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.

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.

Travelogue: JHU Libraries

As most of you are aware, there are a number of libraries associated with The Johns Hopkins University. This blog is written primarily by librarians associated with The Sheridan Libraries. We generally think of our audience as the faculty, students, and staff of the Homewood schools.

But we know many of you use resources and materials from other Hopkins libraries. Some of you travel between campuses and see different libraries. Some of you request material from other libraries that is delivered to you; you don’t see the other libraries.

So we’ve put together a travelogue of the larger Hopkins libraries. You’ll be seeing the posts through December; one each week. We’ll start next week with MSEL and move on from there. Enjoy!

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.

Happy Open Access Week!

The candy comes at the end of October, but this week (October 19-23) is Open Access Week. That means you can read some scholarly articles for free - without logging in as a Hopkins affiliate. PubMed Central, BioMed Central, PLoS, and arXiv, are just a few of the places making research freely available to all.

There are lots of ways to find out more about the Open Access movement. Here at JHU, we have a Scholarly Communications Group that provides information and assistance with Open Access questions. Some members will be talking about Open Access at the Publishing Opportunities workshop this Friday.

Other places to find Open Access information include:

• SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition
• OAD, the Open Access Directory
• Alliance for Taxpayer Access

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.