Margot Accettura, STEM Librarian.

Margot Accettura joined Research Services & Scholarly Engagement (RSSE) as the STEM Librarian. From Morristown, N.J., she earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Skidmore College and a master’s degree in imaging science from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Currently enrolled at PennWest Clarion University, Accettura will receive a master’s of science in library information science this year. Previously working for her undergraduate library and the Phoenixville Public Library, Accettura feels her role at Falvey perfectly integrates her STEM experience and passion for libraries.

“As a member of the RSSE team, I will be working with students and faculty to support them with their learning and research goals. I will be working with the astronomy, biology, chemistry, computing sciences, environment science, mathematics, and physics departments. I will provide outreach to these departments, showing them the services that Falvey provides. I will also be providing information literacy instruction to courses.” Having a STEM background, Accettura feels she can connect with students in their collegiate careers at Villanova. “I understand what STEM students are going through…There are a lot of ways I think having a better knowledge of what the library had to offer would’ve helped me in my research and I’m hoping to share that with Villanova students and faculty.”

In her free time (when she’s not reading), Accettura enjoys running. She is part of a local running group in her town. “I also like to do archery and my new year’s resolution this year is to reignite my passion for piano which I played for 8 years in my youth.” Her reading recommendation for Falvey patrons: Circe, by Madeline Miller. “She writes re-imaginings of Greek mythology and I like all of her work.”

“I’m very excited for this opportunity and am looking forward to working with my liaison departments and the broader Villanova community,” she says. Accettura’s office (room 220) is on the second floor of Falvey Library. Email margot.accettura@villanova.edu; (610) 519-8129.

By Jutta Seibert

Faculty looking for short texts to introduce students to a new subject value the Very Short Introductions (VSI) series from Oxford University Press for their clarity and brevity. The complete VSI series with close to 700 individual titles is now available to the Villanova community via a dedicated VSI gateway. The series has broad interdisciplinary appeal with a sizeable number of STEM titles in addition to arts and humanities and social science topics.

Take a closer look at VSI the next time you are looking for concise and authoritative information about a complex topic. Each volume is written by a specialist for a general audience with little or no previous knowledge of the subject. The scope of this series is impressive: it includes a suite of basic business subjects such as accounting, taxation, and marketing; STEM topics range from engineering and physics to medicine and mathematics; arts and humanities subjects come from a wide variety of disciplines as is to be expected.

Individual volumes rarely exceed 160 pages in keeping with the series title. Readers can expect concise overviews, brief outlines of current research directions and references to seminal texts. The VSI platform makes it easy to discover suitable volumes and chapters. Readers may set up personal accounts to manage a list of favorite chapters. Alternatively, they can also download citations containing persistent URLs. Those who would like to download individual chapters will need to use the print function to create a pdf document first.

You can find a link to the complete collection on the Library’s Databases A-Z list. Records for individual volumes can be found in the Library’s catalog. Note that the catalog includes records for selected VSI volumes available through ProQuest as well as for print volumes. Readers who prefer to browse and search all published VSI volumes simultaneously should use the link on the A-Z list.

Interesting subjects abound in a series this large: for example, anyone seeking to gain a better understanding of the current global health crisis will find the volumes covering the history of pandemics, epidemiology, viruses, and public health particularly interesting. The sheer scope of the series can be overwhelming at first: aesthetics, art theory, artificial intelligence, Augustine, Catholicism, climate, critical theory, biometrics, citizenship, environmental politics, evolution, feminism, free speech, globalization, the Harlem Renaissance, human rights, the Koran, literary theory, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the periodic table, privacy, number theory, and the Silk Road. And this is just a small sample of the topics covered!

Visit the VSI database to discover subjects that you are interested in, and let us know how you feel about this latest addition to the Library’s ever-growing collection.

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