Blueprints: Falvey Library

Contents: September 2003
 

• Welcome to Falvey Library's new Web site

• Real reference help in "real time"

• Better than Google,  WebCT's My Classroom features quick links to Falvey resources

• History as reflected in the New York Times at your fingertips: The Historical New York Times database

• Leisure Reading Redux: The Popular Reading collection

• Video Collection moves to Falvey's first floor

• Enrichment seminars enhance this summer at Falvey

• "Travel Day" at Falvey Library

• Also contributing to this issue...
  
   

  Welcome to Falvey Library's new Web site!  Over the course of the past nine months, a group of Library and Unit staff members collaborated with designers from Instructional Media Services to develop a page structure that is visually pleasing, easy to navigate, information dense without seeming cluttered and flexible enough to accommodate future applications. This new design also incorporates results from a number of user studies.

Real reference help in "real time"

By Barbara Quintiliano and Sue Ottignon

For members of the Villanova University community and beyond, reference help is now just a click away, thanks to "Ask Us," Falvey Library’s new reference chat service. Sure to be a big hit with undergraduates long accustomed to life with "instant messenger," Ask Us transforms reference service from a transaction conducted over a desk to an exchange of information between two persons in the boundless regions of cyberspace.

Online Reference chat is available to everyone, and user affiliations are monitored for evaluation purposes only.  To ensure full access to the Falvey subscription databases users should enter their Villanova email address.

The service will be restricted to Villanova University faculty, students and staff, however, if the volume becomes too heavy.  Anyone may initiate a live chat session by clicking on the Ask Us link located in the upper right hand corner of Falvey Library's new homepage.  An additional access point is provided to Villanova faculty and students within their WebCT courses.

A particularly useful feature of Ask Us is the librarian’s ability to "push" a URL to users, who then immediately receives the web page or online form on their computer screens. While all types of reference queries are welcome, users with questions requiring extensive research, consultation and instruction are advised to visit the library in person or to make a research appointment.

A transcript of the session is sent both to the user and to the Library, although the Library’s copy does not contain any identifying information and is used for assessment and evaluation purposes only. Users also have the option of completing a short survey at the end of their session, allowing them to express their level of satisfaction and to offer any other comments regarding the service.

Online chat service is currently available Monday – Friday from 1-5 p.m. A link to reference email is provided so that users can have their questions answered asynchronously when Ask Us is not in operation.

In launching Ask Us, Falvey Library joins the growing number of institutions providing real time online reference service, including the Library of Congress, the libraries of Cornell University and University of Wisconsin, and Brooklyn Public Libraries. The service has the potential of evolving into round the clock reference assistance shared by a consortium of libraries located in different time zones. Welcome to the reference service of the future!

Barbara Quintiliano and Sue Ottignon are reference librarians.
 

What online information resource, featuring name recognition and ease of searchability, retrieves articles on topics as varied as the nutritional benefits of antioxidants or the salient characteristics of Cubism?  For the typical computer-savvy undergraduate Google, Ask Jeeves, or Yahoo readily come to mind. A more authoritative choice, however, would be the Oxford Reference Online, a subscription database offered through Falvey Library and as close as a student’s mouse pad.

Beginning this semester, the Oxford Reference Online and several other interdisciplinary reference sources will be delivered directly to students in their online classroom environment when they click on the provocatively labeled "Better Than Google" icon on the homepage of their WebCT courses. The staff members of Falvey Library and the Center for Instructional Technologies have collaborated in this effort to guide students from the usual web-based search engines toward more scholarly resources. We hope this will be a strategic first step on their road to information fluency. Neatly packaged behind the "Better Than Google" icon students will also find links for sending an email reference query, scheduling a research appointment with a Falvey librarian, and contacting a librarian online in real time during specified reference chat hours. If you have questions concerning this feature or would like further information, contact Barbara Quintiliano, instructional design librarian (x96371 or email: barbara.quintiliano@villanova.edu).

Electronic course reserves have also been integrated directly into the students’ online classroom environment this semester. An icon labeled "Electronic Reserves" will appear in WebCT courses for which electronic readings have been assigned. By clicking on this icon students will conveniently access their materials. For further information on electronic reserves, contact Linda Saboe (x96390 or email: Linda.saboe@villanova.edu).  

For additional information, contact Linda Saboe in the Reserve Room by email at linda.saboe@villanova.edu or phone 610.519.6390.

For political, social, economic, cultural, technological issues and events reported as they occurred, the New York Times can be a wonderful primary resource. It is now at your desktop through ProQuest’s Historical New York Times.

The complete backfiles of the New York Times, from 1857 to 2000, have been fully digitized. Each issue is complete from cover to cover and includes photos, cartoons, graphics, and advertisements. You can search by key words, and in the advanced search mode you can combine words and choose article types (such as headline or review).  If you are looking for accounts of Lincoln’s assassination, woman suffrage, flappers (one article refers to a "flapper" size as intermediate sizes 12, 14, or 16), Rommel’s African Corps, the transcript of the communication between the Apollo astronauts and Houston during the first moon landing or the headlines on the day you were born, try searching the Historical New York Times.

Go to the Falvey Library homepage, and under "Articles" select "Databases by Title." It’s listed under Historical New York Times and under New York Times Historical. For assistance select "Ask Us" under "Research."

An inviting oasis awaits you at the far end of Falvey’s first floor. The recently completed leisure reading area houses comfy upholstered furniture and the popular reading or pop collection which has been relocated from the Falvey Holy Grounds coffee shop.

Another new feature is the establishment of a best seller’s subscription rental program through the McNaughton Company. We will always have a core collection of 300 books, and with this program new replacement books will arrive monthly.

In addition Falvey has over 30 books in the pop collection which have been purchased or received as gifts; this subgroup will continue to grow.

A few examples of current fiction and non-fiction in the pop collection are The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger; The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold; The Lake House by James Patterson; Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg; Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton; and The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein. The loan period for all borrowers is 30 days with no renewal.

The library selection committee members of the pop collection are Barbara Bores and Susan Markley, co-chairs; Michael Foight; Louise Green; Judith Olsen; and Barbara Quintiliano.

Suggestions may be sent to any of these members or you may submit a request through the Library home page by hitting "Request Forms."  Scroll down to"Requesting a New Book for the Library (Resources Management Center)." After completing the form please type POP in the additional information field. We want this collection to be responsive to your leisure reading needs. Enjoy!

 

by Susan B. Markley, Head, Periodical Department

This summer a major change took place at Falvey Library. Due to the lack of sufficient space in Instructional Media Services (IMS), the entire non-print media collection and all audio/visual stations were moved to the new Periodical/Media Center on the first floor near the Bound Periodical Stacks and the copiers. 

Most of the same borrowing policies will still be in effect:

·     Items can still be borrowed or booked in advance by Villanova faculty and staff for classroom or personal use. This is to be done at the Periodical/Media Center. Any questions on this procedure can be directed to ext. 9-4541.

·     Students can use the various media at the Audio/Visual Stations in the Periodical/Media Center, but can not check items out of the library without written faculty/staff authorization.

·     Items are now security stripped, so they will need to be handed to the front door checker to pass around the alarm gate.  Proof of check-out must be provided when exiting the building.  All items should be returned to the  
Periodical/Media Center.

·     IMS will continue to be responsible for booking and setting up in the two media viewing rooms downstairs, as well as
      booking videotapes for use in those rooms.

·     All other IMS services will still be located within IMS, including booking, pick-up and return of equipment.

·     All requests to purchase videotapes and audio CD’s will still go to Sarah Hidding in IMS at ext. 97166.

One benefit of this move will be extended hours for use of the video collection. The Periodical/Media Center will be staffed during all library hours, including evenings and weekends.

As with any major changes, snags may be encountered at the beginning of the semester as policies and procedures are implemented and the staff learns the new equipment. Every effort will be made to ensure that this transition is as smooth as possible, but please feel free to contact the new Periodical/Media Center (ext. 94541) or IMS (ext. 94276) with any questions.

 "I know a place where summer strive"  (Emily Dickinson)

By Luisa Cywinski, Circulation supervisor

While some folks may have been taking a much deserved vacation or reading a few good books, the Library was putting the quieter summer days to good use. Several enrichment seminars, ranging from the academic to the motivational, were conducted over the summer for library staff. Culled from the vast human resources on campus and from the "outside world," presenters shared with us their expertise in ways that would deepen our knowledge of not only our role in education but to enhance the professional self as well.

On June 27, our first seminar of a scholarly nature was delivered by Margaret Schaus, a Bryn Mawr College librarian, who developed an online database, Feminae, Medieval Women and Gender Index, which is available on the Falvey Library web site. The database is a specialized index of articles, book reviews, and essays about women, sexuality, and gender during the Middle Ages. Library staff and Villanova faculty were invited to attend this informative seminar which highlighted the many search methods and resources provided by the database, including a link to the Society of Medieval Feminist Scholarship.

In early August, the Library planned a "Training and Learning with Technology" seminar for library staff. We invited John Shank, instructional design librarian, the Pennsylvania State University, to present his perspectives on technology in teaching. He offered examples of how electronic educational packages, like WebCT, and presentation products, like PresentationPro, can assist both professors and librarians in the delivery of instructional resources. Following Mr. Shank was Frank Palmarino, instructional media technician, who demonstrated the use of specialized software that is used to monitor the status and condition of instructional equipment in rooms and buildings all over campus. This allows the IMS staff to troubleshoot unexpected problems remotely or avoid them entirely with preventive maintenance. The final speaker, Brian Sirak, an instructional technology analyst with CIT, gave practical advice on the use of WebCT at Villanova and also showed examples of narrated video presentations that were created at Villanova using PresentationPro. Brian also mentioned similar products, for instance, TechSmith’s Camtasia, that can be used to create electronic and distance learning instructional videos.

Our final summer seminar was conducted on August 19 by Dane Hewlitt, the OPTIR director of Training and Organization Development. Dane coordinated the completion, scoring, and interpretation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test for approximately 15 library staff members. Dane returned for the afternoon session, which was geared toward helping library staff with the adaptation to change and revolved around the popular training video, "Who Moved My Cheese." The video, available in the Library, features two little people and two mice who face unexpected change.

Needless to say, our refreshments included a fine assortment of, well, cheese. (Nobody was asked to run through a maze, however.)

The planning committee included Diane Adamo, Luisa Cywinski, Michael Foight, Jackie Mirabile, Barbara Quintiliano and Jutta Seibert.

On the afternoon of October 8, Falvey Library will have a themed open house to give students, especially first year students, a first glimpse of the Library and what it has to offer. The events will focus on the theme of "travel," literally, virtually, and figuratively.

Starting at 1 p.m., several faculty members and others will speak on travel-related topics for about 15 minutes each in the Library’s new lounge area on the first floor.  Some handouts describing various library sources (a way to travel through the mind …) will be available to those interested. 

At 3 p.m., the Library will hold the capstone event to the afternoon, a Faculty Book Talk featuring Alexander Varias and his new book, Tourist Third Cabin: Steamship Travel in the Interwar Years.  No doubt, a good time will be had by all.