Skip Navigation
Falvey Library
Advanced
You are exploring: Home > Blogs

Falvey offers trial access to the Art & Architecture ePortal

By Jutta Seibert

Falvey currently offers trial access to the Art & Architecture ePortal (A&AePortal), an authoritative source of academic art and architecture books. Electronic access to art, art history, and architecture monographs and journals is a somewhat recent development. Reproduction quality of image and copyright permissions were among the major drivers for this delay. Technological changes in recent years have resulted in electronic image quality that is often superior to that in print media. Covid-19 access restrictions to print collections accelerated and incentivized the transition to e-books in art and art history.


A&AePortal is a great example of a high-quality and innovative e-book collection in this discipline. It features a collection of authoritative works on art and architecture including artist monographs, surveys, museum catalogs, and catalogues raisonnés. Most works are part of the catalog of Yale University Press publications complemented by selected books from other highly regarded university and museum presses including electronic access to the acclaimed The Image of the Black in Western Art series edited by Bindman, Gates, and Dalton and published by Belknap Press.

Falvey owns many of the works in print but some of these critical works have been lost or damaged over the years and are currently out of print. Online access offers the convenience of easy access to often oversized and weighty books. In some cases black and white images that appeared in the print publications have been replaced with high-quality color copies. The portal features a searchable image archive, citation and annotation tools, as well as a personal book shelf.

Library staff invites you to explore the A&AePortal. Trial access to the collection will end on December 30th. We are looking forward to your comments.


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

 

 



Like

Bloomsbury History: Theory & Method on Trial

By Jutta Seibert

Bloomsbury History: Theory & Method is a brand new digital resource dedicated to historiography and the examination of historical theory and methods using a global approach. It features cutting-edge scholarship in the form of exclusive articles contributed by historians from 25 different countries. At the core of the collection are the recently published four-volume survey Historiography: Critical Readings edited by Q. Edward Wang and 100 essays that explore key concepts, thinkers, debates, and methods as well as a small selection of classical texts that shaped the discipline. Examples of topics include medievalism, social movements, agency, causality, microhistory, environmental history, and public history to name just a few. The collection also features digital access to more than 60 previously published monographs and essay collections that focus on historiography, theory and methods. Included are the following titles:

New content will be added continuously in the coming years. Trial access will be available until October 22, 2021. A link to the collection is available on the Library’s Databases A-Z list under B. Get in touch if you would like to recommend this resources for the Library’s permanent collection.


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

 

 



Like

Database Trial: Access World News

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.


Like

Ogonek: Russia’s Answer to Life Magazine (on trial until October 2)

By Jutta Seibert

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%9E%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BA_1923-01_%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%82_1993.pdf

Ogonek 1, October, 1923.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Falvey Memorial Library offers trial access to Ogonek (Огонёк), one of the oldest illustrated weeklies in Russian language. Strictly speaking, the trial encompasses two digital archives.

Villanova faculty, staff, and students have temporary access to the digital archive of the original Ogonek, which was published in St. Petersburg from 1899 to 1918, and to the digital archive of a later magazine by the same name published in Moscow from 1923 to 2020. The two magazines have little in common apart from title and format. Nevertheless, the 1923 reincarnation claimed descent, as can be seen on the title page of its first issue. A hand turns several pages of a bound volume, thus skipping from an image of devastation with the year 1919 marked on the page to a visual representation of a bright new day in 1923. The little flame in the upper left hand corner of the image is a visual representation of Ogonek, the Russian word for spark or little flame.

The original Ogonek started out as a weekly supplement to Birzhevye vedomosti, a newspaper published in St. Petersburg. The magazine was an immediate success and was soon published independently. The use of two-tone printing and photography set the magazine apart from its competition. It was estimated that the magazine reached around 6 million readers at its peak before the Bolshevik revolution disrupted publication in 1899.

Nearly a quarter century later, M.E. Kol’tsov rekindled the little flame in Moscow. The new Ogonek had little in common with its predecessor aside from its format and name. But, like its predecessor, it rapidly grew in popularity, despite its reputation as a Soviet propaganda organ and the fall from grace of its founding editor.

Over the next 97 years Ogonek chronicled life in the Soviet Union. The magazine survived the dissolution of the Union following glasnost and perestroika. Its circulation increased dramatically after 1986 as the magazine advocated for political reform. Like many other magazines and newspapers worldwide, Ogonek did not survive increasing competition from online news and had to close its doors in 2020.

Ogonek is an excellent resource for anyone interested in daily life in the USSR. Although the images and texts offered in the magazine are mostly representations of an idealized version of Russian daily life, much can be deduced from a close study of the magazine. Both Ogonek archives are available from East View. The search interface accepts Romanized (transliterated) Russian and Cyrillic search terms. Cyrillic search terms can be entered with an integrated Cyrillic keyboard. The Cyrillic keyboard available in the search interface for the original Ogonek includes old Russian characters as the content of this archive was written using pre-reform Russian orthography. Those interested in delving deeper into the history of Ogonek should read Celebrating Ogonek, 1899-2020, an article recently published in the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian & Eurasian History (vol. 22, no. 2, 2021).

Russian news sources available through Falvey Library include:
  • Ogonek Digital Archive, 1899-1918 (East View)
    Offers digital access to all surviving issues of Ogonek (Огонёк), an influential illustrated weekly published in St. Petersburg as a supplement to the newspaper Birzhevye vedomosti until 1902 after which it was published independently.
    Trial access until Oct. 2, 2021.
  • Ogonek Digital Archive, 1923-2020 (East View)
    Presents the complete archive of Ogonek (Огонёк), one of the oldest illustrated weeklies published in Moscow (Russia) from 1923 to 2020. Chronicles the Soviet era in its entirety and offers an unparalleled visual record of life in the Soviet Union. Features well-known journalists, writers, photographers, and artists. Similar in its impact to Life, the US weekly magazine.
    Trial access until Oct. 2, 2021.
  • Moscow News Digital Archive (East View)
    Features the longest running English-language newspaper published in Russia from 1930 to 2014.
  • Current Digest of the Russian Press, 1949- (East View)
    Offers a selection of Russian-language news in translation.
  • Imperial Russian Newspapers (East View)
    Presents open access to selected Russian newspapers published between 1782 and 1917. Includes Birzhevye vedomosti the original home of Ogonek.

Trial access is available to all Villanova University faculty, staff, and students. Links to the two archives will be available on the Databases A-Z list under O until the trial ends on Oct. 2. Contact us if you would like to recommend this resource for the permanent collection.


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

 

 



Like
1 People Like This Post

UK Parliamentary Papers on Trial

By Jutta Seibert

Falvey Memorial Library offers trial access to the U.K. Parliamentary Papers archive on the ProQuest platform until Sept. 17. Trial access covers parliamentary papers from 1679 to the present. Among the documents included in the archive are public petitions, bills and acts, command papers, the papers of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, Hansard, journals, and debates. The Advanced Search screen offers a range of search options, such as date range and document types. Contents can also be explored by individual members of parliament, offices, and constituencies. Directories for members and constituencies are connected to the search interface.

Research applications are endless given the scope of the archive. The parliamentary record included in the archive stretches from the current pandemic back in time to the founding of the Virginia Colony in the 17th century. It brings the many interests of Britain’s national politics to light. Try a keyword search of opium to discover a wealth of data about Britain’s commercial interests in opium in its colonial territories.

Visit ProQuest’s research guide for the U.K. Parliamentary Papers archive if you would like to learn more, and contact us if you would like to recommend this resource for the permanent collection. A link to the collection will be available on the Databases A-Z list until the trial ends Sept. 17.


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

 

 



Like

Littman E-Library of Jewish Civilization Trial

By Jutta Seibert

Explore the ensemble of Jewish studies books published in the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization (LLJC) series. The books published in this series cover a range of subject areas including history, religious studies, philosophy, literature, and cultural studies including classical and modern works. Online access to LLJC is available on trial basis until Nov. 22 through the Databases A-Z list on the Library’s website.


The series was established in 1965 by Louis Littman in memory of his father with the intent to explore, explain, and perpetuate Jewish heritage. Louis Littman described his motivation for the project and the challenges involved in publishing high-quality Jewish studies books in English in a posthumously published article in the journal of Jewish Historical Studies.

Littman, Louis. “The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization.” Jewish Historical Studies 29 (1982): 311-25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29779823.

Founder and editors of the series initially focused on publishing translations of seminal Jewish works written in Hebrew as expressed on the dust jacket of the first book in the series: “The aim of the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization is to present to the English-speaking public a selection of some of the finest products of the Jewish religious and literary genius.” The first volume published in 1965 was the poetry collection Hebrew Poems from Spain, selected and translated by David Goldstein. Most of the works published in LLJC in the last decades were written in English. Among the recently added titles are Hasidism Beyond Modernity, Cities of Splendour in the Shaping of Sephardi History, and Final Judgment and the Dead in Medieval Jewish Thought.

Today, LLJC books can be found on various online platforms, such as JSTOR, Liverpool University Press, and ACLS Humanities E-Book. The current trial gives the Villanova community access to a subset of 50 titles on the Liverpool University Press e-book platform. Part of the collection is also available in print. Contact us if you have questions or if you would like to recommend this series for the permanent collection.


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

 

 



Like

Trial Access to FBIS Daily Reports, 1941-1974

By Jutta Seibert

The Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports, better known as FBIS Daily Reports, consist of English translations of selected foreign radio and television broadcasts, newspaper and magazine articles, and government statements. FBIS was a branch of the CIA with about 20 offices and a large cohort of independent contractors worldwide. The reports were distributed to US policymakers and security analysts to monitor foreign language news. Because of the public nature of the information that FBIS dealt with, its services are labelled open source intelligence.

Some libraries have chosen to share digitized copies of FBIS reports from their collections, although it is not clear whether this is legal, as the reports consist mostly of translations and transcriptions of copyrighted materials. The Villanova University community has partial access to FBIS reports for 1974–1996 through the Readex collection listed on the Library’s Databases A-Z list.

Expanded access to the complete collection (1941–1996) is now available on a trial basis until May 29. The expanded coverage opens the door to explore international reactions to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first moon walk, the building of the Berlin Wall, and the Bay of Pigs Invasion, among many other newsworthy events of the twentieth century.

Trial access available until May 29. Let us know if you recommend this collection for permanent access.

 


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

 

 



Like
1 People Like This Post

Bloomsbury Cultural Histories on Trial

By Jutta Seibert

Bloomsbury Academic has given the Villanova community generous trial access to the Bloomsbury Cultural Histories book series until May 31. While the community has temporarily lost access to the print titles in the Library’s collection, it has gained electronic access to all titles published in the series.

If you are not familiar with Bloomsbury Cultural Histories, here is what you need to know in a nutshell. Each six-volume set explores a theme from antiquity to the present. Bloomsbury has published 16 sets so far. Topics include, among others, childhood and family, dress and fashion, the human body, the senses, western empires, work, and women. New this academic year are the six-volume Cultural History of Money and the Cultural History of Emotions. Announced for later this year are the Cultural History of Disability, the Cultural History of Marriage, and the Cultural History of Tragedy. Forthcoming themes include color, education, home, medicine, and sports.

Each six-volume set presents an authoritative survey of scholarship on a single topic through time. For example, each volume of the Cultural History of Western Empire has a chapter about race to allow readers to follow the topic through time. The first volume covers race in antiquity, followed by the medieval age, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the age of empire. The last volume covers race in the modern age.

The collection also includes a selection of cultural and social history books from Bloomsbury Academic, Berg, and Continuum. My personal favorites are Alison David’s Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present, Rudy Koshar’s German Travel Cultures. Leisure, Consumption and Culture, and David Sutton’s Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory.

Visual resources from the Wellcome Collection, the Rijksmuseum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art round out the collection, which also includes an interactive timeline and lesson plans for the undergraduate classroom. Remote access is provided from the Library’s Databases A-Z list.

Let us know if you want to recommend this collection for permanent access.


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

 

 



Like

Try This Database: SPORTDiscus with Full Text

sport Discus screen shot

Are you interested in sports medicine? Athletics marketing and advertising? Sports psychology? The sociology of sport? Sports studies is an interdisciplinary field and it can be hard to know where to search for information. Falvey Memorial Library has a solution for you!

We have arranged for campus-wide trial access to SPORTDiscus with Full Text, an online database for articles and other materials on all aspects of the study of sport.

SPORTDiscus provides access to the scholarly and popular literature of sport, including medical, social, biomechanical, business and management, public health, and psychological aspects of the topic. It offers indexing and full text of scholarly journals, magazines, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and more. Coverage is international and goes back to 1800.

Full text journals covered include everything from NCAA News, Soccer & Society, and the Journal of Sport History, to Kinesiology Review, the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sports, and the Entertainment & Sports Law Journal.

“Sport studies is a very interdisciplinary area, and until now Villanova hasn’t had a library resource that could help a researcher get access to all facets of the topic at once. SPORTDiscus with Full Text is the premier resource for the study of sport,” says Susan Turkel, Social Sciences Librarian.

To access, click here: SPORTDiscus with Full Text  or navigate to the database from the library’s Databases A-Z listing.

Villanova has trial access to this resource through November 30, 2019. Please contact Susan Turkel (susan.turkel@villanova.edu) or another subject librarian if you’d like to recommend this database for purchase by the library.


Like

Trial Access to Sage Videos Business & Management

Falvey is currently offering a trial to Sage Videos Business & Management until October 30, 2019.  This video collection compliments Sage Business Cases as a teaching tool with videos covering a wide range of business topics across the spectrum of formats including:

  • Brief interviews
  • Lectures
  • Tutorials
  • Full length documentaries

Full videos or clips can be easily embedded into learning management systems.

Please contact Linda Hauck (linda.hauck@villanova.edu) if you think this video collection would be a valuable resource.


Like

Next Page »

 


Last Modified: October 10, 2019

Ask Us: Live Chat
Back to Top