Happy World Book Day and Shakespeare Day! To celebrate the Bard’s many contributions to culture and language, we wanted to share this striking edition that is contained in our physical collection. While the collection indeed contains several of Shakespeare’s first folios, rest assured, friends, they are but mere facsimiles: valued for research, but not nearly as valuable!
The World Shakespeare Bibliography Online (WSB) is a searchable electronic database consisting of the most comprehensive record of Shakespeare-related scholarship and theatrical productions published or produced worldwide from 1960 to the present. Villanova students can access it through Databases A-Z on Falvey’s website.
If you haven’t ventured over to the WSB in a while you may not be aware that Oxford University Press has taken over publication, as of July 2019. With this change, WSB has undergone some significant cosmetic updates and at least one functional improvement, which will hopefully make the resource easier to navigate.
The most meaningful change for Villanova students is that Falvey’s “Find it” button works for articles in WSB now. Previously WSB was just a bibliography—if someone found an article in it they wanted to check out, they would still need to search for it in Journal Finder or the library’s main search.
When students click on “Find It” now, just like they would to access an article in any of the Library’s other databases, they either be directed to the article or, if Falvey does not have digital access, be given the option to request a scan through interlibrary loan.
Sarah Wingo, MA, MSI, is Liaison Librarian for English Literature, Theatre & Romance Languages at Falvey Memorial Library.
“As a scholar, I recognize the labor and time that goes into the composition of these #books. Each book is a unit of human time. I’m searching for a way to acknowledge what it means for that time to be over.”–Professor Alice Dailey, discussing her art project, which will transform nearly 500 deselected #shakespeare books into #art reflecting the passing of time