This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “Which of the following statements is true?” *

1. The Library houses a rare painting, the massive 12-by-19-feet “The Triumph of David” by Pietro da Cortona, a major artist of the Baroque period.

2. The Library houses a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment that allows participants to become virtually immersed in a setting in which they can move about as though they were in the actual setting.

3. The Library is soon to house a Center for Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship that will nurture students as creative and innovative thinkers.

4. The Library houses a Research Support Center, which provides eleven research librarians—each an expert both in scholarly research and in one or more academic disciplines—who look forward to helping you with your assignments.

Kyle Johnson—“I think multiple parts of these are true. I know for sure that there is a CAVE, and I’m pretty sure that there are eleven research librarians. I’m not sure about the new Center, and I haven’t seen the painting myself. But I know those two are true.”

Jaclyn Lanciano—“I think it’s number three. … I just heard them talking about how they’re going to renovate.”

Martha Wolnicki—“Number one, I would say, is false. Number two, I would say, is false. Three and four are true.”

Francesca Cocchi—“I’ve seen the painting; I don’t know if all the stats are correct, but I assume. And I wrote an article about the CAVE facility, so I know that’s here … when we first got the grant for it … for the school newspaper (The Villanovan) … Yeah, I want to be a journalist. The Center for Innovation sounds familiar. I actually would think we already have one. I guess that’s true. … And I would say the last one is—eleven sounds like a lot, but—I think I’ll just say “true” for all of them.”

John Suggs—“They all kind of sound true. … Is that a bad thing? They’re all true statements. I like the one about nurturing students as creative and innovative thinkers.”

Brooke Erdman—“More than one sound true to me. … I kind of like the CAVE. … I’m going to go with the second one.”

* All four of the statements are true.

This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “When you need a break from studying, what is a good way to refresh your mind or to relieve stress?”

Yeji Seak—“I usually catch up on all the delayed text messages that I need to send back to people. Or I try to stretch a little bit and get some food to refresh my memory and just take a 10-to-15 minute break each time—use the bathroom if I need to … When I’m taking a break I don’t really think about what I just learned; I try to calm myself down and relax a little bit and then go back to studying and focus.”

Wilson Capellan, OSA—“I go to the coffee shop. Just being alone makes my mind refreshed. And then surf the Internet and visit social media—while sipping a cup of coffee.”

Aliyia N Patterson—“I cook—and run, either or—cooking or running. Sometimes when I’m running and we have a paper due next week I’ll be running and thinking about what I’m doing in the paper. Unless a car jumps out in front of me, then my mind is back on running. It’s happened a couple of times. So I like to cook and run.”

Anna Fickenscher—“Sometimes I just take a break and watch stupid reality TV … or mindless Internet entertainment … reading different blogs or reading different articles—just kind of get my mind off of school work with something that requires less thought process.”

Divya Bonagiri—“I’ll watch some comedy movie or comedy film, and I’ll have some refreshment for some time. And then I’ll go back to studies. Or I enjoy doing my hobby. … I get refreshed doing my hobby for some time and then get back to my studies.”

Mervin Woodlin—“I have a family, so I spend time with them. I usually do most of my studying at home; the only reason I’m here is because I just started a summer program. Most of the time when I’m studying and I want to take a break, I spend time with them.”

This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “If you could change one thing about the Library, what would it be? What about the Library do you hope never changes?”

—

John Costello—“[change—] more electrical outlets … not change—the calming environment”

MJ—“I don’t know what I want to change about the printers, but something. I’m always so relieved when a printing problem is solved … I’m just grateful … I wish there was more lounge lighting for those late-night studies. And something I hope that never changes is the warmth of the café addition. I’m a returning student from 20 years ago, and my jaw dropped when I saw food in the Library. I thought there had been some kind of coup. But it’s made it so nice … it just makes me feel good. It makes me feel relaxed at times when things can be quite stressful.”

Simhachalam Panduri—“I would like to increase the number of study rooms because every time I think of getting a study room it’s always busy. I can’t get any; I need to wait for one or two hours to get a study room.”

Blessing Mbamalu—“I’m a fourth-floor kind of person, and I realize it’s not going to be that quiet, so I wish it was a little bit more [quiet]. I don’t know how you would be able to enforce it to make it stricter.”

Anusha Mathur—“One thing I would like to change about the Library is more seating space. In the fall or spring [semesters] whenever I enter at 4:00 p.m. and the Library is extremely busy, I don’t find space to sit. Maybe that is one thing which can be done.”

This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “If you could choose between having the current library and current earning potential when you graduate OR having a library without online electronic databases, an online catalog, or online research help but also having double the earning potential when you graduate, which would you prefer?”

Danielle Farer—“The first one … It’s really hard to find what you need in a library without the assistance of people to help you and without the computers to help you and having to do all that work by yourself … I remember when I was younger and you actually had to flip through the card catalog; that’s really time-consuming … I’d much rather make less and have the process be a lot easier.”

Sushmita Arjyal—“I would definitely go with the second choice: electronic suppliances have helped in past and also will help in future … If we can have more, then it would be nice … it has helped the online catalog and the online sources that we can find books online; we can find the [building] map and find where the books are.”

Craig Gilbert—“I’d prefer the first. … The more information you have, the better off you’re going to be. The money comes by itself later; the money doesn’t have to be connected to the information. We’re not in school to make money; we’re in here to learn.”

Susheel Bajaj—“I would prefer the “all” one. It has all the online stuff—online books, online materials—because you don’t need to carry a hardcopy of the book. That would be very easy, and you can read the stuff anywhere you want … on the go, on the mobile device, on the tablet, anywhere on the go. So that would be good if we had more of the online materials instead of hardcopy of the books.”

Matthew Zarenkiewicz—“[I prefer] the current library. My earning potential … I’m worried about, obviously, but not so much that I would sacrifice the amount of time that I save using the online database and things like that to do research, especially this summer when I’m doing research. So I’m very happy for all of that.”

Indu Priya Eedara—“The first one: It’s always better to have online catalogs or online stuff, which would be easier to access.”

This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “What do you wish the Library knew about your needs as a student?”

Pradeep Kumar Reddy Musku—“In computer science every semester they would introduce some new courses … and some [new] textbooks … But when we go to the Library website, we never find those books. It would be helpful if you would coordinate with the other departments and … get the information, like what the new courses they are offering, and get in contact with the faculty who are offering those courses and order the books, not to issue them to the students but at least two or three different copies in the Library. That would be great because one of the courses we have … I did not get … even a PDF version, anything like that in the Library. So it would be great if you would coordinate with the different departments and get at least the online versions rather than the printed versions of the books.”

Thomas Modayil Jacob—“And the need [for computer science textbooks] is urgent in the computer science and the computer engineering departments ‘cause there a lot of fields we have courses on, like semantic web and big data, which don’t have textbooks as yet. So I think that the Library needs to coordinate with the professor to at least have those relevant papers or, if there is a textbook, then the textbook, at least in the PDF form.”

Ramesh Krishna—“Since we don’t have the books, we need to take a loan from other libraries … we need to get the books that are not available here we need to get the loan from others libraries. So that would be helpful if … instead of loaning from other libraries it would be better if have those books in our Library.”

Editor’s note—The Library does not purchase textbooks for current courses unless the titles are specifically ordered by faculty.
One reason – Expense: New editions are often published in a year or so, rendering the textbook we would have purchased obsolete.
Another reason – Competition: The Library doesn’t want to be in competition with the University Shop.
Library staff, however, have begun to explore ways that Falvey can better meet our students’ need for textbooks. Keep checking this blog for updates.

Rebecca Snow—“I think it’s important to have quiet places. We have one upstairs, but maybe another room would be good. [Otherwise,] I like the way it’s set up; I think it’s good.”

Shaina Smolowe—“More printing for free would be incredibly helpful.”

Stephanie Mader—“I like the quiet study room upstairs. I like the access to the computers. I like the coffee room; it might be nice if that were open during the summer.”

This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “After your final final, what’s the first thing you want to do for fun?”

Taylor Gallo—“The first thing I want to do for fun is lay out by the pool [at] home.”

Peter Rokowski—“I need to get through a few books that I’ve been putting off for a couple years … I’m working on my thesis … so I haven’t had time to read leisurely for about six years now.”

Patrick Larkin—“I’m gonna go out to dinner with my dad; my dad’s gonna come in. So there’s that, and then I’m out the next day. That’s probably what I’ll end up doing; just sit down and relax for a little bit is probably what I’ll do, and just let my mind clear out … ‘Cause I’m going to start working again when I get back home, probably five days afterwards, … so I’m going to do as little as possible. Then in the next couple of days watch the Blackhawks play.”

Patrick Wurster—“go outside and play Kubb (aka Ye Olde Viking Game)”

Cristina Rocca—“I’m a senior, so I’m graduating. The first thing I’m gonna do for fun—probably pop a bottle of Champagne, sit on my porch and drink it … And then the seniors have a party, like Party on Deck—something like that, so I’ll be going to that.”

This week, in the spirit of upcoming finals week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students a multiple choice question: “Which of the following changes to the Library would you most like to see?”

1. A green roof on Falvey Hall, next to the Library’s fourth-floor windows
2. Adirondack chairs for the porch outside of Falvey Hall
3. A Mezzanine for additional study space in Falvey Hall’s Reading Room
4. Your own idea

Timothy Concannon—“I would go with the additional study space. . . . More space to study in is probably the best bet . . . I think this is the most useful.”

Cierra Belin—“I would like the mezzanine . . . because I find that there is not enough space to study when finals come around . . . more study space would be ideal for the students.”

Serena Grewal—“I think probably the additional study space . . . would be most useful for all students. . . . I just think that a lot of students would like extra study space.”

John Garvey—“I would like to go with the green roof because  . . . the green roof serves a lasting, practical purpose in terms of having more space to plant plants. In the long run it’s going to help the environment . . . this improvement would be more lasting, affect something outside of the immediate student body . . . This would have an impact on the whole planet, even in a small way. ”

Andrew Kim—“I would say the mezzanine for extra study space because I see people struggling to find a seat . . . the upstairs fills up really quickly. I think everyone could use extra study space in the Library.”

Gabi Im—“I definitely think that more spaces to study are necessary, especially during finals time and midterms, or just in general when it’s really busy . . . I would definitely go with more study space.”

This week, we are featuring the 2015 Falvey Scholars and giving you the chance to get to know these bright young adults up close and personal. Not only are they very smart – they’re very interesting! Just last week, Falvey Memorial Library, the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, and the Honors Program announced the 2015 Falvey Scholars Award winners: Katie Kline, Elizabeth Long, Jessica Swoboda, Nicholas Ader, Joseph Schaadt and John Szot. These six remarkable senior students have been selected from a pool of candidates from various disciplines for their outstanding undergraduate student research projects at Villanova University. Click here for a listing of their projects as presented at the 2015 Falvey Scholars Awards Presentation and Reception Ceremony.

Featuring Jessica Swodoba

“I’m an English and Humanities major with a love for all things literature, chocolate, JCrew, and Kate Middleton. I’m often found in the stadium playing for Villanova’s field hockey team, in the Writing Center, or in my favorite place on campus, the Humanities Commons, in my ‘reserved’ seat on the comfy couch, eating too many peanut butter pretzels and sharing in conviviality with my best friends, Marie, and my beloved professors. Next year, you can find me at Boston College, where I’ll pursue my MA in English and continue my research in religion and literature and 20th century British literature.”

Project Title: “Woolf and Waugh: Blurring the Distinction Between the Religious and the Secular”

I am inspired by my professors and friends who are pursuing The Good Life.

If I could be any person for a day, I’d be Kate Middleton.

“Catherine Elizabeth Middleton (colorized)” by Ricky Wilson – https://www.flickr.com/photos/rlwilsonphotography/13773362623. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

My favorite Villanova memory is my first day of ACS: Moderns with Dr. Helena Tomko. I immediately knew my Villanova experience had been changed for the better, and 4 years later, this couldn’t be any more true.

While working on my research project, I was challenged by the need to accept that things wouldn’t always be perfect or go perfectly.

Today I’m feeling the color purple.

I’m listening to the Folk Pop playlist on Spotify.

One Summer Adventure I’m daydreaming about is running for enjoyment and not to prepare for pre-season conditioning tests.

Happiness is finding joy and excitement in what you’re doing and in the relationships you’ve formed.

Everyone should know at least one text — whether it’s a novel, a theological or philosophical piece, etc. — like the back of your hand.

I am amazed by all we can learn about the Human Person, Society, God, and the World in literature.

Thanks, Jessica!

This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “With about three weeks of classes left, what strategy would you recommend to prepare for finals?”

Caitlin Gemma—“I would recommend going to the Library and setting aside time to study … I personally always go to the third-floor cubicles; that’s my space. I have one cubicle I really like. And I always study out and … really focus. That’s my strategy.”

Anthony Viscardi—“Take advantage of all the resources available that the University has: the Writing Center, the math tutoring center, the VSB tutoring [on the Library’s second floor]. Those are all really helpful, and visiting your professors’ office hours for any additional help. … Drink a lot of coffee to stay up. … Those are really the difference makers.”

Spandana Vanukuri—“Just go through the writing [class] notes, which I have written … when the professor says something, the important points. … And then go through the [PowerPoint] slides. That’s it. … That more than will do it for me.”

Michael Anderson—“I usually hold up in a room and don’t come out. … I usually get a room in Tolentine and spend long hours there until I’m ready. It’s not fun. … with whoever has the exams with me, we just  get a room and start a study group, basically, ten hours a day during finals week.”

Edward Chang—“With only three weeks left, students should be going over the textbooks—whatever texts they had before—having all that set before actually starting to study so they don’t have to cram. Basically, don’t procrastinate.”

Jordan Pieper—“Try to get everything done the week before finals or done early. I’m an engineer so I write a lot of note sheets; that way I have all of my equations and all the information I need right on hand with me. That way I don’t need to worry about trying to search through it. Other than that there’s really not a lot I can do to prepare for engineering problems and so on. I also try to do a lot of practice problems.”

This week, the Curious ‘Cat asks Villanova students, “What do you think about Falvey’s new drone-delivery service?”

Jacqueline Aran—“The ten minutes is a lot quicker than what they estimated the delivery to be, which is good … ‘cause they [students] won’t have to walk over if it’s snowing or raining or something like that. … I think it’s cool to test it out and to see how it would work out in actuality using legitimate students asking for these things. … It would be cool if this could actually happen. At the same time, it seems super expensive for no reason. I mean, we have legs; we can walk.”

Karla Guadron—“I think it’s really cool. It’s something students will take advantage of especially since it has been a controversial issue for Google and Amazon using it as a national service, with restrictions on where they can and can’t fly over. So it’s really cool that this service is available on Villanova’s campus.”

Magdalen Sceski—“I think that’s really interesting … I definitely never heard of that before … So you can order the book online and then it checks it out for you and brings it … I actually don’t live on campus, but … if I did live on campus I think I would make use of that … It would definitely be really, really cool. It does seem almost incredibly unbelievable, but it would be really cool.”

Neil Patil—“I think it’s actually a really great idea to start implementing … I think a lot of students would find it better to just have the books delivered to them instead of them having to come down here, having to sort through everything and look through everything to try to figure out what they’re looking for. And that way the Library can just be direct with them. It’s really cool.”

Todd MacDonald—“That’s really interesting. I don’t really know anything about that; it seems pretty cool, though.”

Willy Annan—“I think that’s really cool … it’s a really good idea … It’s something that seems almost like—what’s the word I’m looking for?—very Terminator-ish … future and so forth, science fiction … It’s going to be really great for the incoming freshmen. I mean, we should probably walk a little bit more instead of having things delivered to us. But it’s a really cool idea, and I think it’s showing a lot of progress on the University’s part. ”

The Curious ‘Cat wishes to thank this week’s participants for their contributions to our special April Fools edition.