With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World,” by Steven Johnson.
About the Book: A story of epidemiology in its infancy, Steven Johnson analyzes the cholera outbreak in 1854 and the key investigators unraveling the mystery of transmission. Balancing urban planning, biology, and politics, The Ghost Map explores the rise of ultra-dense urban communities and the trial-and-error discovery of basic civic needs, like waste management. It’s a book about ideas: both why we cling to bad ones and the consequences of doing so.
Reasons to Read: If you enjoy medical detective stories, Johnson provides an excellent one, assembling information into an efficient and intelligible chain of cause and effect while commenting insightfully on the history of disease. The book has no shortage of Victorian horrors, as well, if you want to further your gratitude for 21st century life.
Reasons to Avoid: well, it is fundamentally a book about poop (and ingesting it); "what cholera wants is an environment where people are eating other people's excrement” (Johnson, 2006, pg. 40). Scatological tolerances aside, it’s a book as much about urban planning and the competition of ideas as it is a straightforward disease narrative, compared to something like Pale Rider.
We hope you had a restful and relaxing Winter Break! We’ve enjoyed having so many of you in the library again during the first week of Spring Semester classes! It’s always fun to feel the buzz of excitement in the library at the start of a new semester!
We’d like to take a minute to remind you that Himmelfarb Library is here to support you as you pursue your goals this term, so let’s review some ways Himmelfarb can help you make the most of the Spring Semester.
Library Hours
Himmelfarb’s regular operating hours are:
Himmelfarb Library
Reference Services
Consultation
Monday - Friday
6:00 am - Midnight
8:00 am - 8:00 pm
8:30 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday
8:00 am - Midnight
Not staffed
Not staffed
Sunday
8:00 am - Midnight
4:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Not staffed
Visit our Hours page to view any exceptions to our normal hours, such as holiday closures.
Study Zones
Himmelfarb is also a great place to study with numerous options to meet your needs and preferences.
Social Zone - 1st Floor: Our first floor is not quiet and is the perfect place to study with your friends, hang out, and be social, or take a study break with a game of chess, our current puzzle, coloring books, board games, or hula hoops!
Silent Zone - 2nd Floor: Our second floor is a silent floor reserved for graduate and advanced degree students. Silence is golden on this floor - it’s the perfect place to study if you need pristine silence to focus while you study. Don’t let the 4-person tables tempt you to be social - even whispering can disturb your fellow silence seekers.
Quiet Zone - 3rd Floor: Our third floor is a quiet study area, where whispering is acceptable, but please be respectful to others and keep things quiet.
Group Study Rooms: Our study rooms are located on the second and third floors and are great for studying with friends! Reserve your study room in advance to secure a room. These rooms aren’t noise-proof, so please keep conversations quiet so you don’t disturb others in the Silent and Quiet Zones!
Our Collections
Himmelfarb has extensive collections that include more than 125 databases, 6,700 e-books, and 6,500 journals, available 24/7 from on and off campus! Our print book collection, located in the basement-level stacks, is available for checkout. Most books can be borrowed for three weeks, with two renewals available if you need an item longer. To renew your items, stop by the first-floor service desk, call us (202-994-2962), or log in to your library account and renew online.
While we pride ourselves on our books and collections, Himmelfarb offers a lot of things you might not expect from a library. Take some time this semester to explore some of the more unique things Himmelfarb has to offer!
BodyViz: This interactive anatomy visualization tool is a fantastic way to explore and learn anatomy in a fun and exciting way!
Statistical Software: Some of our third-floor computers come equipped with statistical software including SPSS, Stata, SAS, NVivo, MATLAB, and Atlas.ti.
Tech Equipment:Our digital camcorders, digital voice recorders, and ring lights can be reserved in advance for your media-related projects.
Medical Gear: We have suture kits, an ultrasound machine, a blood pressure monitor, an ECG monitor, an iPhone otoscope, and a fitness tracker available for checkout!
Tech & Support: We have chargers for iPhones and MacBooks, USB-C to HDMI OUT and USB-C to USB-A IN adapters, HDMI cables, headphones, and dry-erase markers available for checkout. We also have free earplugs at the first-floor service desk!
Reference and Research Support
Himmelfarb is more than just a great space to study and fantastic resources! Our librarians and staff can help you find the resources you need for your studies and research. Whether you’re looking for the right book or journal article for an assignment, need help with a literature search or a systematic review, or want to learn how to organize your sources with RefWorks or Covidence, our reference librarians and staff can help!
Stop by the first-floor service desk to get help from our knowledgeable and friendly reference librarians and staff in person, or use our Ask a Librarian service to chat virtually. Our Ask a Librarian service is staffed by real Himmelfarb librarians and staff, so you can be sure you’re getting the help you need! You can also email us a question, or schedule a consultation with a reference librarian at himmelfarb@gwu.edu.
It’s early January, meaning Earth has completed yet another lap around the sun, and the time of resolution is upon us.
Or . . . is it?
By now, most of us have heard about “Quitter’s Day:” the second Friday in January where the already-weary masses shrug off their goals. The name has stuck, presumably, because we can relate to it - the fizzling resolve, our second chances degenerating rapidly into our first chances. But, maybe the problem isn’t willpower; it’s in the way we structure (and think about) resolutions.
There’s nothing really special about January 1st, other than it’s the collectively agreed-upon beginning of the year. But a circle (or, technically, an ellipse) can begin at any point. Cheesy as it is to say, any day could be worthy of a new beginning.
Every revolution could be a revolution.
Part of what makes “Quitter’s Friday” psychologically crushing is the 355 days until the slate wipes clean in the following year. 365 days, moreover, is far too long a timeframe for ideal measurement. Research suggests that motivation increases with proximity to a goal’s desired outcome (Hall et al., 2024). Intuition confirms this. Consider how much more motivation it takes to begin a jigsaw puzzle (or any creative project) than to complete it.
But every goal - fitness, career, educational, or otherwise - will have its ups and downs, its booms and busts. A slackening of resolve should not lead to quitting, but reevaluating the goal and how to get there.
How important is the goal to you? Current research on anhedonia posits that having too many goals, contrary to the cultural expectation of always accomplishing everything, decreases reward sensitivity and, therefore, decreases motivation (Hall et al., 2024). If the goal isn’t central to your life’s journey, it could be time to reevaluate it, or shift its place in the goal queue.
Moreover, it helps to differentiate the overall goal - like becoming a doctor - from the steps needed to get there, just like a star will tell you a direction but not the means of travel.
The overall goal animates the boring steps and renders them meaningful, while the boring steps convert a goal into actual reality. Success becomes possible when we identify tangible, accomplishable steps.
If you know these “boring steps,” then the task is to organize them, focus on the step at hand, and mentally frame them with the overall goal. If the steps aren’t known, paralysis may occur, but can be remedied by mentors who can help clarify and guide you.
As you can tell, this process simply can’t be relegated to once a year. It’s a constant charge to the self. A constant reevaluation and reconfiguration.
So this year, instead of joining the quitters on Quitter’s Day, we should determine what we really value, chart the steps we need to take, and as the year progresses, continue working towards it.
Due to snow, the Himmelfarb Library's building will be closed on Tuesday, January 7, 2025. However, our electronic databases, e-books, and journals are still available through our website! You can also get reference help via our Ask Us chat reference service.
Location: 100 Maryland Avenue SW Washington, DC 20001
Cost: Free
Washington Botanical Garden dresses in lights to celebrate Christmas. It is one of the most beautiful places you can't miss during your visit to this city. In addition to seeing some 26,000 plants and numerous plant species, it has a special room dedicated to the deserts of the planet, where you can appreciate succulents, shrubs, and flowering plants characteristic of these regions. Also during this month, there are a series of festive concerts and an annual exhibition with the best plant species and miniature replicas of emblematic buildings, such as the Smithsonian National Museum of History
Date: Continuous at 10AM to 5PM on Monday and Wednesday through Friday, 10AM to 6PM on Saturday and Sunday, and Closed on Tuesday
Location: 925 13th Street, NW
Cost: Free
Planet Word is the only museum in the country dedicated to renewing and inspiring a love of words and language and includes immersive exhibits for all ages. Visitors can deliver a famous speech, watch a library book come to life, sing karaoke tunes, and more. The museum also offers a variety of virtual programs.
Date: October 4 – April 13 from Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Location: 707-709 7th Street NW, Washington, DC 20004
Cost: Free
For the duration of the 2024-25 NBA and NHL seasons, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Ted and Lynn Leonsis, and Jeff Skoll present a landmark exhibit featuring more than 150 photographs by legendary photojournalist Harry Benson, renowned for his chronicles of culture, politics, music, movies, television, and sports. The free exhibit includes photographs of every President and First Lady since Dwight Eisenhower, iconic images of legendary athletes and musicians, a behind-the-scenes look at The Beatles' arrival to the United States, stunning moments from the Civil Rights Movement, and much more.
Location: 2700 F St., NW, Washington DC 20566 Kennedy Center (In-Person and Livestream)
Cost: Free
Trio Sefardi, a Northern Virginia–based ensemble, performs traditional songs of the Sephardim, the descendants of Jews exiled from Spain in 1492. The Washington Post said the ensemble “gave lovely and luminous performances.”
Location: 3001 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008
Cost: $6
Zoolights is an event held at the National Zoo year after year. The brightest lights decorate the paths of the park and its resting areas, and everywhere you go you will come across brilliant animal sculptures. In addition to this light show, there are also some musical performances. Of course, the more than 500,000 LED lights that make up this annual spectacle are totally respectful of the environment and the zoo's species. This is one of the plans to do with children in Washington DC, but, no doubt, adults will also enjoy it in a big way.
Location: 2700 F St., NW Washington DC 20566 Kennedy Center (In-Person and Livestream)
Cost: Free
Songwriter Vienna Teng reemerges this fall with her We’ve Got You—her first new music in over a decade—but her fans have been here the whole time. Teng’s new mini-EP reflects the complexity of her life over the past decade: climate change work, community building, and parenthood.
Dr. King recognized the power of service. He famously said, "Everyone can be great because everybody can serve." GW’s MLK Day of Service and Leadership is a day to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through a day of service, workshops, and reflection.
This day of service is a unique opportunity for hundreds of GW students, faculty, staff, alumni, and DC community members to strengthen their service values, create positive and impactful contributions to our communities, and commit to continuing acts of service as exemplified by Dr. King.
Here’s a chance to dine at your favorite DC restaurants, and save money while you do it! Multi-course dinner menus are available at $40, $55, and $65 per person, and lunch and brunch options are $25 or $35.
