected something identical to the Scottish bagpipe. They sound similar, but they are indeed different. Check out this Youtube vid to see them battling it out! The bagpipes incorporate blown air; Uilleann pipes are pressed under the arm.
Fiddle
What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin? Not much. Fiddling is a folk style of playing a violin. Nothing makes me want to get up and dance more than an enthusiastically played fiddle.
Tin Whistle and Flute
I have a cheap tin whistle I found somewhere in my grandfather’s junk cabinet as a kid, and the only thing I can play is Concerning Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings (this isn’t me, and I’m not this good). I know I’m not maximizing its potential or anything, but hey, it sounds pretty.
If you’re interested in learning more about Irish music beyond the instrumentation of traditional dance music, we also have a few text-based resources.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!
Article by Michelle Callaghan, graduate assistant on the Communication and Service Promotion team. She is currently pursuing her MA in English at Villanova University.
“Cabinets of Curiosity: Highlights from Special Collections,” a new exhibit on Falvey’s first floor, consists of six cabinets highlighting a variety of materials recently acquired by Falvey’s Special Collections. Photograph albums, a scrapbook, children’s books, adult novels, a tour book for California, a stereoscope and cards (double photographs that appear in three dimensions when viewed in a stereoscope), and a World War II Japanese portable volt-and-current meter are just some of the items in this exhibit.
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Laura Bang, Digital and Special Collections curatorial assistant, curated the exhibit. Michael Foight, Special Collections and Digital Library coordinator, helped Bang install the exhibit. Joanne Quinn, Communication and Service Promotion team leader and graphic designer, created the graphics for “Cabinets of Curiosities.”
Bang introduces the exhibit saying, “This ‘highlights’ exhibit features a selection of recently acquired materials. Over the past two years, we have focused out collection efforts primarily in the areas of popular culture and materials and upcoming historic anniversaries, particularly the current centennial of the First World War.”
“I love these ‘hodge-podge’ exhibits,” she adds, “because they give us a chance to show some of the great stuff that doesn’t fit in our regular-themed exhibits, like the stereoscope viewer.”
Two recent donations—Irish-themed books given by Patrick Moss, and a World War II collection from the family of James D. Reap, Jr.—are featured in the “Cabinets of Curiosities.”
The “Cabinets of Curiosities” will remain on display until mid to late March, followed by an Easter exhibit.
Article by Alice Bampton, digital image specialist and senior writer on the Communication and Service Promotion team.
TODAY IN THE LIBRARY…
EXTENDED HOURS FOR MIDTERMS!
The library will be open until 3:00AM. Study party!
VSB Peer Tutor Office Hours. 6:00-7:30 p.m. in room 205. Open to all VSB students. Walk-in study sessions. (Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays throughout the semester.) Questions? Contact: patricia.burdo@villanova.edu
Don’t miss the Villanova Digital Library content round-up!
GETTING READY FOR BRACKETOLOGY!
Outreach intern Kallie is a profesh taper. You’ll never see cleaner blank spaces (sorry, T. Swift)! Hint: these March Madness Matchups might make your stomach growl. Look for the voting board by Falvey’s entrance right after Spring Break. Nom!
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK
If you give our page a like on Facebook, you’ll be so in the know. Not only do we share links to all the goings-on of our blog, but we also post announcements and share very cool content from all around the internet!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Every page of every book was a peep-hole into the realm of knowledge. His hunger fed upon what he read, and increased.” – Martin Eden by Jack London
HAVE A GREAT DAY!
If you have ideas for inclusion in The 8:30 or to Library News in general, you’re invited to send them to joanne.quinn@villanova.edu.
Like the title says, we’re here to talk about macaroons, referred to by the official website of France as “seductive little biscuits,” and chocolate, traditionally consumed on Valentine’s Day.
If you read the play “A Doll’s House”, then you probably remember Nora’s obsession with macaroons and the significance of this simple cookie in the play. A similar theme plays out in the movie “Chocolat” where chocolate is taboo during Lent but its overwhelming allure leads the residents of a quaint French village to hide their consumption of it from the mayor.
I’m using a recipe from “The London Art of Cookery and Domestic Housekeepers’ Complete Assistant On a New Plan Made Plain and Easy to the Understanding of Every Housekeeper, Cook, and Servant in the Kingdom,” written in 1783. How’s that for a title? We have the print edition in Special Collections, but there are also other digitized editions available.
An important distinction needs to be made. Macaroons, as they are made in France, are almond biscuits sandwiched together with jam, chocolate, or other sweet fillings. The “other” type of macaroons contain shredded coconut. And although the recipe from The London Art of Cookery simply calls them Macaroons, it’s actually a recipe for French macaroons, not coconut macaroons. It’s confusing. I know.
One detour from the recipe will be the addition of chocolate ganache filling between two macarons, which is how they would be made in a French pattisserie. I will use the 1783 recipe for the cookies and a Food Network recipe for the ganache. And of course, I had French cafe music playing on Spotify, for inspiration.
Ingredients:
1 lb. sugar
1 lb. almonds, blanched and beaten (almond meal)
A few drops of rose water
7 egg whites, frothed
After combining the sugar, almond meal, and a few drops of rose water, I stirred in the frothed egg whites. The egg whites should form stiff peaks before being added to the sugar and almond meal. Using a small spoon, drop round dollops of batter about two inches apart on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Or you can use a pastry bag. The recipe ends with the instruction, “put them in the oven” without so much as an oven temperature or length of cooking time. I checked the Food Network for a suggested oven temperature (325) and time (13-15 minutes).
There was no measurement for the rose water so I used ½ tsp., but next time I would skip it altogether. It was a noticeable and not necessarily pleasant flavor, but that’s just my opinion. Luckily, the chocolate ganache soon remedied that. The cookies came out a little flat, not like the macarons I’ve come to expect. They tasted good so, who am I to complain? One last tip: make extra ganache. It’s great for dipping strawberries.
To quote Nora, and although they didn’t turn out perfectly, “I shall have one, just a little one–or at most two. I am tremendously happy.”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I want to thank Michael Foight and Laura Bang in Special Collections at Falvey Memorial Library for locating suitable recipes from Falvey’s print and digital collections. Their help was invaluable.
‘Caturday feature written by Luisa Cywinski, writer, Communication & Service Promotion Team and team leader, Access Services.
2014 was a busy year for Falvey Memorial Library. We acknowledged successes, welcomed new faculty and nationally acclaimed authors, waxed nostalgic over Choose Your Own Adventure books, said goodbye to old friends and even opened a 3D ‘automatic virtual environment’ – the first CAVE ever situated in a library setting with reserved time for public access. The following is a sample of our year in pictures. Enjoy!
Falvey Memorial Library 2014
Who can forget “Spring” Semester of 2014…
…a wintry winter…
…that eventually thawed.
A very busy event season gave patrons lots of choices!
Poets, scholars, politicians…
Shakespeare turned 450…
Wilbur the Pig took on Oedipus…
…Peeps took over the study rooms…
…and we celebrated Smart Money Week.
We offered tips…
Help and smiles from now retired Donna Chadderton
…and opportunities to “Choose Your Own Adventure” at VU Pop II, which celebrated Interactive Fiction.
We said goodbye to some retiring old friends…Mimi DeLenge, Sue Connor and Marie R.,
Librarian Kimberley Bugg, (off to pursue a PhD!)
Graduate Assistants Kelly Forst and Corey Arnold
and Librarian Susan Markley, who retired after 35 years of service to the University.
And we miss dear ones, like former Access Service ace and proud Villanova alumni Jim Fox, who passed away this year.
And we celebrated our Falvey Scholars, including
Noor F. Shaik
…and student and community poets at our annual Open Mic Poetry exhibition.
The Class of 2014 moved on…
..and the CAVE began to move in
Along with improvements to Falvey Hall side patio
Continued progress on the daCortona masterpiece
..and kudos for Dave Uspal, here celebrating his FACULTAS award with fellow tech team members, Dave Lacy and Chris Hallberg.
Before we knew it, summer was over and we were welcoming the Class of 2018…
New Faculty Reception
Teresa A. Nance, PhD, Assistant Vice President, Multicultural Affairs Associate Professor at the annual Multicultural Student Reception in the Holy Grounds lounge, and
and the Library’s new interim director, Robert DeVos, PhD.
Fall brought a new ACS display, a collaboration between First Year Experience Librarian Robert LeBlanc and ACS program faculty mentor Gregory Hoskins, PhD,
multiple WWI centennial exhibits, including Home Before the Leaves – wwionline.org – a collaboration between our Digital Library and other Great War scholars,
A visit from Wes Moore, author of the One Book Villanova 2014-15 selection, The Other Wes Moore,
…and the opening of the CAVE facility.
As fall semester rolled on
We reminded students to text a librarian,
…ask questions!…
..and NOT get their pretzels in a twist over finals!!
We said congrats to Access Services’ Bill Greene for his 40th Year Service Anniversary (here he’s getting a congrats kiss from Ann Stango!)
Business librarian and USC rep Linda Hauck made a beautiful contribution to the Villanova Holiday Bazaar (thanks, Linda!),
…and we decorated a tree!
As 2014 rocks on into 2015, we want to thank all of the Villanova Community for a wonderful year. As Edith Lovejoy Pierce once said, “the book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” Let’s all embrace this new, blessed opportunity to get it right.
Plum pudding is a new recipe for me, and using a recipe from the year 1900 was especially challenging. The snippet from the Villanova Digital Library‘s December issue of “The People’s Home Journal” was scant at best. After reading Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” and after watching the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim, I was worried, like Mrs. Cratchit, that something would go wrong. Was there enough flour? Did I steam it long enough?
I had to find the right cookware and ingredients, and after doing some research, I ordered a steamed pudding mold online and found a food store that has fresh suet. I also checked some trusted sources to fill in the blanks on the directions.
My local natural food store allowed me to order fresh suet, which the butcher collected during her morning preparations. She didn’t charge me for it, but I’ve heard that some stores do. When I was ready to start the recipe, I first had to sort out only the very cleanest bits of suet. The next step calls for grating the suet or chopping it very fine. It was hard to work with so I decided to chop it.
Now I had to figure out how to steam a pudding. Luckily, the Internet came to the rescue. I buttered the inside of the pudding mold generously, filled it with the pudding batter, and then placed it inside a large pot of boiling water so that the water was halfway up the side of the mold.
It’s important to keep checking the pot to ensure that it stays at that level. I used my smartphone timer to remind me of the task every 20 minutes. Also, when adding water, it has to be boiling, so I used an electric kettle to refill the steam pot when needed.
Since the pudding mold can’t be opened until the end of three hours, and because there wasn’t the slightest aroma in the house, I was almost afraid to open the steaming aluminum beast.
“Mrs Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up and bring it in… Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper which smells like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.” (“A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens)
It turned out well, and tastes like an intensely flavored gingerbread while the sauce leaves you with a buttery, sherry finish. Keep in mind, the pudding must be served warm. If you have the will power to save some, wrap it in foil and reheat later in the steam pot.
(Why, you may ask? Because the high melting point of suet means that once the pudding cools, it no longer looks as pretty, if you get my drift.)
I hope you enjoy this project or other baking projects over the holidays. As Tiny Tim would say, “God bless us, everyone.”
By Luisa Cywinski, writer on the Communication & Service Promotion team and leader of the Access Services team.
The title of the exhibition, “Home Before the Leaves Fall,” comes from a statement attributed to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany during an Aug. 1914 speech addressed to troops being assigned to the front lines.
Michael Foight, Special Collections and Digital Library coordinator, has served as editor, project organizer and curator of the online exhibition (HBTLF), and says this exhibition draws from rich holdings, “many little known or used,” of organizations and individuals in the mid-Atlantic region to tell the story of the Great War, World War I. “Home Before the Leaves Fall” commemorates the centennial of the first truly world-wide war. Foight tells us, “Collaborative by design, HBTLF is a multi-institutional project: articles curated by individual scholars and experts guide readers through the many threads that weave materials into a narrative tapestry, while social media spotlight newly digitized content, creative and educational use of materials, and news of other Great War commemorations. … New content will be regularly added.”
In addition to Foight, other curators from Villanova University are Laura Bang, Digital and Special Collections curatorial assistant; Demian Katz, Library Technology Development specialist; Barbara Quintiliano, nursing/life sciences and instructional services librarian; and Alexander Williams, temporary Research Support librarian. Two former Digital Library interns are also curators: Ruth Martin (2014) and Brian McDonald (2012). Other curators are affiliated with Swarthmore College, American Philosophical Society, Athenaeum of Philadelphia and Chemical Heritage Foundation.
The online exhibit includes the following sections: about—contains the “Curator’s Introduction” by Foight and a short video, “Das Lausejagd (The Lousehunter),” a dedication and acknowledgements; articles—written by various specialists; projects—(“Home Before the Leaves Fall News & Blog,” “Mail Call: A Podcast of News and Letters from the Great War”
, “The Fallen of the Great War: The Philadelphia Project [a genealogical research project],” and a list of participating institutions such as Fort Mifflin on the Delaware, Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Villanova University and others); and resources—with links to “Letters, Diaries and Autobiographies,” “Materials” and “Works Consulted/Further Reading.” “Home Before the Leaves Fall” is not a static exhibit; new material is added frequently.
Falvey Memorial Library is hosting two corollary exhibits with graphics by Joanne Quinn, graphic designer and team leader of Communication and Service Promotion. On the first floor is “Home Before the Leaves Fall: Lost Memories of the Great War” curated by Laura Bang. This exhibit displays numerous items from Special Collections: two scrapbooks of French photographs, postcards, and books.
In the reference area of the second floor Learning Commons is a small exhibit, “WWI 100 Years: Lessons to be Learned,” designed by Joanne Quinn. This exhibit consists of books from Falvey’s collections selected by Sarah Wingo, subject librarian for English and theatre; Jutta Seibert, subject librarian for history; Merrill Stein, subject librarian for geography and political science; Linda Hauck, subject librarian for business; and Alice Bampton, an art historian. On the wall beside the exhibit are a large poster for “Home Before the Leaves Fall,” with the URL for the online exhibit and an arrow directing visitors to Special Collections. Also featured are reproductions of World War I posters, a world map showing the opposing nations and an illustrated timeline of the war.
This semester, Falvey Memorial Library presented a fall workshop series on Digital Humanities, organized by Laura Bang. Laura works in Special and Digital Collections and she is actively involved in the Philadelphia Digital Humanities community.
The fantastically informative workshops provided an introduction to DH techniques and applications and took place in Falvey on various Saturdays from 9AM to noon. Since we were provided with tons and tons of resources, I’d be glad to share some with you! For an overview of the individual workshops and the projects/softwares explored, keep scrolling.
Our five-session workshop began with an introductory lecture by Mitch Fraas, the Schoenberg Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. As you might guess, we talked about the most popular question on the block: what are digital humanities? As this intro lecture proved, the best way to figure it out is to jump into one of the many projects you can find online. Definition by application! Fraas provided tons of resources; here are some excellent places to start.
Voyant-tools.org
viraltexts.org
historyharvest.unl.edu
earlynovels.org
mappingbooks.blogspot.com
http://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu/
http://dirtdirectory.org *Reading about these tools will really give you a good sense of the applications of DH.
The second workshop was a fun and approachable introduction to coding by Kate Lynch. We used Processing, which is not only a programming language, but also a development environment with an enormous online community. The software is free to download and open source. The Processing site is loaded with beginner tutorials.
I pointillized ‘Lil Bub! On the left behind the kitty, you can see the Processing window and code.
Workshop number three covered basic audio editing. We played around with Audacity, a free, open source audio recording and editing software. You can download it right from the Audacity page. You can find plenty of royalty free sounds and tracks on the web for your projects on websites like freesound.org. The Audacity page also has plenty of tutorials, but I find YouTube tutorials are the most helpful for software training. Search “Audacity” and you are sure to find hundreds!
The fourth workshop explored WordPress as a content management system. WordPress.com, as you might already know, allows you to create a free blog, but it is not highly customizable. Based on your wants and needs, it might be perfect for you. However, if you’re looking for a software script to create a website, check out WordPress.org. According to the About page,
WordPress started as just a blogging system, but has evolved to be used as full content management system and so much more through the thousands of plugins and widgets and themes, WordPress is limited only by your imagination. (And tech chops.)
To get started with the WordPress software you’ll need a web host, but the software itself is free and open source.
Sarah Cordivano, the workshop instructor, enthusiastically expressed the importance of projects such as OpenDataPhilly, a resource that
“…is based on the idea that providing free and easy access to data information encourages better and more transparent government and a more engaged and knowledgeable citizenry… By connecting people with data, we’re hoping to encourage users to take the data and transform it into creative applications, projects, and visualizations that demonstrate the power that data can have in understanding and shaping our communities.”
For more information on OpenDataPhilly, visit the About Us page.
Article by Michelle Callaghan, graduate assistant on the Communication and Service Promotion team. She is currently pursuing her MA in English at Villanova University.
I’m Michelle Callaghan, a first-year graduate student at Villanova University. This is our new column, “‘Cat in the Stacks.” I’m the ‘cat. Falvey Memorial Library is the stacks. I’ll be posting about living that scholarly life, from research to study habits to embracing your inner-geek, and how the library community might aid you in all of it.
Today at 2:00, Villanova’s CAVE is officially open. In honor of opening day, this week’s blog post will be all about immersive virtual reality—for those of us who might not even know where to begin thinking about the creative and academic applications of virtual environments.
Disclaimer: I’m not an expert. I’m a virtual reality noob. I’m writing this with no in-depth technical expertise—just a whole lot of geeky excitement. But I do play (and, by way of literary theory, study) video games, and my personal interest in virtual reality’s possible applications is heavily biased towards, well, play. And by “play” I don’t mean to imply the installment is only for entertainment (nor do I think its entertainment and audio/visual/tactile immersion possibilities should be minimized, especially for the arts and humanities). I mean “play” as in stepping inside a world and getting your hands virtually dirty, like a kid in a sandbox.
But before we talk Earth science and data visualization, whet your VR palette with the incredibly cool Tilt Brush (aka “Microsoft Paint for the Year 2020”).
Depending on your hobbies, you might have already heard about the VR movement in video games a la Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus. These are headset-based immersive mechanisms, while the CAVE is quite literally a virtually immersive walk-in cave. Still, if you want to explore discussion of virtually reality without scholarly pressure, the gaming community is a good place to start.
If you feel like you’re ready to brave the technical background and scholarly applications of virtual reality, The Verge posted a feature video on The Virtual Reality CAVE, featuring UC Davis’s setup, KeckCAVES. A little digging into UC Davis’s ongoing projects, which include applications in Earth science, data visualization, and responsive media, is a fun way to get your feet wet!
Based on a little internet reading, the possibilities of virtual reality in scholarly, scientific and creative application are innumerable—but are not all fully realized, or even drafted. And that’s the cool part: if this is the forefront of a new wave, this is your chance to brainstorm, too.
How could you imagine immersive virtual reality used in your field of study?
Article by Michelle Callaghan, graduate assistant on the Communication and Service Promotion team. She is currently pursuing her MA in English at Villanova University.
