By Darren Poley

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a sea change in the desire for online access to books previously only available in a physical format. Print books are still an important part of any academic library collection, but researchers have discovered the advantages of e-books.

Bloomsbury is a publisher of books in the areas of theology and religion, which has been acquiring the ability to make accessible many books, by several publishers, which were previously not available in an online format. Part of this initiative was to create the Theology and Religion Online (TARO) platform for e-books.

As with all e-books in Falvey Library’s collection, those on the TARO platform and in the modules listed below are accessible to Villanova students and faculty via Falvey’s online catalog. Each individual e-book is cataloged with a unique link to just that one book.

Nevertheless, awareness of the availability of these e-book collections is important, so those acquired from Bloomsbury for Theology and Religious Studies are in the spotlight here.

The collections which Falvey now has access on the TARO platform are:

• Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries
• Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary
• Bloomsbury Religion in North America Collection
• Library of Catholic Thought
• T&T Clark Jesus Library
• T&T Clark Theology Library

It is worth noting that the Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries span over 86 volumes and is one of the most trusted and long-running scholarly commentaries series; The Library of Catholic Thought has in it the New American Bible Revised Edition and The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century online; and Bloomsbury Religion in North America covers the basics, including e-books under the heading of study skills.

In addition to TARO, Falvey now also has access to Bloomsbury’s online collections for theology books published 2013-2022, and e-book access to many books on Religion and Theology published by I.B. Tauris, such as:

• Biblical Studies & Theology Archive
• Religion & Theology 2016-2018
• Religious Studies Archive 1993-2015

Many of the online collections to which Falvey now provides access were the result of Bloomsbury working with publishers to digitize older books previously not available in the online format.

See for example:

• Religious Studies Landmark Texts (Bloomsbury Academic Collections)
• Biblical Studies Landmark Texts (Bloomsbury Academic Collections)
• Christian Doctrines Archive 1988-2013
• Pauline Studies Archive 1984-2012
• Christology Archive 1982-2011
• International Critical Commentary 1901-2014

Darren G. Poley is Associate Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement, and Theology, Humanities & Classical Studies Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. 

By Merrill Stein

If you are seeking policy, legal and historical information about immigration, trial access is now available to the Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S. database, included within the already subscribed to HeinOnline database, a subscription courtesy of the Charles Widger School of Law Library.

The database brings together a comprehensive collection of sixteen subcollections about immigration. Select features include scholarly articles focused on immigration law from the HeinOnline law journal library, congressional hearings, Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports, Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Board of Immigration Appeals Precedent Decisions and several immigration-related acts and legislative histories and relevant Supreme Court briefs in 750,000 pages of material. While the database is meant to be a unique set of resources within HeinOnline, some information can also be found elsewhere and within other scholarly resources.

The trial ends September 26, 2022. More information is available at the HeinOnline’s Immigration Law & Policy guide. The immigration database can be accessed in the Falvey Library Databases A-Z list or from within the HeinOnline database, a subscription courtesy of the Charles Widger School of Law Library.

Merrill Stein is Political Science Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Darren Poley

BrokenSphere CC BY-SA (httpscreativecommons.orglicensesby-sa3.0)

For over 100 years, the Loeb Classical Library has filled a void by supplying critical editions of Greek and Latin texts with a readable English translation with minimal notes done by venerable scholars on the facing pages. This distinctive series of small volumes with their green for Greek and red for Latin covers have, in many cases, been recast with updated texts and fresh translations in recent years, so that the collection still serves the original vision of its namesake.

James Loeb, the Harvard alum and  philanthropist who originally backed the establishment of the Loeb Classical Library, wrote he wanted: “To make the beauty and learning, the philosophy and wit of the great writers of ancient Greece and Rome once more accessible by means of translations that are in themselves real pieces of literature, a thing to be read for the pure joy of it.”

Making the writings of the classical world accessible has been a boon to students and scholars alike for over a century. While the Library does have the books in its print collection, Falvey also provides access to the corpus via the Loeb Classical Library Online (LCL). An author search of the Library’s catalog using “Loeb Online” will result in a list of 220 records with links to the online versions of the close to 550 volumes in the Loeb Classical Library series.

The Villanova University community can access the LCL remotely be means of the Databases A-Z list.

Darren G. Poley is Associate Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement, and Theology, Humanities, and Classical Studies Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.