Happy Thursday, Wildcats! This week’s Curious Cat asks students to debate physical books vs. ebooks. We asked students, “Do you prefer to read physical books or ebooks?”

“Ebooks”

–Aiden Dumm ’27

“Physical books”

–Callie Ritter ’25

“Ebooks”

–Griffin Joseph ’25

Rebecca Amrick is a first-year graduate student in the English Department and a Graduate Assistant at Falvey Library.

Jadyn Piotrowski ’26 VSB is a Communication & Marketing Student Assistant at Falvey Library.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott wrote, “Watch and pray, dear, never get tired of trying, and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault.”

In life, there is a lot of trying, and only a fraction of that trying ends up succeeding. It’s one of the few universal experiences of being human. In college, especially, trying at everything can become quite tiresome.

But to grow tired of trying is to never experience growth and to never succeed, and 0ftentimes, the things that are tiring are worth trying for. Remember, it is always possible to grow and get better, no matter the task. Perseverance rarely goes unrewarded.

THIS WEEK AT FALVEY

Monday, September 18

Mindfulness Monday | 1-1:30 p.m. | Health Services Building 200 | Virtual Option | ACS-Approved | Free & Open to Villanova Students, Faculty, & Staff

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Tuesday, September 19

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Wednesday, September 20

Fall 2023 Falvey Forum Workshop: Gale Digital Scholar Lab-a-Text Analysis Platform | 12-1 p.m. | Virtual | ACS-Approved | Free & Open to the Public | Register Here

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Philosophy and Film Series on “Creativity and Madness”: Ed Harris’ Pollock (2000) | 5:30 p.m. | Room 415 | ACS-Approved | Free & Open to Villanova Community | Light Refreshments Served

Thursday, September 21

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Sunday, September 24

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

HOLIDAYS THIS WEEK

Photo by Daniel J. Schwarz on Unsplash

If you’re a bookworm, today, Sept. 18, is Read an eBook Day, and luckily, Falvey’s vast collection of online books is at your disposal. Need a snack to go with your ebook? Today is also Rice Krispies Treats Day. If you don’t have any of these delicious marshmallow-y treats on-hand, the ones in Falvey’s Holy Grounds are amazing.

What’s the perfect way to end the last day of summer? An ice cream cone, of course. National Ice Cream Cone Day is this Friday, Sept. 22. If you want to get a taste of autumn, I highly recommend the pumpkin ice cream from Trader Joe’s (or Longacre’s Modern Dairy if you’re ever up in the Barto area).

Although it’s been fall for Dunkin’ and Starbucks lovers for weeks, Saturday, Sept. 23 is the Fall Equinox, the first official day of fall. Although we don’t have the perfect fall weather yet, hopefully it’ll be time to bring out your sweaters, flannels, and boots soon.

Need a self-care day? Innergize Day, a day dedicated to recharging your inner battery, is this Sunday, Sept. 24. Even if you only have a few hours, take some time to tend to your inner needs and enjoy some rest and relaxation.

Annie Stockmal is a second-year graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant in Falvey Library.

E-book. (Photo courtesy of Vikas Pawar on unsplash.com)

By Susan Turkel

We know you miss roaming the Falvey stacks and seeing, smelling, and touching all of those ink-on-paper books. We miss them, too! But the library can still provide you with countless hours of research and reading pleasure, thanks to bountiful collections of e-books!

Permanent e-book collections

Believe it or not, Falvey’s catalog includes around a million e-books! To find an e-book, simply enter your search terms (author, title, subject words, etc.) into our Search Everything box (above). Click Books & Media, and then limit your results to Collection=Online. You can also view the Articles & More page for your search, then limit your results to Format=eBook.

Our e-book collection is diverse and ever-growing. The million books listed in our catalog range from Early English Books Online (virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 to 1700) to the entire collection of Safari e-books on software, networking, and other techy subjects ,including more than 11,000 published within the last five years.

A recent book from Oxford Scholarship Online

Falvey recently purchased the entire (and growing!) collection of e-books published by Oxford University Press and delivered to you on the Oxford Scholarship Online platform. These books include titles in the social sciences and humanities, and at last count we had more than 16,000 in our catalog. Nearly 100 new items are added every month!

For more information about our current e-book collections and how to make use of them, visit our guide to using E-books at Villanova.

Temporary access to MORE e-book collections

Several publishers have opened up their entire catalog of e-books for access to non-subscribers during the current crisis. We are grateful for the increased access to important scholarly works, given that all the print books we’ve purchased over the years are currently “out of circulation.” These publishers include MIT Press, ScienceDirect, and many academic presses through the Project Muse platform.

MIT Press search page

In addition, you can find more than 30,000 titles on all subjects in the expanded University Press Scholarship Online. This package includes works from the University of California Press, Columbia University Press, Princeton University Press, Stanford University Press, University of Chicago Press, Yale and Stanford University Presses, and NYU Press among many others.

See the Temporarily Available Online Resources page for a more complete list.

Getting help

Still have questions? Please feel free to reach out to Falvey via Live Chat or by emailing ref@villanova.edu. Librarians and staff are available 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday.

To stay up-to-date on Falvey’s resources at this time, please visit our Falvey Memorial Library COVID-19 Updates and Resources webpage. The Falvey Virtual Library is always open and here to support you.

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

By Regina Duffy

Did you know that Villanova faculty, staff, and students have access to a wealth of e-books through Falvey? In fact, the library has a vast e-books collection and provides entry to many other choice e-books collections through its subscriptions, some of which have been temporarily added or expanded in Falvey’s response to COVID-19.

In addition to Falvey’s e-books that can be accessed through the catalog; some examples of other great e-books collections include JSTOR, EBSCO, and Oxford, among others.

Please see the brief E-book Guide tutorial video by our very own Abby Cengel, Service Desk Coordinator, Access Services. In the video, Abby explains how to find and navigate the e-book collections on Falvey’s website step-by-step, highlighting notable information along the way.

If you plan to use e-books as a resource for a research project and need help in your search or citation efforts, note that expert subject librarians are available to help you via Live Chat or email. Whether you need guidance with MLA, APA, or Chicago Style format, Falvey Memorial Library is here to make sure you are on the right track.

You can’t beat the convenience of an e-book! Please check out Falvey’s expansive selection, which includes a range of subjects and disciplines from fiction to non-fiction and beyond.

Happy reading, all!

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

By Susan Turkel

The Library has recently purchased online access to Oxford Scholarship Online, a full-text collection of ebooks published by Oxford University Press.

This growing collection includes more than 16,000 titles in 20 subject areas, and covers books published from 1963 through the present. Nearly 100 new items are added to the database every month.

Oxford Scholarship Online offers books in these 20 subject areas

You can find these Oxford ebooks by searching the Falvey catalog for “Oxford Scholarship Online” as the author. You can also access the Oxford Scholarship Online database directly and search for words from the full text, author, title, and more.

Oxford Scholarship Online ebooks may be viewed on screen or downloaded as PDF on a chapter by chapter basis. For help using Oxford University Press ebooks, as well as ebooks from a variety of publishers, visit our guide on ebooks at Villanova.

You can find Oxford Scholarship Online—and a wide variety of other online digital collections provided by the Library—on our Databases A-Z page.

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