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Now Available: Pick Up & Go


Falvey Memorial Library is now offering Pick Up & Go for physical library items placed on hold. Use this easy service to get requested materials checked out and ready for pick up at your convenience!

Books and DVDs from the main collection will be available for Pick Up & Go. However, course reserves and Special Collections materials remain unavailable. Instructions for requesting items for pick are available on this web page. Please allow 2-5 business days for processing. You will receive an email when your items are available for pick up. Items will be held for 14 days from date of notification.

E-ZBorrow and Inter-Library Loan items will be processed for Pick Up & Go, but these items should still be requested through their specific services first. For Interlibrary Loan status, please go to ILLiad.

Pick Up & Go shelves are located on the first floor between the Service Desk and the printers. These shelves are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your items are wrapped with a book band that includes your last and first name. Your items will be checked out to you with an itemized receipt. Staff interaction is not required.

To view your checked out items and any Falvey hold requests that are still pending, please visit your Library account at this link: My Library Account (login required).

Pick Up & Go is not available for alumni, Courtesy Members, or visitors.



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Listening to the World: Open-Source Intelligence, 1941-1996

By Jutta Seibert

Today’s technology drives the rapid dissemination of international news through countless social networks and other news channels, but less than two decades ago US students looking for in-depth international news coverage were generally limited to one or two major newspapers from a few foreign countries. A few international newspapers arrived per mail and made it onto library shelves a week or two after they were printed, but most took months to arrive because libraries subscribed to them on microfilm only. Thus, awareness of current international news was mostly limited to natural disasters and major political events as disseminated through US media channels.

News in the twentieth century was generally aimed at and limited to national audiences, although shortwave broadcasting and satellite technology allowed those with access to the necessary technology to listen in on “open” news channels in other countries. Consequently, the general population knew remarkably little about daily news covering events in other countries. US policy makers realized during World War II that they could no longer afford to ignore what is often referred to as open-source intelligence, that is to say the monitoring of international news channels.

Founded in 1941, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was tasked with monitoring, recording, transcribing, and translating broadcast and print news globally to increase US awareness of international events and sentiments. FBIS reports were intended for a government audience, but since 1974 selected reports were made available to the broader public through the National Technical Information Service’s World News Connection. The reports were published in print, but back archives were soon microfilmed and later digitized as well.

Today, FBIS reports are one of a few library resources that offer global news and opinions in translation. FBIS translated news from more than 70 languages, ranging from Afrikaans to Zulu. The digital FBIS archive, available to the Villanova community, spans the years 1941 to 1996 and includes a wide selection of daily news from newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasts, and TV channels.

In 2005, FBIS was succeeded by the Open Source Center under the umbrella of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and, in 2015, the Open Source Center became the Open Source Enterprise. The main mission of the service remains open-source intelligence gathering. In 2014, the CIA decided to cut off public access to its translated news reports justifying the decision with rising costs, widely available internet-based news channels, and machine translation capabilities. Journalists and scholars alike where thus deprived of access to this valuable resource. While much of the news that FBIS monitored was indeed freely available online, machine translation does not compare to the expert services provided by human translators.

Anyone interested in international news in the period from 1941 to 1996 should take a closer look at FBIS Daily Reports. The archive includes selected translations from most of the major news sources such as TASS, Izvestiya, and the Pravda for Russia and Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Le Nouvel Observateur for France. The contents of the archives span the gamut from transcripts of radio broadcasts to translated news articles and transcripts of political speeches. Coverage varies by region and can be determined by navigating to the Publication Series Title page. The purchase of this collection was made possible with a gift from Allen Cellar, class of 1969.

For more news in translation explore MideastWire.com, which offers news in translation from 22 countries in the Middle East, and the Current Digest of the Russian Press, which consists of translated Russian news from 1949 to the present. Contact us if you have any questions.


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

 

 



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Audit Analytics Accounting & Oversight

The Library in partnership with the Villanova School of Business has added the Accounting & Oversight module to our basic Audit Analytics subscription. Audit Analytics structured data facilitate scholarly research on governance, shareholder activism, Sarbanes-Oxley controls, accounting and auditing firms, IPOs, corporate social responsibility, and cybersecurity and more.

All US public companies are included with historical data to 2000. The Accounting and Oversight module is of particular interest because of it’s Accounting Quality Risk Metric, which allows screening by the type, time, and severity of specific risk factors, such as litigation, insider changes, or financial and auditing reporting events.  It also provides cybersecurity disclosure notifications for ransomware, phishing, unauthorized access, and malware with links to original filings or reports.

Access Audit Analytics directly or via WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services), individual password required.


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


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Euromonitor (Passport) Trial

We currently have a trial to three new modules of Euromonitor (Passport): Cities, Industrial and Mobility. At its core, Euromonitor provides data and analysis by and for consumer goods and services markets, internationally. Our basic subscription includes country-level profiles on business dynamics, economics, trade, and sustainability, consumer profiles and market research analysis and data for consumer goods and services.

The Cities module provides historical data, forecasts, comparisons, and analysis about the local economy and consumers.  The Industrial module offers historical data and forecasts, but not analysis about economy-wide industrial production, profitability, trade, and attractiveness. Use the Economies tab to access Cities and Industrial.

The Mobility reports present data and analysis on car ownership, sales, alternative fuel vehicles, public transportation, ridesharing, and autonomous vehicles. Use the Industries tab to access Mobility reports.

The trial runs through September 2021.  Please let me know if continued access to any of these modules is compelling.

 


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


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Everything But The Shark Week—Dive Deeper: Octopus

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Still of a maroon octopus from the Netflix documentary, "My Octopus Teacher.” Image courtesy of Netflix.

“My Octopus Teacher.” Image courtesy of Netflix.


This week, many individuals are celebrating the return of one of summer’s favorite pastimes…Shark Week.

At Falvey Library, we’re spotlighting a few unsung sea creatures on the blog. Should octopuses have their own week on the Discovery channel? Of course they should. I mean, they have three hearts! For additional information on octopuses (yes, that is the plural of ‘octopus’) check out the resources below.

Octopus Fast Facts:

  • Venomous.
  • Taste with their skin.
  • Can solve puzzles and use tools.
  • Change color and texture—excellent camouflage abilities.
  • Good hunters on and off land (they can leave the water for minutes at a time).
  • Octopuses can fit through any opening larger than their parrot-like beaks.
  • Can squirt deadly ink at predators.
  • Their arms (not tentacles) can even react after they’ve been completely severed.
  • Have blue blood.
  • Most species only live between one and two years.
  • Can change their body shape to mimic other animals.

Recommended Resources for Cephalopod Fans:

Check back tomorrow for some fun facts on narwhals!


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

 

 


 


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Everything But The Shark Week: Jellyfish, Immortal and Astounding

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Image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

 

Your feelings about jellyfish might be classified as “it’s complicated.”

If you have been stung by one, you might call jellyfish frightening and even painful. If you have watched them gliding through the water, in person or films like Finding Nemo, you might label them tranquil and meditative. If you truly know jellyfish, you’d most certainly call them what they are: amazing, astonishing, and (sometimes!) immortal.

Flop aside Shark Week lovers, grab your flippers while we “dive deeper,” and explore these cool jellyfish facts found in the pages of books in Falvey’s collection!


Did you know Jellyfish…

…have no heart, brain, bones, or eyes, and their bodies are mostly water?

…travel and migrate in groups called a smack?

…have bodies, called bells, that are shaped like open umbrellas?

…either swim by floating with the current or squeezing water through their bodies?

…can sometimes revert from the adult (medusa) stage to the polyp stage and back again, effectively becoming immortal?

… come in a variety of sizes, including the largest, the lion’s mane jellyfish, whose bell can be as large as eight feet wide and can possess tentacles up to 100 feet long?

Reading Recommendations for Jelly-fans…

The above facts were drawn from several books available in the Library’s collection:

Bonus podcasts with even more jelly-facts!

Want to read some great jelly-fiction and jelly-poetry?

Keep checking back all week on the blog, where we will be exploring many other incredible creatures of the sea!

Shawn Proctor Head shotShawn Proctor, MFA, is Communications and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library. He was stung by a jellyfish as a child and, naturally, is writing a horror novel about jellyfish now.

 


 


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Resource Highlights for South Asian Research tools

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By Merrill Stein

The Times of India (1838–2010) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers), reported by some, as the world’s most widely circulated English daily newspaper, was founded in 1838 to serve British residents of West India. This subscription provides access to all available issues of The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce (1838–1859), The Bombay Times and Standard (1860–1861), and The Times of India (1861–2010).

Researchers can use the historical newspaper in studying topics, such as colonialism and post-colonialism, nationalism, biography, British and world history, class and gender issues, business, international relations, comparative religion, international economics, terrorism, cultural studies, and communication. Additionally, coverage of sports, the growing Indian film industry, and other stories of everyday life are available.

The resource is complimented by Falvey Library’s access to India, Raj and Empire (Adam Matthew Digital) manuscript collection (1615-1947) and the current The Times of India news subscription.

For a research example from the Times of India (1838–2010) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers), try examining the 1857 Sepoy Mutinies or “disaffection,” that lead to the last the Mughal Emperor being deposed and direct governance of India by the British. View events as they occurred and in retrospect at 100 and 150 years later.

The Times of India (1838–2010) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  and the India, Raj and Empire (Adam Matthew Digital) are available on Falvey Library’s Databases A-Z list.  All versions of the Times of India can also be found by searching Falvey Library’s Journal and Article Finder.

 


""Merrill Stein is Political Science Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

 

 

 


 


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New Resource: Global Consumer Survey

By Linda Hauck

The Global Consumer Survey is a much needed addition to our Statista subscription.  This is a powerful tool for students working on projects involving consumer sentiment and behavior in foreign markets. Statista has conducted representative surveys in 55 countries since 2018, so trend analysis is possible. The survey covers the following list of topics: demographics, food, retail, e-commerce, social media, mobility, finance, media, household equipment, travel, health, insurance, and services. Custom target groups can be built or predefined target groups selected. Cross tabulations are supported. Market potential comparisons across economies can be made.

Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash

In addition to these twice yearly surveys, the module provides access to results of special surveys taken at a point in time conducted in specific markets. Recent examples include cancel culture in the U.K., sustainable consumption in China, and toys and games in France.

This international survey focusing on consumer sentiments and behavior related to goods and services fills a gap in our collection. We currently have access to Simmons Insight survey data from 2018 to present, but this exclusively includes U.S. adults. Likewise, Mintel Insights & Analytics databook presents results for points in time across various consumer demographic and product categories, but only covers the U.S. Other international surveys, such as the Gallup Analytics World Poll, World Values Survey or Pew Global Attitudes & Trends, capture perspectives more relevant for public policy and civic society then for commerce and marketing. Other information providers that do offer survey insights for non-U.S. consumers rather than citizens, such as eMarketer or Ipsos, only provide topline results rather than the underlying data that can be cross tabulated.

 

 


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

 

 


 


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Free and Open Resources for Academic Research!

Open the door to research! (Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash)

By Susan Turkel

Villanova University spends a large part of its library budget on online journals, electronic books, and specialized scholarly search engines. These resources, such as Oxford Bibliographies Online, PsycINFO, the ATLA Religion Database, Compendex, and Advertising Age Datacenter, are invaluable resources for students in relevant fields.

The problem, however, is that the Library is essentially renting these resources from vendors, and we are therefore limited in how much we can share and with whom. For example, we would love to make these resources available to Villanova alumni and guests, but the Library is required to sign license agreements with resource vendors that restrict access to current students, staff, and faculty (plus walk-in users, when the building is open to guests). This means that as a student, after you graduate, your remote access to these resources disappears within several weeks.

Start your research here (Photo by Surface on Unsplash)

We have good news! Some publishers and authors choose to make their work available to all, regardless of university affiliation (“open access” resources), and we’ve created a guide listing free and openly available academic search engines, e-book collections, and e-journal collections, along with links to more extensive listings from other libraries.

View the new research guide here: Open Access and Freely Available Resources.

As the guide suggests, a great place to start your research is Google Scholar. This powerful database indexes the full text of online journals in all fields, as well as electronic books and materials in academic repositories. It provides links to full text when possible; if a free version of the item is not available, you can use the author/title/publication information in Google Scholar to request the full article or book via Interlibrary Loan from your public library.

You can also download browser extensions, such as Unpaywall, CORE Discovery, or the Open Access Button, to help you find or request free versions of a resource.

Many of the resources on the new guide are available to all, rather than hidden behind a paywall or licensing restrictions, because they are published as Open Access (OA) projects. Guided by the principle that it is beneficial for society when scholarly research is available without barriers, OA materials are online research outputs that are made available without cost to the reader. Instead, the expenses associated with OA publications are covered by the authors, their institutions, and/or grant funding. There are a variety of OA publications, repositories, software, and projects out there; read more about OA in Peter Suber’s Open Access Overview.

Falvey Memorial Library places a high value on openness. As stated in the Values statement on the Library website,

Openness

We believe that the broad sharing of information, ideas, knowledge, skills, and tools benefits society by enabling information equality, facilitating life-long learning, and driving innovation. We support and encourage open access publishing, open content, and open source software. We strive to make our resources accessible to all. We promote the open exchange of ideas and transparency in communication and decision-making.

Many Falvey initiatives demonstrate our commitment to openness. Here are some examples.

Read freely! (Photo by Ying Ge on Unsplash)

Falvey Open Access Collections

Falvey Open Access Support for Faculty, Staff, and Students

  • Falvey provides financial support to qualifying VU researchers who need help paying processing fees in order to publish open access via the Scholarship Open Access Reserve (SOAR) Fund program.
  • Sarah Wipperman joined Falvey in early 2020 as our first Scholarly Communications Librarian. Sarah is our expert on helping Villanova researchers navigate copyright, author rights, and making their work more visible and openly accessible.
  • Villanova University’s Affordable Materials Project is a campus-wide collaboration that intended to help faculty select high-quality, affordable course materials. The library’s participation includes helping instructors find and adopt open educational resources (OER), which are online, open access course materials.

Falvey Open Software

  • Falvey supports open source software: our Technology Team developed and maintains VuFind, a widely used open source library resource portal. When you search our library catalog or look for articles via the library’s search box, you’re using VuFind!

For more information about Open Access, please explore the websites linked above, and/or contact Sarah Wipperman.


Susan Turkel is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. Thanks go to Michael Foight, Rebecca Oviedo, Jutta Seibert, Marianne Watson, and Sarah Wipperman for their input on this article.

 


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It’s Women’s History Month! Read, Watch, Learn

In 1987, the U.S. Congress declared March to be National Women’s History Month. Coordinated by the National Women’s History Alliance, this annual celebration seeks to recognize “the diverse and significant historical accomplishments of women.”

This year’s theme is Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to be Silenced in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

Want to read about women’s suffrage? Historian Susan Ware recommends these five books:

1. The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault (e-book or print book at Falvey)

2. The Concise History of Woman Suffrage by Mari Jo Buhle & Paul Buhle (order via Interlibrary Loan)

3. All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900 by Martha S. Jones (e-book or print book at Falvey)

4. The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss (order via Interlibrary Loan)

5. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexander Keyssar (e-book or print book at Falvey)

 


Are you doing research on a gender-related topic? Falvey has you covered! We have everything you need: journals, books, search engines for finding resources, and databases containing primary source materials to answer all of your gender and women’s studies questions! Visit the our Subject Guide on Gender & Women’s Studies, and be sure to check out these resources:

We subscribe to all of the top journals in the field, including:

Great interdisciplinary databases to help you find journal articles, books, news, and more:

GenderWatch

GenderWatch includes indexing, abstracts, and full text of scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and reports in many disciplines on topics relevant to gender studies. This database is particularly strong in its coverage of dissertations and non-mainstream magazines and newspapers.

Gender Studies Database

Gender Studies Database provides indexing and abstracts for academic and professional journals, conference papers, books, book chapters, government reports, discussion and working papers, theses & dissertations and other sources. GSD combines Women’s Studies International and Men’s Studies databases with the coverage of sexual diversity issues, and is very strong in its coverage of health sciences journals as well as other academic journals.

 

Primary sources and historical documents:

Source: Digital Transgender Archive

Digital Transgender Archive (Free to all users)

This resource provides “an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world” related to transgender history. The project is based at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and is searchable and browsable by map, institution, collection, topic, and genre. The contents of the collection focus on materials created before 2000.

 

Source: Adam Matthew Digital

Gender: Identity and Social Change

This database provides access to primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Offers sources for the study of women’s suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics. Falvey licenses this resource from Adam Matthew Digital.

The Gerritsen Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs

The Gerritsen Collection features digital copies of more than 4000 books and pamphlets and complete runs of more than 200 periodicals related to women’s history in general and the movement for women’s rights in particular. It includes materials addressing both the pro-feminist and anti-feminist case, as well as other materials that provide an objective look at the condition of women in a given time of place. Its coverage is international, and extends from the middle of the 15th century to the middle of the 20th century. Each of the books, pamphlets, and periodical titles has its own listing in Falvey’s library catalog.

 

E-Book Collections:

Duke Gender Studies e-book Collection

The Duke Gender Studies e-book collection includes “essential titles and field-defining scholarship in queer theory, gay and lesbian studies, transgender studies, feminist theory, and women’s studies.” This collection is comprised of more than 500 titles published between 1990 and the present. Each book is fully downloadable and printable (chapter by chapter), and is accessible by an unlimited number of VU community members at once.

Perdita Manuscripts

Offers digital copies of writings by early modern women (1500-1700). The name of the collection, derived from the Latin word for “lost,” alludes to the ephemeral nature of women’s writings which were rarely published and widely shared. Genres represented in the collection range from poetry and religious writings to letters, recipes, and account books. Includes manuscript descriptions with partial transcriptions and detailed annotations where available. The collection is part of the Perdita Project. The manuscripts are held by libraries and archives in the US and UK. Includes pdf files for all manuscripts. Licensed from Adam Matthew Digital.

 

Film and Video:

Academic Video Online

Academic Video Online, or AVON, offers more than 70,000 films and documentary TV episodes from distributors including PBS, the BBC, Bullfrog Films, Ro*Co Films, California Newsreel, and many others. Most films include searchable full text transcripts. Here are some subcollections focused on women’s history:

Women’s and Gender Studies Video Online

– Women’s History Month: Celebrating Artists Who are Women

Films on Women’s Suffrage

 

Data and statistics:

Source: WomanStats Project

WomanStats Project (Free to all users)

The WomanStats Project is the most comprehensive compilation of information on the status of women in the world with qualitative and quantitative information on over 260 indicators of women’s status in 174 countries. To view the data, you first need to create a free account.

 Women, Peace and Security Index (Free to all users)

Measures women’s well-being in 167 countries around the world. It examines three dimensions of women’s lives: inclusion (political, social, economic); justice (formal laws and informal discrimination); and security (at the family, community, and societal levels). A score between 0 (worst possible) and 1 (best possible) is generated for each country, ultimately determining their rank. Begun in 2017/18, the index was created by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security in partnership with the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

Statista

Statista is a user-friendly data portal offering tables, graphs, reports, and more on over 80,000 topics from more than 18,000 sources. Women- and gender-related data points covered include information on health, employment and career, consumer behavior, women’s portrayal in media, political behavior, demographics, and public opinion.

For help with your research in Gender and Women’s Studies, please contact the GWS Librarian Jutta Seibert.


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

 

 


 


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Last Modified: March 2, 2021

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