Download LibKey Nomad for quick access to PDFs through Wikipedia, PubMed, and Google Scholar! 

By Nicole Daly and Margot Accettura

Do you use Wikipedia, Pubmed, or Google Scholar and struggle to know whether Falvey offers you access to the articles mentioned in their reference lists? Check out LibKey Nomad, the browser extension that connects your Villanova library account to various databases including Wikipedia, Pubmed, and Google Scholar!  

Instructions on downloading the browser extension:  

• • Go to https://thirdiron.com/downloadnomad/  
  • Select Get LibKey Nomad Now
  • Choose your preferred browser. There’s no need to sign in or make a new account! Just make sure you choose Villanova University.

Once connected you will notice the Nomad button popup offering pdf access for articles linked from the library. If a PDF is not available, it will automatically send you to Falvey’s site to find access. It will even send you to the ILL link if it’s not in our holdings! 

Happy searching! 

P.S. Don’t feel like adding the extension? LibKey also offers a website where you can easily copy an articles DOI into the search bar and quickly see if we have access to a pdf file. 

Go to: https://libkey.io/  

P.P.S. Falvey also has access to BrowZine which makes journal browsing and reading easier! At https://browzine.com/libraries/764/subjects you can browse Falvey provided journals by discipline. You can even keep your own bookshelf and article list.

Nicole Daly is Communication and Sociology and Criminology Librarian at Falvey Library.

Margot Accettura is STEM Librarian at Falvey Library. 

By Linda Hauck

By Centro de Estudios Públicos – https://www.cepchile.cl/CEP40Aniversario, CC BY 2.0 cl, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112613569

Falvey offers extensive access to commercial journals published by Elsevier, Sage, Wiley, Emerald, Taylor & Francis, Springer-Nature, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press, among others. Many factors are taken into consideration in negotiating access to these very costly resources, including alignment with curricula and research activity, journal impact or prestige, indexing, cost structure, actual usage, turn-a-ways, and stated demand.

A faculty member noted high quality, peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to a frequently offered graduate course were accessible using Business Source Premier and SCOPUS, two recommended database for business, and the Library Search Articles and More tool, but access to full text access was only available via interlibrary loan. The faculty member submitted a request for purchase.

As is often the case, the cost of subscribing to the single journal was quite high, but the journal was part of the Henry Stewart Business and Management Journal Collection, which maps to multiple disciplines taught at the Villanova School of Business, including digital marketing, real estate, data analytics, and supply chain management. Bundled with our HSTalks instructional video collection, the Library was able to negotiate for the Henry Stewart Business and Management Journals Collection.

Students and faculty now have immediate access to current issues and backfiles of these journals that publish papers written by applied scholars and seasoned practitioners.

Link to the full text of 22 Henry Stewart journals by using the “find it” button in Business Source Premier or SCOPUS, or by using the Journal Finder.

Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.

By Linda Hauck

Business loan by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free: https://pix4free.org/photo/29458/business-loan.html

Villanova students and faculty now have access to Dealscan. Dealscan provides data on the global commercial loan market.  The data from Thomson/Refinitiv and hosted on the Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) platform provides detailed information about lenders, borrowers and loan deals, tranches, pricing, terms, and conditions.

Loan data is widely used by financial, economic, and accounting researchers.  Some recent topics examined with Dealscan data include the following:

• Trade war impact on international borrowing
• Mitigation of cost of debt for innovative firms by disclosure readability
• Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives impact on loan covenants.
• How loan covenants affect takeover targets

Villanova community members can register for on and off campus access to WRDS access by registering and using DUO two-factor authorization.

Linda Hauck, MLS, MBS, is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.

Photo courtesy of Luisa Cywinski.

By Kallie Stahl 

Luisa Cywinski, Director of Access Services, brings homegrown strawberries to Falvey Library. Staff enjoy the fresh produce, so I thought I’d ask Cywinski about her garden. She shared helpful tips and resources for gardeners of all experience levels.

“When I started gardening, I had four goals: I wanted to eat my own food, share my crops, provide a wildlife habitat, and repurpose as much as I possibly could,” Cywinski shares.

Repurpose, Reuse, Recycle 

Cywinski had always been interested in gardening, but once she moved to a location with more land, she began expanding her yard. “I started building my own raised beds out of upcycled wood. I had to learn how to use power tools (which I had never used before),” says Cywinski. Almost everything in her garden is upcycled. “You can get soil for free (or at reduced prices) from people looking to share excess soil or mulch on Facebook Marketplace and Buy Nothing groups. There are a lot of great local resources.”

Specifically, Cywinski uses mushroom soil, and there are a few local organic mushroom farms that give away their spent mushroom compost. “Whatever you take away, you put back in,” says Cywinski. “Compost everything. Keep it out of the landfill. I source additional plant materials for my compost from local farmers markets and produce stands. Even florists will give me their cuttings.  I also source coffee grounds from local coffee shops (and Starbucks); they are happy to share.”

For those unfamiliar with composting, there are plenty of helpful resources to explore. Locally, Cywinski recommends Mother Compost. “If anyone is having problems with composting they can contact Mother Compost. The company also does composting for people. They give you a bucket, you fill it with scraps, they take it away, then in the spring they bring you your compost. They company is local so they understand the local climate. I also follow Charles Dowding’s No Dig Gardening channel on YouTube. He’s my gardening and composting guru.”

Tips to Dig Into 

Cardboard is a staple in Cywinski’s garden. “I use the no dig method. I put the cardboard on top of any weeds or grass, and at the bottom of my raised beds. Next, I add the compost and mushroom soil. Cardboard is biodegradable and the worms love it.” With extra cardboard, Cywinski suggests making paths in your garden. “Instead of using manufactured materials, get creative and construct projects with the stuff you already have.”

She also uses sheep’s wool. “Wool is naturally pest repellent. Slugs and snails don’t like the feel of it, so they won’t crawl over it. Just put a ring of raw wool around your plants and it will keep insects at bay.” In hopes of deterring animals from eating her plants, Cywinski uses cages, garden gates, play yards, chicken wire, etc. to construct fencing. “Don’t make the fences too high because you’ll have to climb over them to tend to your crops.”

Grow What You Love 

Photo courtesy of Luisa Cywinski.

Vegetables, fruit, nuts, herbs…Cywinski has a bit of everything in her garden. She plants in stages starting with cool weather crops. “Broccoli and Brussel sprouts can be planted in April, but tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, and corn are more hot weather plants, so you don’t want to put those in the soil until late May or early June. You can start growing seedlings in the house with containers.” Cywinski suggests container gardening for those that don’t have a yard. The Gardeners’ World (a television show on BBC) provides a lot of helpful tips for container gardening. “I’m growing kale, peppers, basil, and carrots in containers…anything can grow in a container as long as you give it what it needs.”

When watering her garden, Cywinski prefers using rainwater. Attending a rain barrel workshop with the Pennsylvania Resource Council (PRC), she learned helpful tips on water conservation. The PRC offers multiple workshops for residents statewide. Cywinski enjoys growing strawberries and heirloom tomatoes. She cooks and bakes with her harvest, freezing many crops to use in the fall and winter.

If you’re just starting your gardening adventure, Cywinski urges patience. “Don’t try to get everything done in one year. My garden projects have been five years in the making. Just start and add on as you go.” As for what to plant? “Grow what you like to eat,” she says. “Put all your thought, all your energy, all your creativity into growing food that you love…because then you’ll really want it to work.”

Dig deeper and explore the resources below:

• Sustainable Gardening: Grow a ‘Greener’ Low-Maintenance Landscape with Fewer Resources (Simeone, 2021) *eBook
• Gardening to Eat: Connecting People and Plants (Dickinson, 2021) *eBook
• Gardening Complete: How to Best Grow Vegetables, Flowers, and Other Outdoor Plants (Editors of Cool Springs Press, 2018) *eBook
• Zero Waste Gardening: Maximize Space and Taste with Minimal Waste (Raskin, 2021) *eBook
• Micro Food Gardening: Project Plans and Plants for Growing Fruits and Veggies in Tiny Spaces (McGuiness, 2021) *eBook
• Modern Container Gardening: How to Create a Stylish Small-Space Garden Anywhere (Palmer, 2020) *eBook
• Raised-Bed Gardening: How to Grow More in Less Space (Akeroyd, 2013) *eBook
• Container Gardening Complete : Creative Projects for Growing Vegetables and Flowers in Small Spaces (Walliser, 2017) *eBook
• Charles Dowding Official Website (recommended by Cywinski)
• Mother Compost Official Website (recommended by Cywinski)
• Pennsylvania Resources Council Official Website (recommended by Cywinski)
• The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni (recommended by Cywinski)

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library. 

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey 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. This new, relevant, and thought-provoking content will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

This week’s installment of Weekend Recs is courtesy of Kallie Stahl, Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library. Annie will be back in a few weeks with new summer recommendations—Stay tuned! 

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month—Celebrating the “histories of Americans hailing from across the Asian continent and from the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.” This month was selected to commemorate AAPI heritage as the first Japanese immigrants migrated to the United States on May 7, 1842. The transcontinental railroad was also completed on May 10, 1869—the majority of the construction completed by thousands of Chinese immigrants.

As we celebrate the heritage of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, we must combat continued racism against the AAPI community. Falvey Library condemns anti-Asian racial discrimination and violence. We stand with the AAPI members of our Villanova community and all AAPI members in solidarity.

Image courtesy of Penguin Random House.

No list of this nature could ever be comprehensive, but we hope you explore some of the links below this weekend:

If you have 5 minutes…Read my article on AAPI resources available at Falvey Library.

If you have 22-30 minutes…Stream an episode of Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher’s show “Never Have I Ever.”

If you have 54 minutes and 11 seconds…Watch an episode of PBS’ documentary series on the history of Asian Americans.

If you have 57 minutes…Listen to an episode of the “Time To Say Goodbye” podcast. Andy B. Liu, PhD, Assistant Professor of History at Villanova University, started the podcast with journalists Jay Caspian Kang and Tammy Kim. (Note: Dr. Liu left the podcast in 2022).

Bonus: Explore some of Dr. Liu’s work:

• Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India (2020)
• Production, Circulation, and Accumulation: The Historiographies of Capitalism in China and South Asia (2019)
• Incense and Industry: Labour and Capital in the Tea Districts of Huizhou, China (2016)

If you have 2 hours and 19 minutes…Stream Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Oscar-winning film “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

If you have 4 hours…Read Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (available at Falvey Library).

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library.

By Linda Hauck

Falvey now has access to premium data on the Sports Business Research Network (SBRnet), which conducts twice yearly consumer surveys of a representative sample of U.S. consumers 13 years and older.  The surveys include questions about sport and team fandom by demographic characteristics (gender, age, income, geography, and education), media usage (social media, device usage, and channels watched), spending on merchandise, sports travel behavior, and select food and beverage consumption patterns and insurance, banking, and credit usage.

This new content compliments the news, directories and additional data sets in SBRnet. There are directories for sports venues, marketing agencies,  sport associations and team and player performance sites.  Its a one-stop shop for sporting goods spending, participation, attendance, fan demographics, and media usage data, downloadable in Excel format. Use it to keep up to date on business developments on everything from baseball to fantasy football, sports gambling, pickleball, and sports law to name just a few topics.

SBRnet is a top pick for sports analytics, marketing and management students.

Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.

By Nicole Daly 

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) has done it again! With the guiding force of University of Michigan professor Libby Hemphill and in collaboration with Meta, Facebook’s parent company, they have expanded their many data collections to include SOMAR, a social media archive for researchers to find and investigate data dealing with social media. 

As of May 1, 2023, the repository only holds 5 datasets, but it is growing and will be updated frequently to add more resources. For more information on using or adding to this resource go to the Social Media Archive (SOMAR) @ ICPSR.

Similar to its hosting site, ICPSR, SOMAR allows researchers to browse for datasets by collection or keyword. Users are able to narrow their search results by social media platform, allowing them to browse for data on or about specific sites, such as Facebook. Once a user has found a study and dataset of interest they will be able open the item record to read about the study details to determine if they would like to login and download the dataset.

A reminder, Villanova is a member institution of ICPSR, allowing faculty, staff, and students access to a vast collection of datasets in the social science realm. To begin using ICPSR, a free account must be created while on campus to gain access to the full collection. Once you have created your account you will be able to use this resource, and its linked collections like SOMAR, off campus. 

For any questions, contact Social Science Librarian Nicole Daly.

This resource is available from the Falvey Library homepage, Databases A-Z list.

Nicole Daly is Communication Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. 

Help us celebrate Love Data Week, the international celebration of all things data related! Love data is a week dedicated to raising awareness and celebrating how data influences our world! 

This year’s theme is “Data: Agent of Change,” focusing on inspiring significant change through data, whether large or small, ranging from policy change, structural change, and social change! If you have not participated previously, now is the time! To help new and seasoned data users find data training and resources to move the needle on issues they care about, I have created a list of resources one could use to explore those issues. 

With February also being Black History Month, I wanted to bring attention to some of the research and data sources available covering issues with race, not only in the U.S. but worldwide.   

Check out these resources to learn more. 

U.S. Census Information on Race: https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race.html  

Race, Ethnicity and Marriage in the United States: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/07/interracial-marriages.html  

Pew Research Center Race and Ethnicity information: https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/race-ethnicity/ 

ICPSR is a data repository available to Villanova students, faculty, and staff. They host a variety of datasets that have been curated for ease of use, including many sets dealing with social issues. Two helpful features they offer are the Thematic Data Collections, which includes the Resource Center for Minority Data, and their Current Events in the Bib page, which shows publications dealing with current society issues and how data is being used in to broaden the scholarship. Explore ICPSR to find datasets available for secondary analysis to advance policy and social change. 

The International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology, IASSIST, recently released a webinar titled “A Conversation About Data on Race & Ethnicity Around the World” By Bobray Bordelon, Barbara Levergood, Kevin Manuel, Nigel de Noronha, Anja Perry, and Anne Zald. The panel was moderated by Alexandra Cooper and Deborah Wiltshire.

Erica Hayes, Digital Scholarship Librarian, recommends the book, Data Feminism by Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein. “The book touches on why data scientists need feminism and how data can perpetuate intersectional inequalities. The book also provides examples of different projects like Data for Black Lives: https://d4bl.org/.” 

It is important to also highlight some of the inherent issues that are prevalent in data science. Beaudry Allen, University Archivist, recommends Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Noble to learn more about the systematic racism found in data science. 

For more information about different data resources Falvey offers check out the Falvey library blog. There were different data related posts throughout the week! Make sure to join us again next year for Love Data Week 2024, which will run from Feb. 12-16.

Follow and spread the word about Love Data Week 2023: @lovedataweek on Twitter and Instagram #lovedata23 

This event is hosted by ICPSR, a data repository that is available on Falvey Library’s homepage, Databases A-Z list. 

Nicole Daly is Communication Librarian at Falvey Library.

By Linda Hauck

Villanova faculty and students now have access to the ISS Directors and NEO Diversity Datasets.  The datasets encompass over 27,000 companies, globally.  Characteristics of company board members and named executives are documented.  This is a unique data set because not only are age, nationality and gender of persons recorded but ethnicity is as well.  Ethnicity data sources are by firm disclosure, by survey feedback, and analyst identification.

It is a well documented and rich source of information about company diversity policies, statements and goals too.   Outcomes backed up by numbers and percentages of board and officer composition by ethnicity, gender, age, tenure, and experiential factors are presented. The complete data dictionary is available here.

At present this data is available by SFTP via FileZilla or WinSCP.

Instructions are available here and linda.hauck@villanova.edu or ref@villanova.edu will share the password with authorize users. It is expected that this data will be on WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services) later in the year.  Contact linda.hauck@villanova.edu if you would like to schedule a training session.

Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.