No (dust) jacket required

The Betty and Edgar Sweren Student Book Collecting Contest recognizes the love of books and the delight in shaping a thoughtful and focused book collection. All undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a degree program at Johns Hopkins are invited to enter the contest. Entries will be judged according to the coherency of the items in the collection and the extent to which the collection reflects the student’s stated goals and interests.

Students should submit a 2-3 page essay, detailing the purpose of the collection, how it was started, and how it was assembled over time. This description should also highlight the items of greatest interest within the collection, as well as any plans for the collection’s future development. Along with this written description, students should include a bibliography of 20 or more items (maximum of 50) and a “wish list” of up to ten items that they would like to add to their collection.

The contest will feature separate divisions for undergraduate and graduate students. In each division, the first place contestant will be awarded $1,000, while the second and third place entries will receive $500 and $250, respectively. In addition, the winning entries will be displayed on M-Level of the Eisenhower Library and will be eligible to enter the 2010 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest.

Submissions must be received by February 12, 2010. See here for a more detailed description of the contest. Last year, sophomore undergraduate student Shrivats Iyer and fourth-year graduate student Sarah Richardson were awarded first place for their collections.

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.

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!

Oh, the Humanities!

On Wednesday, October 28, from 4:30 to 5:30, librarians from the Humanities will offer demos and answer questions about newly acquired resources and rare books and manuscripts.

Subject specialists will guide you through a tour of slavery databases, women’s studies databases, image resources, and early issues of The Crisis, W.E.B. DuBois’ magazine.

Come to the MSE Library’s Garrett Room on Q-level, and see what we’ve gotten for you lately. Free coffee provided by the Friends of the Johns Hopkins Libraries. All Hopkins affiliates welcome.

Start the Weekend with a Renaissance Man

The Friends of the Johns Hopkins University Libraries present “Polymath: Leonardo da Vinci’s Life and Legacy.”

Join the Friends this Friday, October 23, at 6:15 pm in the Mason Hall Auditorium, for a talk by renowned Leonardo expert Jonathan Pevsner on the life, library, and legacy of Leonardo da Vinci.

Centuries after his death, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) continues to fascinate and inspire. He is perhaps best known as the creator of the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But he was also a brilliant scientist and engineer, with discoveries that advanced understanding of human anatomy and inventions that presaged the rise of the industrial age. Leonardo epitomized the ideal of a Renaissance Man, and his writings and sketches touch on areas ranging from music to metaphysics to mechanics. Leonardo expert Jonathan Pevsner will discuss the life and legacy of Vinci’s favorite son, including how his mind worked; what scientific, artistic, and engineering projects interested him and why; and what he read and collected over his lifetime.

Jonathan Pevsner, Ph.D. is a faculty member in the department of neurology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. He received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Haverford College and his doctorate in pharmacology and molecular sciences from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Pevsner specializes in childhood neurological disorders, including Down syndrome and autism, and holds a primary faculty appointment in the department of neuroscience at the School of Medicine. A longtime student of Leonardo’s work, Pevsner has delivered lectures around the world and is the expert adviser for the Discovery Channel’s Doing da Vinci, which chronicles the attempts of modern-day builders and technicians to create some of the machines Leonardo envisioned.

A 5:30 pm reception precedes the lecture. Please RSVP to Stacie Spence at libraryfriends@jhu.edu or 410.516.7943. The event is free and open to the public.

yrBLCspace: Help Design the Brody Learning Commons

What does your ideal group study room look like?

Submit your design, and you could win up to $250 and the chance to see your vision made real in the new building.

Group study space will be a key feature of the new Brody Learning Commons. But before we break ground next June, we want to make sure we’ve gotten your input. Whether your preferred medium is Google SketchUp or cocktail napkin, we want to hear from you.

Send us your design for a room between 150 and 300 square feet, and include what you think is needed (specific technologies, furniture types, etc.). The contest is open to all Johns Hopkins students, and entries will be judged on the basis of the design’s creativity, sustainability, effectiveness, and the flexibility of the space.

Visit www.library.jhu.edu/yrBLCspace for more information.

Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. December 7, 2009.

Publishing Opportunities Workshop for Graduate Students and New Faculty

Please join us Friday afternoon, October 23d, from 1:00 - 4:00 pm in Levering’s Great Hall, for a workshop sponsored by The Johns Hopkins University Press and The Sheridan Libraries.

• How can a publisher help me turn my dissertation into a book?
• What should I look for in a journal publisher?
• What is Open Access and how might it impact me?
• And what about copyright?

Publishers and librarians will present on these topics, allowing plenty of time for questions and discussion. Coffee will be available. Please register if you plan to attend.

She Blinded Me with Science! (also, Engineering)

OK, our subject specialists won’t really blind you with science (or anything else for that matter). But you will be dazzled by all the great new resources available for your science and engineering research.

On Wednesday, October 14, from 4:30 to 5:30, librarians from science and engineering will offer demos and answer questions about newly acquired resources and databases.

Want to explore the latest e-books and databases? Curious about the new and improved PubMed? Join us for an hour and learn about the new online science and engineering resources from the Sheridan Libraries.

Come to the MSE Library’s Garrett Room on Q-level, and see what we’ve gotten for you lately. Free coffee provided by the Friends of the Johns Hopkins Libraries. All Hopkins affiliates welcome.

Register for a RefWorks Workshop

Does the sound of easy bibliographies and organized research appeal to you? If so, consider registering for a RefWorks workshop in October or November at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. Attend one of these 90-minute sessions and learn how to trim hours off of your time spent researching and writing.

Workshops Dates and Registration
Registration is required. Workshops are open to any Hopkins affiliate.

RefWorks is an online citation manager that helps you keep track of citations to books, articles, and other documents you gather during research. It is free to all JHU users, web-based, and requires no special download of software. Using RefWorks, you can also create properly formatted bibliographies, and import citations from research databases and the JHU Libraries Catalog.

Workshops will cover accessing your account, getting citations into RefWorks, creating bibliographies with the click of a button, sharing reading lists in RefWorks, and more. RefWorks exports bibliographies in over 700 citation styles, saving time for those of you who may be writing for class or publication.

Can’t make a class? You can also watch a tutorial online.

Get social (sciences) at the MSE Library

On Wednesday, September 30, from 4:30 to 5:30, research librarians from the social sciences will be on hand at the MSE Library to offer demos and answer questions about newly acquired resources and databases. Join us, get free coffee, and get an edge on your research.

Want to explore congressional hearings from this week all the way back to 1824? How about finding streaming video of last month’s news coverage? Have you ever wondered how to research foreign news coverage of world events? Come join us for an hour and we’ll show you how with new online resources from the Sheridan Libraries.

Come to the MSEL’s Garrett Room on Q-level at 4:30pm, and see what we’ve gotten for you lately. Coffee provided by the Friends of the Johns Hopkins Libraries. All Hopkins affiliates welcome.