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Blueprints: Falvey Library
Contents: December 2001
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Native American studies, "full-blood" versus "mixed-blood," assimilation, reform, democratic citizenship and dissertation research were all topics explored in a fascinating talk given by Dr. Paul Rosier, visiting assistant professor of history, on his recent book Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912-1954 (University of Nebraska Press, 2001). The November 15 talk was the latest in the ongoing "Faculty Book Talk" series sponsored by Falvey Memorial Library. Figuring prominently in Dr. Rosier’s talk was the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1933. While most historians are critical of the act, Dr. Rosier found in his research that such a sweeping assessment does not fit the experience of all Indians, and, in the case of the Blackfeet Nation, positive outcomes included both the political development of the tribe and expanding its economic opportunities. |
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His book serves as an important case study of one Indian nation that bridges the gap between reservation life in the nineteenth century and the political and economic realities of tribal life today.
Dr. Rosier first met the Blackfeet while backpacking in northwest Montana. As a history student, he began to wonder how Native Americans survived efforts at assimilation and detribalization. A major step in his exploration of the topic started with a graduate paper delivered at a conference in Princeton. Subsequently, in search of a dissertation topic, he decided to include the Blackfeet in a comparative study of the political culture of four tribes. Realizing from an early visit to the National Archives that the quantity of material on even one tribe was enormous, he decided to focus his research on the Blackfeet.
The Blackfeet overwhelmingly adopted the IRA. It enabled them to assert sovereignty over many of their own affairs, and it returned a strong measure of democratic citizenship to the tribe.
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Browning, Montana, the main town on the reservation, became the site of many political debates on important issues affecting the tribe. Some issues concerned the rift between the relatively few remaining full-blooded Blackfeet and those of mixed blood. Other issues arose from the economic inequalities within the tribe. Some full-bloods called for a return to the sharing and give-away culture of the original Blackfeet, since the more assimilated mixed-blood Blackfeet increasingly adopted white American business practices. Dr. Rosier found the petitions of tribal members, preserved in the National Archives, to be essential to discovering the character of these issues and debates. |
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American democracy, adapted to their use, enabled the Blackfeet to strengthen their tribe and to achieve, in effect, a rebirth. The tribal nation became a microcosm of the larger American society: stratified and diverse, patriotic, struggling with solutions to political, social, and economic issues, but democratically organized. The full-bloods who brought the problems of poverty and unequal wealth to the fore enabled the tribe to rebuild the idea of community and distributive justice. Oil revenue, which became an important source of income for the Blackfeet, was, in part, set aside to be distributed to disadvantaged tribal members.
Embracing the IRA did not solve the tribe’s economic problems. Oil revenue was helpful but no panacea. Today, economic and social problems continue to exist on the reservation, an area of the country that is characterized by farming, ranching and long cold winters.
Villanova has a number of other connections to the Blackfeet Nation. Early in the 1990s, a large number of books was sent to the reservation. Since 1992, Villanovans have provided Christmas gifts to children of the tribe through a program coordinated by the President’s Office, Campus Ministry, and the Office for Mission Effectiveness.
Dennis Lambert is head, Collection Development and Management, and the librarian liaison to the history department.
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Kathryn Gallagher, who joined Falvey in late October, works evenings in the Reserve Room. She has experience working at the circulation desk at the Upper Merion Public Library and for the Hartford Insurance Company. Kathy is "truly honored and excited" to be at Villanova, and she looks forward to helping students in Reserve. She attended Catholic schools for twelve years and graduated from Cardinal Dougherty High School. Kathy and her husband have three children. |
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Also joining Falvey are Elizabeth Bell and Madeleine O’Callaghan, who share the afternoon door checker position. Liz worked for twelve years at Rosemont College in Rathalla, the mansion, as college receptionist and telephone operator. A long time Ardmore resident, Liz has two children and three grandchildren, and she enjoys bridge and crocheting. |
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Madeleine O’Callaghan was formerly a nurse anesthetist, graduating from programs at Temple and the University of Pennsylvania. Now a resident of Rosemont, Madeleine has lived and worked in Michigan, North Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia. |
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by Merrill Stein and Susan Markley
Recent data compiled clearly suggests that while modern technology has dramatically changed library use, it has not diminished it. For example, scholarly journals still remain a major research tool. While the use of print periodicals has declined, this decline has been more than offset by the explosive use of the same titles in electronic format. Current Falvey Library usage statistics appear to correspond to 21st century trends in library services and resources.
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The dark bar indicates the use of print journals while the light bar indicates electronic journal use in Falvey Memorial Library from 1994 to 2001. |
While virtual entrance to the Library has risen almost three times as much as counts of physical entrance to the Library, physical entrance counts of library use remain level. Book circulation in public and academic libraries continues to decline but nowhere near a precipitous rate. If the recent instability of one of the most noted electronic book vendors is any evidence of patron preference, the printed book will be here for generations to come.
Since no one library can own everything that its patrons might need, requests for books and documents from other libraries have also increased. Copyright laws have prevented making full-texts of the world's literature always available, but online technology has increased awareness and demand for those texts. Both lending and borrowing services continue to record increasing or steady levels of activity.
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Also noteworthy is how other University developments dovetail with or drive acquisition and distribution of library services. As dormitories and offices were wired for Internet availability and the Library’s electronic resources were networked, students, staff and faculty began to take virtual advantage of a myriad of University services, including the latest offerings from Falvey Library. |
References and full-text documents from numerous databases and online publishers proved extremely popular, fueling a demand for even more resources.
Online student literacy programs, electronic reserves services and distance learning initiatives followed, further enhancing the Library’s position as the University’s learning resource center. This trend is evident elsewhere as well.
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As reported by a Danish researcher in a recent digital article, "Next to virtual learning environments, the physical learning environment will remain of importance too, and the two will probably coexist for generations to come." |
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Merrill Stein is head of the Access Services department and Susan Markley heads the Periodical department.
A new database now available through the Falvey home page: "The World Shakespeare Bibliography Online"
Especially of interest to faculty in the Core Humanities, English and Theatre departments
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The World Shakespeare Bibliography Online provides annotated entries for all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare and published or produced between 1974 and mid-2000. |
The scope is international, with coverage extending to more than eighty languages and representing every country in North America, South America, and Europe, and nearly every country in Asia, Africa, and Australasia. The more than 68,000 records in this version cite several hundred thousand additional reviews of books, productions, films, and audio recordings.
Available via on the Falvey Library home page under E-Resources by Subject / English and Theatre; also Databases A-Z.
by Jacqueline Mirabile
Dr. Michael Brown, recipient of Villanova’s 2001 Outstanding Faculty Research Award, talked about "Peeking Inside the Black Box: Investigations of Animal Cognition" in Falvey Library’s Faculty Research Talk series on Tuesday, November 27.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, Dr. Brown’s experiments depend heavily on the assistance of graduate and undergraduate students to provide the intense observation of bees or rats in his studies.
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During the last three decades, some psychologists have broken with the traditional study of observables to explain behavior as advocated by B.F. Skinner to concentrate on mental activity or the black box of the mind. The mind/brain has evolved into the most complicated system or "just a mess," as Dr. Brown described it. Some of these psychologists concentrate on the hardware of the mind, as in neuroscience. The cognitive psychologists are concerned with functional properties and present theories and then perform experiments to prove or disprove their theories. |
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As a comparative, cognitive psychologist, Dr. Brown has studied bees and rats to determine their working spatial memory. In his presentation, Dr. Brown showed one experiment with honey bees. He developed a plastic container with six different colored blocks to represent varied colored flowers near holes which held a small amount of sugar water. A student would watch the bees from sunrise to sunset and after a bee has made the third choice, the set-up would be changed to a similar one to see if the bee would go to the other three. With this test and other tests with bees, it does seem that bees do have a system to keep track of flowers already visited and did better than purely by chance.
The experiments with rats involved a pellet of food on top of some poles arranged in columns always in one of two spatial patterns either in a square or in a line, but the poles could be in different locations. "Could rats play their version of ‘Battleship’"? From the experiments it seems that rats do make use of the spatial patterns.
Dr. Brown responded to questions from the attentive audience concerning competition with bees in the wild and olfactory cues for the rats and their gender. A member of the audience observed that the rats found the food more readily in rows rather than columns.
In addition to faculty, students, and staff in the audience, Dr. Brown was pleased to introduce his father who was hearing his son speak professionally for the first time. Dr. Brown is a professor in the psychology department.
Jacqueline Mirabile is interim head of the Reference department and government documents librarian, as well the librarian liaison to the psychology department.
Bente Polites, Special Collections librarian, published an article, "The McGarrity
Collection at Villanova" in the October 2001 issue of the Irish Edition, a
monthly paper. This article describes the collection and highlights some of its many rare
works.
Merrill D. Stein, head of Access Services, and Susan B. Markley, head of the Periodical department, presented a poster session, "Trends in Library Use," during the Pennsylvania Library Association @100 Conference held at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Philadelphia, Oct. 15. (For an excerpt of the article, see "Side by Side" above.)
Also contributing to this issue of Blueprints: articles by Judith Olsen, Jacqueline
Smith; photography by Donna Blaszkowski, Joe Houser and Judith Olsen.
