Collections

In 1977, Northeastern University established an endowed fund to support the Library in the memory of F. André Favat, an associate professor of English education in the Department of Instruction. Dr. Favat had died the previous year at age 38. At the time of his death, Dr. Favat was also director of the National Council of Teachers of English and president of the Massachusetts Council of Teachers of English. The fund is designated for the purchase and preservation of books, primarily children’s literature and books on education.

Dr. Favat’s experience in curriculum development and the teaching of future educators led to the naming of the curriculum center at Northeastern as the Favat Center for Curriculum Materials and Children’s Literature.  This center moved into Snell Library when the building opened in 1990. At a time when teacher education was a popular program of study at Northeastern, the Favat collection was used primarily by student teachers as well as students in a regularly offered children’s literature course. Longtime Library staff also recall parents browsing the collection for their kids, and children from Northeastern’s Call Childcare Center being brought for visits!

However, for some time now, the collection has included a significant number of young adult (YA) titles as well as books for younger readers. As the collection became used less for teaching purposes, we observed that it was being used more by our students, faculty, and staff for recreational reading. YA literature has become extremely popular reading material for adult readers as well as teens, as any Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen fan would tell you. So, we decided to expand the collection name to the Favat Children’s & Young Adult Collection, in order to more accurately convey to our users what kind of books they might find there.

The historical children’s and young adult collection that now makes up a significant portion of the Favat Children’s & Young Adult Collection comes from the original curriculum center. The more current additions to the collection represent the best in children’s and YA literature through collection of the major American award-winning titles as well as a popular YA literature collection strong in fantasy, science fiction and modern young adult literature. The Favat Collection currently contains 10,226 titles—over the past five years, an average of 130 titles per year are added. It is managed by Janet Morrow, our Head of Resource and Discovery Services. Thank you to Janet for providing information about the Favat Collection, past and present, for this post!

Materials in the Favat Collection are located on the third floor of Snell Library. Some new materials may be shelved temporarily in The Hub on the first floor. The Archives and Special Collections also hold the papers of Dr. Favat.

The move of lesser-used library print collections to an offsite annex announced earlier this fall by Dan Cohen, Dean of Libraries, and Provost James Bean is about to start.  The project will begin on the 4^th floor and you will see people hard at work selecting items from the shelves and packing boxes.  There will be increased activity in the stacks on the 3^rd and 4^th floors during this project and the back service elevator will be restricted to library and vendor staff.  Thank you for your understanding as we work to bring you additional study space along with new and improved services. Here are a couple of important links to follow for more information: Collection Move Status Updates Letter from Dan Cohen and Provost Bean, September 2017 For assistance, contact the Help and information Desk on the first floor.

When a group of upstart colonists declared their territories independent of the British Crown on July 4, 1776, they did it in a petition addressed to King George III. In the weeks following, this Declaration of Independence was reprinted, discussed and debated both in the colonies and in Britain, in newspapers, letters, pamphlets, and broadsides. You can now read those debates and discussions, and see them scanned online, whether celebratory, like a news item from New York:

We hear from Ticonderoga that on the 28th of July, immediately after divine Worship, the Declaration of independence was read by Colonel St. Clair, and having said, “God save the Free Independent States of America!” the army manifested their Joy with three Cheers. It was remarkably pleasing to see the Spirit of the Soldiers so raised after all their Calamities, the Language of every Man’s Countenance was, now we are a People! We have a Name among the States of this World. New York, August 19, 1776. New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.

or dismissive, as in an essay written by Tory Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson:

They begin with a false hypothesis, That the Colonies are one distinct people and the kingdom another, connected by political bands. The colonies, politically considered never were a distinct people from the kingdom. There never has been but one political band, and that was just the same before the first Colonists emigrated as it has been ever since. Hutchinson, Thomas, Strictures up the declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia, 1776.

These essays and much more are available in two of our newest licensed online collections: America’s Historical Newspapers, and Eighteenth Century Collections Online. America’s Historical Newspapers (Series I, 1690-1876) spans an extraordinary period in our history, from the Salem Witch trials to post-Civil War reconstruction. With newspapers from every part of the United States, scanned from more than 90 repositories including the Library of Congress and the American Antiquarian Society, from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette to Alexander Hamilton’s New York Evening Post, this collection offers Northeastern researchers the first draft of American history. Eighteenth Century Collections Online is the place to look for British perspectives.  Based on the English Short Title catalog, it offers scans of works published in Britain 18th century, plus English language publications from other parts of the world. The period encompasses Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Hume’s History of England, and an early how-to: Best’s Concise Treatise on the Art of Angling. With printed books, pamphlets, essays, and broadsides, this collection complements another important collection, Early English Books Online, to offer Northeastern researchers an online library encompassing almost the entire printed record of the English Renaissance as well as the English Enlightenment. Exploring these two newly licensed collections allows us to understand, from the point of view of the people living at the time, the bonds that united Britain and America, as well as the forces that pulled us asunder.

Summertime, and the viewing is easy… a perfect time to catch up on movies and documentaries. When it’s too hot to sit outside with a good book, crank up the a.c. close the curtains, get out some snacks and hit play.

• Pick your format! Snell Library has excellent DVD and streaming video collections. See this year’s academy award winning films on DVD. Classics, contemporary films, and documentaries will expand your horizons.
• Locate videos by subject, keyword or title in Scholar OneSearch.
• This icon will appear beside a DVD, streaming videos will say “Online access”
• Use this streaming media guide to locate titles by vendor and subject. Our largest vendors are Academic Video Online Premium and Kanopy with a wealth of informative and entertaining choices.

Here are some recommended streaming media titles. Feel free to write me about your favorites. Full-Length Features:

1. Au Revoir les Enfants- the story of friendship and loss between friends in Nazi-occupied France
2. Charlie Chaplin silent films – see a few!
3. Diabolique- a French murder tale–don’t miss this classic.
4. Reaching for the Moon – depicts the relationship between poet Elizabeth Bishop and architect Lota de Macedo Soares.
5. Stranger than Paradise– Jim Jarmusch’s transcendent adventures of a Hungarian émigré, his friend, and cousin.

Riveting Documentaries:

1. The Belle of Amherst –a 1976 theatrical performance of Emily Dickinson by Julie Harris. See Cynthia Nixon’s portrayal of Emily in the film “A Quiet Passion” playing in local theaters.
2. Grey Gardens– meet eccentric Big and Little Edie Beale: mother and daughter, high-society dropouts, and reclusive cousins of Jackie Onassis.
3. Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble- be entertained by these international traveling musicians.
4. Notes on Blindness– a mesmerizing experience of John Hull’s experience becoming blind as an adult, and how he has adapted to a world without sight.
5. Photography Transformed:1960-1999– key photographers discusses photography’s effect on American life.

     

Interlibrary Loan services come to the rescue when students and faculty need access to information the library doesn’t have. Whether it’s a book, journal/magazine article, or an article from a small newspaper published in the 1930s, the library works to ensure access to a diverse network of library collections and the ability to borrow from them. Here you can see libraries from around the world that have loaned to Northeastern. In addition to these, Northeastern borrows from hundreds of libraries in the United States and Canada ranging from large universities to small community colleges and public libraries. We’ve created an interactive map of all our interlibrary loan transactions in the past year and have highlighted some places where we’ve borrowed from below so you can see how far some of your resources have travelled.