Well, if you are working in a field of science or social science and looking for a nice, trustworthy synthesis of the published scholarship on a research topic, Annual Reviews could be just the thing you need. What is Annual Reviews? Annual Reviews is a non-profit publisher specializing in publishing a series of review journals in (currently) 41 fields and disciplines in sciences and social sciences. Each review journal, such as Annual Review of Public Health, publishes review articles written by leading scholars in the field that summarize the major developments over the past few years (sometimes decades) on some of the key topics in the field. These review articles are useful for all researchers, neophytes through seasoned veterans. They provide a convenient way to keep your knowledge up to date about current research in your field; and if you are new to the field, these articles could serve as an excellent introduction.

For example, if you are working on a paper about public health in China, you can start your search with Annual Reviews. Type in "health and China," and the first hit you get is an article called "The Current State of Public Health in China" by Liming Li (Annual Reviews of Public Health, April 2004). In a compact and easy to read style, the article summarizes the major research on the topic since the 1920s. The article consists of four sections: History and Achievements, Establishment of the Chinese Center of Disease Control, New Challenges for Public Health in China, and Prospects, followed by a list of 20 cited sources. With this article in hand, you will be way ahead of the game, compared with your peers who are probably drowning in the millions of Google hits.

But this is not all. Annual Reviews is just one of many tools that the library has to help Hopkins students become better, more efficient researchers. Be sure to talk to the librarian assigned to your academic department, a.k.a. an Academic Liaison Librarian. They are the experts in research tools for your field of study and they would be more than happy to show you all the cool tools to jump start your research.

The refreshed look of the digital collection includes a single search box placed front and center, three browsing options on the top page, and an updated graphic design. If you dig a little deeper, you will find some new options such as faceted searching (narrow your results set by date, composition type, etc.) and multiple display modes. By clicking on the three boxes in the upper-right corner of a search results screen, you can display covers plus some descriptive information, covers only, or titles only. This is very handy if you are looking for a specific title or for an interesting cover illustration. The new interface is also optimized for mobile devices and allows navigation through gestures such as the swipe.

The Levy Sheet Music Collection appeals to a much broader audience than musicians or musicologists. Mr. Levy assembled a treasure trove of popular songs that document American life in the 19th- and early 20th-centuries. Historians might be interested in topics such as presidential elections, the temperance movement, and the rise of the railroads. Sociologists can study how minority groups such as the Romani or African Americans were depicted in popular culture. Art historians can savor the rich illustration styles of subjects such as flowers or horses. And who would have suspected that there were popular songs about Darwin's theory of evolution? This collection truly has something for everybody.

The Sheridan Libraries hold many resources on Shakespeare. For example, the Garrett Library, situated in the wonderful Evergreen House and Museum, contains all four Shakespeare folios and three quartos, one of which is an annotated playhouse copy of Hamlet that belonged to the actor John Ward. Our library also provides access to the Complete Cambridge Companions database, with a nice array of resources on Shakespeare.

Home to the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-Upon-Avon draws visitors every year for events and exhibitions related to the Bard. His plays were performed in London in the Globe Theater, a reconstruction of which is still present near its original location. If you cannot afford to cross the Atlantic in time but would like to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday appropriately, the not-to-miss library on all things Shakespeare this side of the Atlantic is the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Situated on Capitol Hill, it is a research and education center and offers many events and programs, including an annual open house to celebrate his birthday. Here are a few more possibilities, courtesy of the Huffington Post. They include a “Talk like Shakespeare Day” and an annual Shakespeare drama competition for high schools.

However, I think that my own way to celebrate the Bard’s birthday would be to sit with a cup of tea and slice of cake and listen to these wonderful archived resources of Orson Welles’ performances. Enjoy!

Held under the aegis of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and also sponsored by the Roy Rozenzweig Center for History and New Media, the event is a yearly gathering of professionals from libraries, archives, museums, system sciences, and various universities and cultural institutions. It comprises three days of lectures, workshops, sessions, and networking. Attendees learn about recent research in digital technology and reflect on its impact on library and museum services.

IMLS Grant recipients come to showcase their projects. This year the conference adopted a mostly interactive and participatory format, with many pre-conference sessions and workshops by small groups.

The keynote speaker this year was Audrey Watters, who writes the Hack Education blog. During her talk, Whose Learning is It, Anyway?, with a nod to the improv show Whose Line is It, Anyway?, Watters reflected on the links between improvisation and use of technology in education, research on artificial intelligence, and the growing MOOC initiatives.

Among the many workshops and project sessions, there was a presentation on Makerspaces. Inspired by Hackerspaces, Makerspaces are learning environments sometimes found in libraries and museums providing networks, learning labs, training and support communities, and hardware and software tools.

All of this made me think about ways JHU is engaged in the "webwise" world. For example, Hopkins' own Digital Media Center helps students with media, art, and technology-oriented projects, the likes of which were discussed at the conference. Similarly, the Libraries' Center for Educational Resources (CER) offers many programs for faculty, including a technology fellowship grants program. Faculty and teaching assistants can turn to the CER for consulting in technology and pedagogy.

The Sheridan libraries recently added the Brody Learning Commons (BLC) as an additional venue for educational activities. Apart from its lounges and reading rooms, the BLC offers “smart rooms” for group study, teaching, and seminars.

Have you tried its Balaur? No, not the mythological beast from Romanian legend, but an interactive visualization wall: the result of a collaboration between the Libraries and JHU’s Computer Science department. It's heartening to know that the kind of innovation showcased at WebWise is happening right here!

Another highlight was the Digital Preservation workshop with Robert Horton, currently from IMLS and formerly the State Archivist for the State of Minnesota, exploring the costs and benefits of digital preservation, along with pertinent legal and policy considerations and the possibilities of collaboration between institutions. He mentioned the Digital Preservation Outreach & Education program of the Library of Congress and also touched upon the UELMA, a law that addresses concerns posed by the publication of state primary legal material online. There are still many challenges in data curation, migration, and ingestion. This is a subject the Sheridan Libraries are addressing in their own Digital Research and Curation Center. Along with Data Conservancy, they also work in partnership with Data Management projects.

A notable feature this year was the Project Partnership Incubator session, which consisted of a discussion about project ideas for one’s institution and of the development of a plan with a facilitator and a small group gathered around a table. I mentioned, as an example, our Schaechter collection, a large portion of which needs to be digitized.

There were many more sessions and project presentations, too many to attend or to mention in this blog post. I wrote in more detail in The Sheridan Libraries Travels blog, if you're interested. Webwise was once again an occasion to exchange ideas and to enjoy meeting colleagues working in this emerging field.

After a long winter indoors, fans can't wait to get back to the bleachers again. Even traditional basement dwellers can feel the excitement. As Hall of Famer Early Wynn described it, "You know that when you win the first one, you can't lose 'em all." Being the oldest Major League Baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds traditionally have the honor of playing Opening Day at home. The importance of Opening Day has led their city council to declare Opening Day an official Cincinnati holiday. The Orioles played the first home opener in the current team's history on April 15, 1954 before a packed house of 46,354 fans in Memorial Stadium. According to the The Sun, over 350,000 people cheered them at a parade before the game. Vice President Richard M. Nixon threw out the first pitch.

Speaking of first pitches, William Howard Taft began the tradition of the sitting U.S. President throwing the ceremonial first pitch of the season in 1910. A president can come off as a pro or an amateur with this one action. President Obama calls it "completely stressful." And you don't have to be a president to blow it.

This is spring, so don't be surprised if the game gets rained out. If so, we've got you covered--check out a baseball movie from the library. We have everything from Take Me Out to the Ball Game to The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg. But if it is nice, take a break from academia and join thousands of Baltimoreans in this annual event.

This led me on a quest to learn more about the papacy, starting with The Papacy: An Encyclopedia. While I didn't find anything more about The Year of Three Popes, I did come across in interesting entry on Pope Joan, a woman who was supposedly elected pope in the 9th century (p. 829). While this is largely dismissed as fiction, its popularity, according to the encyclopedia entry, can be seen as a reflection on the church's prohibition on ordaining women.

As the cardinals from around the world gathered at the Vatican to choose the next pope, I began to wonder about the history of Catholicism in the U.S. and the sometimes rocky relationship between American Catholics and the pope. A quick search of America: History and Life led me to an article about Archbishop John Carroll of Maryland. Even while he was creating the American see, he questioned papal authority.

Archbishop Carroll's legacy included the construction of the first cathedral in the newly-independent United States, Baltimore's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Designed by noted architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, it remains one of the nation's architectural treasures.

The event starts with a reception and book signing at 6 pm in Mason Hall; admission is free. RSVP to libraryfriends@jhu.edu.

Parrotfish, courtesy of James Prosek.

Prosek, called "the Audubon of fish" by the New York Times, is the author of 11 books and numerous articles on nature. His most recently published work, Ocean Fishes (2012), is a collection of his water colors of fish from the world's oceans. His book on eels was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice for 2011 and formed the basis for next month's PBS Nature special "The Mystery of Eels."

In addition to his work as an author and artist, Prosek is a noted environmentalist and the cofounder of the World Trout Initiative. NPR discussed one of his early novels, The Day My Mother Left, as part of its Backseat Book Club in February, and the Nature Conservancy has a feature on Prosek's work and the intersection of art and conservation.

An important ancestor of modern daffodils is the Ajax Group, which originated in the Iberian Peninsula and was introduced to French, English, and Dutch gardens in the 16th century. Spanish researchers in the article, “The Origin of Cultivation and Wild Ancestors of Daffodils (Narcissus subgenus Ajax) (Amaryllidaceae) from an Analysis of Early Illustrations” describe the methods they used to identify and explain how these early cultivars were introduced into cultivation and domestication. This is one of many articles about daffodils in the journal Scientia Horticultura.

Poets and composers through the centuries have drawn inspiration from daffodils. Robert Herrick’s “To Daffodils” is a well-known poem. Both William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy wrote poems about daffodils. He wrote “I wandered lonely as a cloud," and she penned, “I never saw daffodils so beautiful.” Try a search in The Colombia Granger’s World of Poetry to explore the hundreds of poems about daffodils.

When it comes to music, it's more difficult to find songs about the lovely flower. But the composer Benjamin Britten wrote a set of songs entitled “Five Flower Songs,” one of which is “To Daffodils." And, there's also a folk song, “Seven Daffodils.”

So when you witness the first daffodils beginning to bloom on campus, you may be inspired to recite Dorothy Wordsworth's poem, "I never saw daffodils so beautiful."

I never saw daffodils so beautiful.
They grew among the mossy stones—
About and about them;
Some rested their heads upon these stones,
As on a pillow, for weariness;
And the rest tossed and reeled and danced,
And seemed
As if they verily laughed with the wind
That blew upon them over the lake.

Things f

These lines, excerpted from the William Butler Yeats poem The Second Coming, aptly describe my impressions of St. Patrick’s Day in these United States. The holiday - which originally celebrated the ministry of Saint Patrick in Ireland and the end of polytheism and pagan practices of the country’s Pre-Roman dark ages - has been nearly divested of its original meaning. Today’s American fest is bedecked in green and soaked in alcohol, but its origins are fading from view.

A self-effacing man of limited learning (his Latin was said to be cumbersome), Patrick was called to the service of Christianity as a young man and was said to have baptized thousands of Irish pagans in the 5^th century A.D. Only two of his writings exist, his Confessio and his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus: the former is his account of his history and mission and the latter an entreaty to British bishops to excommunicate the Briton king Coroticus, whose soldiers slaughtered newly-baptized converts.

But where did that business about the snakes come from? Legend has it that Saint Patrick drove them all off of the Emerald Isle. But really there’s no evidence that snakes ever existed in Ireland after the retreat of the ice sheets. This peculiar dearth of snakes became, over time, evidence of Patrick’s divinely-inspired mission - he is known for driving these creatures from Ireland. The iconography of the land’s patron saint borrows from the Old Testament (Exodus 7:8-13 and Genesis) and possibly the Church’s demonization of the Druids to provide a metaphor in the walking staff of Patrick. At what is now Aspatria (ash of Patrick) it is said that the meaning of Christianity took so long to get through to the people there that his staff (driven into the ground where he spoke) had taken root by the time he was ready to move on.

Patrick’s earnest and simple teachings led him to use the ubiquitous shamrock to demonstrate the concept of Trinity; the leaf has three separate leaves, but a single stem, which corresponded to the One God consisting of three entities.

Today in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Festival is celebrated in Dublin; it is a modern, sponsored, 5-day celebration, complete with name bands, food, and parades. One can only imagine the reaction to the American and Irish celebrations by the simple, self-styled Bishop, St. Patrick.

Absolutely. So where can I find this kind of information?

Welcome to the Writing Guide. Note the helpful tab entitled Grammar and Style -- this page lists some of our books about writing the English language correctly and well. You'll find online writing guides listed there, too.

That's great! What else do we have online that will help me with my papers?

It's crucially important that you always cite your sources correctly and completely, so that your professors, employers, and readers can find them. Here is help with citing sources, including guides to APA, MLA and other kinds of citation styles; a guide to RefWorks (a good way to import and organize citations); and even RefWorks workshops (coming soon! register now!). Remember that the staff at the Writing Center would love to see you, too.

This all sounds great, but most of the books about this kind of thing are no fun at all.

And you probably agree with Lynne Truss, the author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, who said "Things were so simple at the start, before grammar came along and ruined things."

But some books about usage and punctuation are short and easy to read and even very funny, as is the case with Truss: "In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano..., the exclamation mark is the attention-deficit big brother who...breaks things and laughs too loudly."

Okay, I'm convinced. Can you give me a quick writing tip right now?

Yes, indeed! What if you need to pluralize a word? “Two dogs” or “three classes” isn't a problem. But if it's a plural of a word that isn’t usually made plural, help your reader by adding an apostrophe: “She uses too many and’s in her sentences.” The apostrophe makes it clear to the reader what is going on.

Please use the Writing Guide, or ask your librarian, whenever you want help with Style Stuff.