|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
||||||
|
||||||
 |
 |
|
|
|
Blueprints: Falvey LibraryContents: March 2004
Silverman talk highlights thrilling moments in sports
|
|
Silverman placed a perfect hit when he referred to Homer’s Iliad and the way Homer narrated the first brutal boxing match between Hector and Achilles. His descriptions of the ancient Olympic games connecting to the rise of Muhammad Ali in the 20th century boxing ring emphasized the theme that sports and sports writing provide one example after another of the strength of human character.
Silverman made the point that a good sports writer doesn’t necessarily care about the final score or statistics, but looks for the best or worst in the human being. He observed that the writer really needs to understand the necessary skills, the control of tension, and the fortitude it takes to be a professional in any game of athletics. |
 |
Silverman noted the importance of a good sports writer’s witnessing the “unbelievable moments” as they happen. According to the writers included in Silverman’s story collections, competition, risk, beauty and the emotions of the fans are essential. At times, we as fans walk away with a full range of emotions such as joy, frustration and sadness, but the average fan has difficulty remembering the exciting moments after they are over. Good sports writing can help the reader to relive these moments.
As Silverman read from excerpts of his books, collections of stories by such writers as Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Plimpton, John Updike, Red Smith and Ian Fleming, he played up the sportswriter’s ability to be a versatile writer. Silverman used Ian Fleming as one example of this versatility. Fleming, better known as the writer of the James Bond books, was a very dedicated golfer and used his knowledge of the game in his novel Goldfinger where he was able to turn a golf match between Goldfinger and James Bond into “a contest of unshakable wits and one of skillful shot- making.”
Silverman also used John Updike’s short story of Ted Williams’s final game of his career to explain how good sports writing can trigger the emotions. In the bottom of the ninth, Williams, who was having an off year, knocked the ball over the right field wall in Fenway Park for the game winning home run. Reading Updike’s story, Silverman made the moment come alive for his audience.
Silverman demonstrated how writers like Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Dashiell Hammett and James Baldwin can portray the many faces of boxing by placing the reader inside the ring. All of Silverman’s collections, which include The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told, The Greatest Golf Stories Ever Told, Bernard Darwin on Golf and Lardner on Baseball include stories that show not only the competitive side of athletics, but also the human side. Good sports writing should be able to transcend the playing field by providing facts, details, human spirit, participation and emotion: all are essential elements to a good story.
|
Falvey Library is happy to welcome Marie Torrey, who will be assisting Reserve Room patrons to retrieve print and online documents. Marie is the proud mother of four boys, ages 4, 9, 12 and 13. Prior to working at Villanova, Marie was a paralegal for several Philadelphia law firms. When Marie is not taxiing her boys to and from various sporting events, you can find her three evenings per week in the Reserve Room.
|
 |
Are you too busy to get to the library today? Do you need that important new title for your research? Send over your research assistant in your stead! The library offers faculty the opportunity to designate someone as his or her proxy borrower. All you need to do is send an e-mail to the contact person below with the student and/or staff person’s name and a date on which the proxy borrowing should end. For example, “Please allow the [name of research assistant] to borrow books on my record from now until December 31, 2004.”
Once we establish the link, your proxy borrower can check books out on your library account. The books will appear listed on your patron record, not on the proxy borrower’s record. All usual loan policies will apply.
Contact Luisa Cywinski, Circulation Supervisor, at luisa.cywinski@villanova.edu to designate a proxy borrower (or two) today.
Presently, Learning Resource Center of the College of Nursing in St. Mary’s Hall houses approximately 2000 items including videos, CD-ROMs and other resources and devices such as blood pressure cuffs, display models, slides and stethoscopes for student use. Falvey’s Technical Services department has begun to catalog these 2000 items into VUCat, the Falvey online catalog, to make them more accessible to nursing faculty and students.
The goal is to catalog the 1000 videos and CD-ROMs by the start of the 2004 fall semester and catalog the 1000 other resources by fall, 2005.
Falvey Library’s staff members involved in this project, which includes training the nursing college’s staff in the Library’s circulation system, are Luisa Cywinski, Access Services; Kathy O’Connor, Systems; Merrill Stein, Access Services; and leading this group, Taras Ortynsky, Technical Services. It is felt that providing this sort of support engenders good will and facilitates future collaboration between the College of Nursing and the Library.
Falvey’s National Women’s History Month exhibit features the female Nobel Laureates and focuses on the first woman laureate in each of the categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace.
For more information check out the National Women’s History Project.
Articles ordered through the Interlibrary Loan department may now be delivered to your email in PDF format. The lending library determines the format, so materials received from the lender in PDF format are forwarded directly to your Villanova email account. This method of delivery means that some articles can be received in as little as 24 hours. The Interlibrary Loan department still receives paper copies from those lenders not equipped to send PDF files.
PDF or Portable Document Format is an electronic format which allows document delivery without affecting the document’s original appearance. Any questions can be directed to the Interlibrary Loan department at x94274. Requests can be made online through the Request Forms link on the Falvey Memorial Library home page or by submitting a paper request form.
Articles requested by faculty members through the document delivery service for items owned by Falvey Library can also be scanned and sent as a PDF attachment. Some articles are not good candidates for this format depending on article length, graphics and quality of text. Faculty members can request either paper copies or PDF files by making a note on the request form or by contacting Laura Hutelmyer at x95635. Click the “Request Forms” link on the Library home page to find the link to “Journal Article from the Falvey Collection.”
Also
contributing to this issue of Blueprints: Luisa Cywinski, James Fox, Louise Green, Laura Hutelmyer, Jackie Mirabile, Taras Ortynsky, Linda Saboe, Jackie Smith. Photography and graphics by Donna Blaszkowski and Katy Lee.
