Join us on Monday, Feb. 5, at 1 p.m. to celebrate the launch of our new Popular Reading selection in Speaker’s Corner, Falvey Library! Over 400 new fiction and non-fiction titles are available for you to borrow, including new releases, literary fiction, romance, fantasy, mysteries, cookbooks, essay collections, and much more!

After a few opening remarks and a huge thank you to our committee of student volunteers who helped select the titles on the shelves, please feel free to enjoy some refreshments as you browse for new books!

Do you have an interest in sustainability research? If so, be sure to check out JSTOR Sustainability, one of Falvey’s resources. This database provides a wide range of scholarly journals, ebooks, and research reports in effort to help you stay informed on topics related to sustainability. Having celebrated the landmark 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, there is no better time to dig into this dynamic resource!

Within this database, users have the option to search for content on a broad range of topics related to sustainability. Some featured topics include:

• Agricultural productivity
• Agroforestry
• Carbon footprint
• Climate change policy
• Conservation biology
• Emissions trading
• Energy policy
• Environmental education
• Environmental engineering
• Environmental history
• Environmental law
• Food security
• Green buildings
• Human ecology
• Industrial ecology
• Land use planning
• Natural resources
• Nature conservation
• Population geography
• Renewable energy
• Resource economics
• Sustainable cities
• Sustainable urban infrastructure
• Transportation planning
• Urban development
• Waste management
• Water quality
• Wetland conservation

There are many other topics you can delve deeper into as well, depending on your interest or research needs.

Matters of sustainability impact all people, so the JSTOR Sustainability database could potentially be of use to not only scholars in environmental science/studies, sustainable engineering, global health and peace and justice fields, but really to anyone who has a general interest in climate studies or wants to learn more about living a sustainable life. In fact, Villanova University has expressed a pledge to sustainability efforts through its Climate Commitment, so the information found within this database is of great significance to all Villanovans—past, present, and future.

If you need help using this or any other library resource, you can Live Chat or email a reference librarian at ref@villanova.edu.

Be sure to check out JSTOR Sustainability to stay informed on the latest and greatest information in sustainability research.

Regina Duffy is a Communication and Marketing Program Manager 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 Susan Turkel

Image of movie theater by Nathan Engel via pexels.com

Are you taking a film studies class… or just looking for a good movie to watch on Friday night? Depending on your interest, come to (virtual) Falvey for help finding a film review or some film criticism!

The library has put together a guide to finding both reviews of movies (typically found in newspapers, magazines, and on websites), and works of film criticism, which are scholarly works on films and filmmakers that are usually found in scholarly books and journals.

Film reviews are usually published soon after a film or DVD is released. They describe the film and provide some sort of evaluation, to help potential viewers decide whether to watch the movie. Film criticism or film critique is more analytical, and may include references to film theory and other kinds of literary or cultural theory.

The Finding Film Reviews guide offers links to free websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which collate film reviews and provide “what to watch” lists. The guide also provides links and search tips for using library-subscribed academic resources that delve into film studies scholarship.

This guide and many others are linked from the Library’s How-to Guides list, which is linked under Research Services at the top of every page. You’ll find tips there on finding information in various formats, getting your scholarship published, annotating PDFs, using e-books, and more.

As a reminder: Falvey offers access to thousands of streaming films for your edification and viewing pleasure! Please visit the Streaming Video at Falvey guide for more information.

If you need more help finding film reviews, film critiques, or any other type of information, please contact your friendly librarian. We are always happy to help!

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

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

By Regina Duffy

In order to support faculty and student scholars who continue to work remotely into the summer, Falvey recently added JSTOR’s Security Studies to its growing list of new and expanding resources. This database has broad interdisciplinary appeal and is useful to those interested not only in the study of criminology and sociology, but also to those who focus on political science, cultural studies, peace and justice studies, history, law, technology, and global interdisciplinary studies.

JSTOR Security Studies contains journals, book chapters, research reports, and pamphlets—all of which can be downloaded or saved as full-text PDFs. Some topics in the database include “geopolitics,” “cybersecurity,” “food justice,” “economic security,” and “war crimes,” just to name a few. There are tons of topics to browse, whether you are a scholar or are simply interested in the many different facets of security studies.

In addition, JSTOR Security Studies also makes it super convenient for scholars to cite works. When viewing an item, users can simply click “cite this item” and they are offered citations for the piece in MLA, APA, and Chicago Style formats that can be copied directly from the source. Export citation tools are also provided if needed.  However, please note that our expert subject librarians suggest that you always double-check your citations as the software occasionally makes mistakes.

JSTOR Security Studies is a new temporary resource that was added to the collection to support the Villanova Community as part of the Library’s response to COVID-19. The database will be available until June 30, 2020.

If you need help using this or any other database, please reach out to our reference librarians, who are available Monday- Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. to assist you. They can be reached by via Live Chat or email at ref@villanova.edu.

Don’t miss out on this very useful and easy-to-use resource!

Regina Duffy is a Communication and Marketing Program Manager 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.

Photo by Nathan Engel, Pexels.

By Regina Duffy

Are you a film aficionado or aspiring to be one? If so, check out Bloomsbury Screen Studies. This database contains a generous arsenal of film-related materials, including screenplays, scholarly film criticism, reference works, eBooks, and so much more.

With Bloomsbury Screen Studies, users can search by “People,” “Themes,” “Genre, Movements and Styles,” as well as “Films” to examine key elements in the study of film. There is also an interactive timeline which allows you to explore the extensive history of film from the 19^th century to the current day. You could literally spend hours looking at old screenplays, reading actor bios, or reviewing scholarly criticism from different film genres and eras.

You can access Bloomsbury Screen Studies by visiting Falvey’s Temporarily Available Online Resources (Spring 2020) webpage. It is listed under “Multiformat Collections,” along with some other great new temporary offerings.

This database will be of particular interest faculty and students who are involved in Media Studies in Villanova’s Department of Communication. However, anyone who has interest in the study of film would undoubtedly find this to be an invaluable resource.

Bloomsbury Screen Studies is presented by Bloomsbury, Faber & Faber, and the British Film Institute. It is a newly acquired resource that is available for temporary use by Villanova faculty, staff, and students until May 31, 2020. Falvey Library gained temporary access to this database due to the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to meet the growing needs of faculty and students who are now working remotely. It is just one of the thousands of new resources that Falvey has recently added.

If you need help using this or any of the library’s databases, please be sure to connect with one of the Library’s amazing subject librarian experts via our Live Chat. You can also email a librarian at ref@villanova.edu.

For a list of the most up-to-date resources and services provided by Falvey, please see the Falvey Memorial Library COVID-19 Updates and Resources webpage.

Please remember that The Virtual Library is open and ready for you!

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

By Jutta Seibert

The Cambridge Histories Online collection has crossed the 350-volume threshold in the past year with the addition of 16 new volumes. The popular platform houses nearly all the Cambridge History series, except for the first three series, the Cambridge Modern History, the Cambridge Medieval History, and the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, which were superseded by later editions.

Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg.
Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone.
London: The Macmillan Co, 1904.

It all began in 1896 when the syndics of Cambridge University Press approached Lord Acton, then Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, with the idea of creating a history of the world. Lord Acton agreed to take on the project but narrowed its scope to the modern world, beginning with the Renaissance. And so, the venerable survey series that continues to this day was born.

While responsible for much of the planning of the series, Lord Acton passed away before the first volume was printed in 1902. Josef Altholz’s article “Lord Acton and the Plan of the Cambridge Modern History” in the Historical Journal tells the story of the project that, over time, morphed into the Cambridge History Online archive. Lord Acton’s Cambridge Modern History, which has since been superseded by the New Cambridge Modern History, can be accessed through Hathi Trust, as the work has passed into the public domain.

Among the new volumes published in 2019 is the three-volume Cambridge History of the American Civil War, edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, PhD, Fred C. Frey Professor of Southern Studies at Louisiana State University. The first volume focuses on military affairs, the second on affairs of the state, and the third on affairs of the people.

Logophiles will fall in love with The Cambridge World History of Lexicography, edited by John Considine, DPhil, Professor of Arts, English, and Film Studies at University of Alberta. The work explores the histories of the compilation of dictionaries through time and space. It focuses mostly on languages with a well-established dictionary traditions including most European languages, Hebrew, Arabic, and the major East Asian languages. Several chapters on missionary traditions deal with Western efforts to codify languages lacking an established writing system through grammars and dictionaries. It also covers dictionary traditions in the ancient world. English language dictionaries are surveyed in two chapters, one of them dealing with standard varieties of English and the influential Oxford English Dictionary. American English and the influence of Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language are examined in the chapter about regional varieties of English.

The scope of the Cambridge History of Travel Writing, edited by Nandini Das, PhD, Professor of English Literature at University of Liverpool, and Tim Youngs, PhD, Professor at Nottingham Trent University, is breathtaking. The 36 chapters explore travel writing from the ancient world through today and cover all five continents. A chapter on polar travel is incorporated in Part 3 – Perspectives on Travel Writing. Topical approaches to travel writing include chapters on ecocriticism, tourism, and wilderness. Also noteworthy are the contributions about the different forms of travel writing, ranging from poetry and fiction to diaries and digital expressions.

Expect the archive to continue to grow this year. Planned volumes include a world history of violence, a history of medieval monasticism, and a history of the Gothic.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

The Library has trial access to the complete Adam Matthew digital archive until December 14. The archive includes over sixty unique digital collections spanning from the 15^th to the 21^st century. Contents include documents, manuscripts, letters, historical books, newspapers, magazines, films, images, posters, and audio files. All collections are curated by academic editorial boards and include contextual essays written by recognized scholars and in some cases video interviews. These introductory materials facilitate access to the collections for undergraduate students. The sheer size of the archive makes it impossible to describe it in a short blog post. The collections highlighted here are by no means representative. Interested readers can find a complete list of available collections online.

Socialism on Film (1918-1988) is a collection of newsreels, documentaries, and feature films from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the former GDR, China, Vietnam, Korea, and Latin America. Sourced from the archives of the British Film Institute, this collection features the films gathered by British communist Stanley Forman. The films in the collection are dubbed in English for distribution in the West. Scholars can assemble their own playlists and link to preselected snapshots or excerpts of each film. They can also create their own custom clips. Each film includes a transcript. For example, the Lenin & the Russian Revolution sub-collection “features over 80 documentary and feature films that present and explore the dramatic rise of communism and formation of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. Created to bolster and celebrate the communist cause, as well as to kindle and ignite the political passions of new generations of revolutionaries, these films make for powerful propaganda tools.” [Excerpt from the collection description] Denise J. Youngblook (University of Vermont) contributed an essay on “The Soviet Documentary and Cold War Propaganda” to the collection.

Under the Banner of Peace, 1969, Moscow Popular Science Film Studio.

The Food and Drink in History collection was sourced from a wide range of institutions world-wide including two local archives: The Winterthur Library and the Hagley Museum & Library. Primary sources in the collection range from the 16^th century to the early 21^st century and include a variety of formats such as cookbooks, food marketing materials, trade cards, food labels, and cooking magazines. Beth M. Forrest (Culinary Institute of America) contributed an essay that discusses “Performing History Through Food: Interpreting Recipes and Cookbooks.”

Save Waste Fats for Explosives, poster, color, 20 x 28 in., USGPO, 1943.

Everyday Life & Women in America “comprises thousands of fully searchable images of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes. The collection is especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, offering vivid insights into the daily lives of women and men, as well as emphasizing contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.” [Excerpt from the collection description] The primary sources featured in this collection come from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History at Duke University and The New York Public Library. Judith Mattson Bean contributed an essay about “Women Talking about Themselves: Changing Discourse in American Advice Literature.”

Race Relations in America explores “three pivotal decades in the struggle for civil rights in America through the eyes and work of sociologists, activists, psychologists, teachers, ministers, students and housewives. Sourced from the records of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, this resource provides access to a wealth of documents highlighting different responses to the challenges of overcoming prejudice, segregation and racial tensions. These range from survey material, including interviews and statistics, to educational pamphlets, administrative correspondence, and photographs and speeches from the Annual Race Relations Institutes.” [Excerpt from the collection description] The collection includes an interactive chronology and a map that allows the reader to identify primary sources by geographic location. An essay by Katrina M. Sanders (University of Iowa) delineates the history of the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University.

A word of warning before you start exploring the Adam Matthew Explorer archive. Don’t enter unless you have plenty of free time on hand. It is easy to lose track of time and get lost in the wealth of primary sources. Contact Jutta Seibert (jutta.seibert@villanova.edu) if you would like to recommend the complete archive or selected collections for acquisition. Trial access to the archive will be available until December 14. The link to the collection is available under Databases A-Z on the Library website for the duration of the trial: http://www.am-explorer.com/. Enter PALCI2019 as user name and as password.