Picture This: A Research Guide for Visual Information

Do you need an illustration of an artwork for a class presentation? A diagram of a chemical compound? A photograph of an historical figure? An illustration of a shark’s anatomy? More and more people across many disciplines find that they need visual information for their coursework. But, as many of you know, good images can be hard to track down.

The Eisenhower Library is once again trying to make your academic life a little easier with its new Finding Images Research Guide. In addition to helpful links to digital image databases and reliable Internet image resources across many fields of study, the guide also gives tips on how to use bibliographic databases for image searching and how to cite, save, and present images as part of your scholarly endeavors. So, if image is everything to you, please check out this new guide.

Travelogue: John Work Garrett Library

While the Rare Books and Manuscripts department of MSEL has many wonderful books, there are other Hopkins libraries that also house older and rare works.

The John Work Garrett Library at the Evergreen Museum and Library contains 30,000 volumes that cover a wide variety of topics. Their natural history collection includes several important ornithological works, like the Audubon ‘double elephant folio’ edition of Birds of North America. There is a strong collection of 16^th- and 17^th- century English literature and history featuring works by Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and Spenser. Other important collections focus on architectural history and American colonial travel and history.

The JHU Catalog includes the books at Garrett Library; you’ll see the collection location of Garrett Library – Library Room. You need to make an appointment to use the collection (call 410-516-8348). Tours of the Evergreen Museum and Library are offered, but you can’t touch the books on the tour.

Claude Levi-Strauss dies at 100

Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the last icons of 20th century French intellectual life, died over the weekend at the age of 100. He was considered and will be remembered as the father of modern anthropology. He was most acclaimed for his study of primitive mythology and for founding the theoretical school known as structural anthropology. In his structuralist approach to understand human mind and society, Lévi-Strauss sought to discover the common denominator of human thought and mental structure across different types of cultures and societies. His rich and multifaceted anthropological research had profound impact in diverse fields such as linguistics, psychology, religion, and history.

During his long and prolific career, Lévi-Strauss authored many literary and anthropological classics including Tristes Tropiques, Structural Anthropology, Totemism and The Savage Mind.  His study of the Brazilian Indians was published in Tristes Tropiques, which is both a memoir of his early life in Brazil and an iconic ethnography of the indigenous Amazonian tribes. His massive Mythologiques appeared in four volumes: The Raw and the Cooked (1964), From Honey to Ashes (1966), The Origin of Table Manners (1978), and The Naked Man (1981). The Johns Hopkins University libraries have all of the above titles: please feel free to check them out and enjoy some of the greatest books of the 20th century!

(Photo Source: AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive)

More Bad News - PubMed is Down - PubMed is Back

PubMed is down, as of 10:25 am Wednesday. They hope to have it up shortly.

We’ll keep you posted!

UPDATE: 12:47 pm PubMed seems to be working at normal speed. No official word yet, but it seems to be OK.

Thank you for your patience!

RefWorks Down - RefWorks Works Again!

RefWorks is currently down. Their support group hasn’t been able to give us a time frame for their repairs. If we hear anything, we will let you know.

UPDATE: We received the official email last night - RefWorks is back. I’ve successfully logged in a few times. Everyone can now resume their literature research.

Thank you for your patience!

3D Modeling Made Easy

Need to visualize something in 3D? Try Google SketchUp! This free, easy-to-use 3D modeling program can be used to model building interiors, exteriors, scenery design, molecular modeling, and other virtual world creations.

Come to the Digital Media Center on Tuesday, November 3 at 6 p.m. for a hands-on workshop with SketchUp guru Bonnie Roskes. Roskes is a Whiting School of Engineering alumna and author of the Google SketchUp Cookbook: Practical Recipes and Essential Techniques.

This workshop is being held in conjunction with yrBLCspace, the Brody Learning Commons design competition.

To register for this free student workshop, please contact the Digital Media Center at 410.516.3817.

ScienceDirect Down Time

Elsevier will be doing some planned maintenance on  ScienceDirect (their online journals) tonight, Saturday, October 31. They should start at 9:00 pm, EDT and finish Sunday, November 1 by 5:00 am, EST.

ScienceDirect will be unavailable during this time. Use your extra hour as we move off Daylight Savings Time for sleep, not research!

Travelogue: MSE Library

Looking for the scholarly and the social heart of the Homewood Campus? Look no further than the Milton S. Eisenhower Library.

Scholarly heart? Named in honor of the 8th president of the university (and the brother of Dwight Eisenhower), MSEL is the university’s principle research library, with over 3.7 million books, almost 900 databases, over 70,000 electronic resources, and an extensive collection of rare books and manuscripts. Its rich holdings are available to students and faculty of all divisions, and a cadre of expert reference librarians are available to help with research needs.

Social heart? The library is the home-away-from-home for JHU students, especially during exams. We’re open 24/7 during the semester, and offer group study space, as well as quiet study areas. Cafe Q offers a place to relax with friends, as well as a place to meet with faculty for formal and informal discussions.

Workshop: Spatial Intelligence for China and Global Studies

Workshop: Spatial Intelligence for China and Global Studies

Presented by Shuming Bao Ph.D. China Data Center/University of Michigan

Time: Thursday, October 29th, 12-1pm

Location: Electronic Resource Center, Eisenhower Library M-level

This invited lecture will give an introduction to Chinese government statistics, Census data, and GIS data, including methodologies, definitions, and data coverage. It will also present spatial intelligence technologies for spatial data integration, data selection, and data analysis. It will demonstrate how space-time data of different formats and sources can be integrated, visualized, and reported in a web-based system. Some applications in disaster assessment, environment, health, regional development, cultural and religious studies, and household surveys will be discussed for China and global studies. ALL ARE WELCOME!

History at Your Fingertips

Looking for an authoritative introduction to a country, era or historical event?  Need to know more about the history of literature, politics, religion or philosophy?  Look no further than Cambridge Histories Online.  This resource contains over 650 volumes covering 15 subjects, and offers comprehensive and authoritative scholarly content.

Cambridge Histories Online tell you more than just who, what, when, where and why.  They also introduce you to aspects of your topic that you’ve never dreamed of.  Working on a paper on Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893?  Searching the phrase “Columbian Exposition” leads you to chapters on the role it played in American literature, theatre, foreign policy, music and food.   It’s a great way to further narrow and define your topic.