By Jutta Seibert

Looking for news from Ireland? We’ve got you covered. Falvey Library has arranged trial access to Irish Newspaper Archives, a collection of over 200 current and historical newspapers covering all Irish counties. The Archives are updated daily and you can expect to read today’s issues of The Belfast Telegraph, The Corkman, The Donegal News, the Irish Independent, the Tipperary Star, and many other newspapers from Ireland and Northern Ireland whenever you log on. Also available are the archives of a long list of since defunct newspapers, such as The Freeman’s Journal (1763-1924), the Nation (1842-1897), and Punch (1844-1925). Those of our readers who have consulted the Irish Radical Newspapers collection in the past will be familiar with the search interface and collection platform.

Trial access to the Irish Newspaper Archives will be available until October 20. We noticed that the Archives’ response times are slow and ask for your patience. Let us know if you would like to recommend the Archives for the Library’s permanent collection.

Related resources in the Falvey collections:

• Irish studies research guide
• The Irish Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
  Presents a complete archive of the Irish Times back to 1859 (except for the most recent two years) and the Weekly Irish Times (1876-1958).
• Irish newspapers in Falvey’s Digital Library
  Available titles include The Free State, The Irish Felon, The Irish People, The Irish Tribune, The Irish Worker and People’s Advocate, The Irishman, The United Irishman, and The Waterford Chronicle.
• Irish newspapers on microfilm in the Falvey collection
  Titles available include: An-Phoblacht/The Republic, Belfast News-letter, Dublin News, Evening Freeman, Evening Telegraph, Freeman’s Journal, Irish Freedom, Irish Times, Irish Tribune, Irishman, Pilot, The Peasant, United Irishman, and The Weekly Nation.
• The Irish Press
  A weekly newspaper dedicated to Irish nationalism for an Irish American audience. It was founded by Joseph McGarrity and published in Philadelphia from 1918 to 1922.
• Radical Newspapers, 1886-1993 (Irish Newspaper Archives)
  Digital archives of more than 100 newspapers, bulletins, and pamphlets covering a broad sweep of nationalist, republican, feminist, and socialist publications.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement 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.

By Jenna Renaud

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Memorial Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Jenna, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

As the month of March wraps up, so does Women’s History Month! This week we are spotlighting a variety of news articles, websites, videos, and more that celebrate women. Whether you have three minutes or  three hours, there’s a recommendation for you. Missing a recommendation or want to celebrate the accomplishments of a women in your life? Find us on Instagram (@villanovalibrary) or Twitter (@FalveyLibrary) and leave us a comment.  

If you have 3 minutes… scroll through this timeline celebrating the accomplishments of rule-breaking women from 2013 to 2022. 

If you have 5 minutes… take some time to learn about the gender pay gap with this comprehensive guide from The Skimm. 

If you have 6 minutes… read about how last month the U.S. national women’s soccer team settled in the equal pay dispute. 

If you have 2 hours and 15 minutes… watch one of my favorite movies, Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig. 

If you have the weekend… watch some of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Villanova’s women team may not be there, but that doesn’t prevent you from putting a bracket together and watching some games with friends and family. Find the full weekend schedule here. 

Jenna Renaud is a Graduate Assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a Graduate Student in the Communication Department.

By Jenna Renaud

The U.S. Mint has announced that on Monday, Jan. 10 they began shipping quarters featuring poet Maya Angelou.  

This quarter represents the first in the American Women Quarters Program. This Mint program will take place over four years and includes issuing five quarters a year to honor women in fields, including women’s suffrage, Civil Rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, and the arts.  

Women to be featured in 2022 include physicist and first woman astronaut Sally Ride; Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation; Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. 

Women have previously been featured on coins, although never the quarter. In 2017 the Mint introduced a commemorative gold coin featuring Lady Liberty as a Black woman. Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was the first to be featured on a coin in circulation when silver dollars were released with her image in 1979. Other women featured on currency include writer and activist for the disabled Helen Keller and Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who helped Lewis and Clark across the plains.

Author, poet, and Civil Rights activist, Angelou rose to prominence with the publication of her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1969. She was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010 by President Barack Obama. Although having passed away in 2014 at the age of 86, Angelou’s impact and writings live on.

The quarter design depicts Angelou with outstretched arms and was created by Emily Damstra, a designer, and Craig A. Campbell, a medallic artist. Behind her is a bird in flight and a rising sun. Both of these selected images are inspired by her poetry and the way she lived her life. 

Below we have compiled a list of some of Maya Angelou’s most important and impactful pieces of work, all of which are available in Falvey’s collection: 

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) 
• The Complete Poetry (2015) 
• Phenomenal Women: Four Poems Celebrating Women (1994) 
• The Heart of a Women (1981) 
• On the Pulse of Morning (1993) 
• A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002) 

Click here to find a full list of Falvey’s collection of Maya Angelou pieces and make sure you are on the lookout for these quarters over the next four years. 

Jenna Renaud is a Graduate Assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a Graduate Student in the Communication Department.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! After a year off, Falvey Memorial Library is bringing back Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Jenna, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

Whether they’re fried, mashed, roasted, or baked, everyone loves a good potato. That being said, this week our weekend recs are all about potatoes and a surprising amount of potato news. The idea for this post sparked when in reading my daily news update, I saw an article about Doug, the spud-tacular potato found in New Zealand. From there, an office conversation about potatoes commenced, and I now present my findings on potato news whether you have 4 minutes or an entire weekend to devote to potatoes.  

If you have 2 minutes… read this article about Doug the potato. 

If you have 2 minutes and 23 seconds… watch this Stephen Colbert clip (starting at the 5:33 mark) of him talking about mysterious potato appearances. 

If you have 1 hour… visit Potato News Today, a publication dedicated to covering all things potatoes. You could probably spend more than an hour sifting through potato news, but an hour is plenty of time to expand your potato news knowledge further. 

If you have 3 hours… read this article with the top 30 best potato recipes and then take some time to put your potato cooking skills to the test! 

If you have 9 hours and 45 minutes… read this psychological fiction novel, Milkman, by Anna Burns, that takes place in Northern Ireland. We all know you can’t think of Ireland without thinking of potatoes! 

Jenna Renaud is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! After a year off, Falvey Memorial Library is bringing back Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Jenna, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

With the Tennessee Titan’s defeat of the Buffalo Bills Monday night, a third of the NFL season has officially passed. And with that, there have been many exciting developments from a team ending their 20-game losing streak to the Eagles trading away a long-time player. Whether school has cut into your football watching time or you want to try to understand why people are fascinated by the sport, check out the recs below. 

If you have 3 minutes… read about how the Jacksonville Jaguars ended their 20-game losing streak while playing in London. 

If you have 17 minutes… watch former Philadelphia Eagle Tight End Zach Ertz’s emotional goodbye to Philly fans as he gets traded to the Arizona Cardinals. 

If you have 51 minutes… and play Fantasy Football (or want to learn more about it), listen to the NFL’s NFL Fantasy Podcast where they combine in-depth stats and film study to help you win your league. 

If you 1 hour and 31 minutes… listen to the NFL’s (other) podcast Around the NFL where they recap the biggest games and defeats of Week 6. 

If you have about 8 hours… read NFL Football: A History of America’s New National Pastime by Richard C. Crepeau and available online in Falvey’s collection.

If you have all day Sunday… grab a seat on your couch, order wings and pizza, and watch a day of football. You can find the full Sunday schedule and where to stream the games here. 

Jenna Renaud is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! After a year off, Falvey Memorial Library is bringing back Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Jenna, a Graduate Assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

Tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 11, marks the 20th anniversary of the tragic terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people. Below are resources to help you reflect on and explore the legacy of the events of 9/11 whether you have 3 minutes or a whole day.  

If you have 4 minutes… listen to the Oral History of Bruno Dellinger, a 9/11 survivor, compiled by the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Would you rather read than listen? View the full transcript here. 

If you have 30 minutes… Explore the 9/11 Memorial & Museum’s interactive timeline of the events of 9/11. 

Content warning: The timelines contain some graphic images and sensitive content due to the explicit nature of events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. 

If you have 7 hours…  borrow Reluctant Hero by Michael Benfante through the Falvey website. Belefante recounts his experience as a 9/11 survivor and the wrenching personal challenges of critical emotional and psychological depth.  

Michael Benfante is speaking at the Riley Ellipse at 3 p.m. today, Sept. 10. Refreshments will follow. 

If you have the whole day… consider attending one of these Philly-area commemoration events listed in this Philadelphia Inquirer article. 

Jenna Renaud is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library.

By Susan Turkel

Falvey Memorial Library is hosting a trial to Access World News, a full-text gateway to articles from local, regional, and international newspapers and magazines, as well as television and radio transcripts. It combines full-text articles, web-only content, and PDF image editions into a single interface, and includes both archival and current content.

Access World News offers more than 12,000 different news sources, including the Philadelphia Inquirer (full images of every page since 2018, and full text since 1981), NPR’s Morning Edition and Fresh Air, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Miami Herald, the Jerusalem Post, and the Irish Times. It excels in providing local news, and offers more than 300 Pennsylvania news sources, including the Main Line Times, State College’s Centre Daily Times, the Reading Eagle, Philadelphia Magazine, and a variety of college and university newspapers. Explore the full title list.

Browse Access World News by location

Search the full database, or browse by location, by date, or by topic. The front page allows you to view a world map and navigate to a country or state, seeing the list of news sources from that region as you focus your inquiry. If you need help thinking of a topic, use the subject browser that allows you to drill down through a series of layers to get to a useful list of articles on a timely subject.

Explore Access World News and let us know what you think! We simultaneously have trials to two competing news databases, Factiva and ProQuest’s Global Newsstream. Please take a moment to share your feedback on these resources with the library. The trials run through Sept. 30, 2021, and all of these resources will be available from the Databases A-Z list during the trial period.

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

Happy Friday, Wildcats! After a year hiatus, Falvey Memorial Library’s back to Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Jenna, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

Although 95% of the Villanova community is fully vaccinated, it’s still important that we keep up with the latest vaccine statuses, especially given a COVID-19 booster may be just around the corner to help us fight the Delta variant.

In addition to announcing an upcoming booster, President Biden also announced that the Pfizer vaccine is officially FDA-approved beyond emergency usage. What does this all mean? What about the other vaccines? With everything changing what it feels like is every day, we’ve compiled resources to help you keep up to date whether you have two minutes or a whole day. 

If you have three minutes… read this article from The Skimm on vaccine immunity, boosters and breakthrough cases. 

If you have seven minutes… Read this other article from The Skimm about everything you need to know about the top COVID-19 vaccines.  

If you have 11 minutes… Watch Biden’s statements on the FDA Pfizer approval on Aug. 23 from PBS News Hour.  

If you have 30 minutes… consider contributing to Falvey and the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest’s Documenting COVID-19 collection efforts.

If you have the whole day (or at least 11 hours)… read or listen to the new-ish memoir by American television personality, dancer, and fitness instructor, Amanda Koots about her late husband and Broadway actor, Nick Cordero’s death from COVID complications. Live Your Life: My Story of Loving and Losing Nick Cordero explores the love they shared and the grief that came with his loss and the international pandemic.  

Jenna Newman is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library.

By Allie Reczek and Daniella Snyder

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Memorial Library is happy to present a new edition of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Daniella, graduate assistants from the English department, teams up with Allie Reczek, a Library’s undergraduate student worker, and, together, they scour the internet, peruse the news, and dig through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week.

Happy New Year, Wildcats! It’s the start of a new decade and with that comes waves of stories that shock the world. One of the top, early headlines of 2020 is Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s decision to step back from their senior duties in the royal family, with their goals to become financially independent and split their time between the United Kingdom and North America. 

With this change within the royal family, many questions arise, such as how the couple plans to support themselves and what they will do with their time now. Stay up to date with our weekend recommendations:

• If you have 3 minutes: Listen to this NPR podcast about the split.
• If you have 5 minutes: Watch this video summarizing the news from People Magazine.
• If you have 9 minutes and you’re as obsessed with Meghan Markle as Daniella is: Watch this Youtube video of the speech she gave at the UN Women Conference in 2015.
• If you have 15 minutes: Read this CNN article discussing the logistics of separation from the Royal Family.
• Finally, if you’re bored this weekend and in the mood for a total television binge: Watch Suits on USA, a television show Markle starred on before her royal marriage.

What do you think of this change? Tell us on social! 

Allie Reczek is a sophomore Psychology Major and works as a Communication & Marketing Assistant in Falvey; Daniella Snyder is a Graduate Assistant in the Communication & Marketing department at Falvey.