Homework Help: Art, Music, and Literature.

Need a little help finding what you’re looking for? The Robins AFB Library would like to provide you with a few resources suitable for students of all ages to help you get started.

Here are some links, resources, and interesting sites pertaining to the Arts…

The U. S. Copyright Office – The rules, forms, and instructions for how to file for a copyright. And a database you can search for registered copyrights.

The Copyright Primer – An interactive tutorial that serves as a nice introduction to the issues and laws concerning copyright ownership and the uses of information.

When Works Pass Into The Public Domain – A handy cheat sheet provided by the University of North Carolina to help determine if a work has passed into the public domain.

Copyright Terms and the Public Domain – Just as it says, an extremely comprehensive chart for understanding when a work will pass into the public domain, including a timeline and terminology.

Art:

Artcyclopedia – Users can search database by artist, artwork, movement, medium, or nationality to find information about that work of art as well biography and news about the artist.

ArtLex Art Dictionary – Featuring over 3,600 terms and their definitions used in discussing/reviewing art/visual culture, as well as thousands of supporting images, pronunciation notes, quotations, and references.

The Artist’s Toolkit – Providing the basic concepts of art appreciation and creating art.

The Smithsonian Institute – The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum and research complex, consisting of 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park, and nine research facilities.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Established in 1870, the Met has over 2 million works of art from all over the globe, from ancient times to modern, in its permanent collection, and almost 7,000 of them can be viewed online.

The Museum of Modern Art – MoMA offers an unparalleled overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, as well as drawings, paintings, photography, sculpture, film, electronic media, as well as papers and files on individual artists.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts – The website for the only museum in the world exclusively dedicated to recognizing the contributions of female artists.

Arts Edge – A free digital resource to help teaching and learning about the arts, as well as offering materials that help to creatively use technology as a way to integrate the arts into other academic fields. Provided by the Kennedy Center.

Film & Television:

The Internet Movie Database – The IMDB is one of the greatest resources available online. You can search for movies and TV shows by title, cast/crew and character information. A great spot for determining all the above information plus runtime, genre, cast overview, year of release, plot overview. Also provides links to user and professional critic reviews, among many other cool features.

Rotten Tomatoes – A top resource for keeping track of information about movie and DVD releases, and finding dependable critical reviews from the nation’s top print and online film critics.

Teen Movie Critic – Reviews of films for teens written by teens.

Backstage – a great online resource for actors, providing insides, advice, and casting news.

The Oscars – The homepage for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Motion picture/film lessons and resources – A very comprehensive set of links, provided by the Media Literacy Clearinghouse.

TV.com – Providing recaps, episode guides, cast bios, and schedule listings for your favorite shows.

The Movie Spoiler – Called “the most fun you can have at the movies without being there.” Provides detailed synopsizes of films.

Television Without Pity – Extremely humorous and snarky recaps, spoilers, and message boards centered around your favorite shows.

Hulu – Speaking of your favorite shows, never miss an episode and watch in streaming video. Some content free, with time limits, and partially subscription-based.

Memory Alpha – An extremely detailed and comprehensive wiki for all things Star Trek.

The Movie Cliches List – A humorous list of stereotypes and flaws in logic constantly recurring in movies.

Performing Arts:

Performing Arts Encyclopedia – A guide to the music, theater, and dance resources, collections, and exhibitions available through the Library Of Congress.

The Monologue Archive – A nice collection of monologues from many famous playwrights, as well as a very hand set of theatrical and dramatic links.

The Costume Page – Extensive online resources dealing with the art and history of costuming for live dramatic theater, dance performances, opera, sports, as well as film and television.

NPR’s Performing Arts page – A nice collection of links to stories and interviews dealing with actors, dramatists, and the theater, as well as audio archives for stories about the performing arts on National Public Radio.

The Internet Broadway Database – Similar to the IMDB, but an archive of Broadway theater information, providing interesting facts and statistics about different productions.

Dramatist Play Service – A subscription database that lets users search and browse plays by their title and author, buy books, and purchase rights. Represents both new and established playwrights.

Warner Robins Little Theatre – Local community theater house/company who has been entertaining central Georgia for almost 50 years.

The Perry Players Community Theatre – Located in beautiful downtown Perry, this community theater house/company has been providing high quality entertainment and cultural activies for the past 30 years.

National Forensic League – The NFL promotes debate, oratory, and public speaking for high school and middle school students as a means of helping them to become effective communicators and ethical individuals and to develop strong critical thinking.

Music:

Pandora – Create an online streaming radio station based on songs, genres, eras, or artists. Completely free and also available as an app.

Last.fm – Free streaming radio and also lets you effortlessly track what you listen to from any player or device and recommends more music and artists to you based on your taste.

8 Tracks – Create your own streaming radio station or playlist, share with your friends, or listen to station and playlists from users from around the world.

Playlist.com – Listen to songs, build a playlist, and share with your friends around the world via all of your favorite social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, etc.

Art of the Mix – Devoted to the art form that is making a good mix tape or CD. Read thousands of others’ track lists and share your own.

The Public Domain Information Project – Information on and searchable database for songs and music in the public domain.

All Music Guide – A comprehensive listing of music information, and great for finding any song, artist, album, or genre.

Ultimate band list – As advertised, you can probably find information on any band or group here.

Song Facts – Search by artist, song title, or genre, and find fascinating music trivia, song meanings, behind the scenes info, and lyrics.

Song Meanings – Lyrics to your favorite songs, as well community provided stories about what they mean to others, and allowing you to share what a particular song means to you.

Lyrics World – Search for the lyrics from your favorite songs, provided in an alphabetical list.

The Archive of Misheard Lyrics – Check out common and commonly hilarious misconceptions in song lyrics.

From The Top – Offering education events as well as a showcase of America’s best young musicians. Also a show on both NPR and PBS.

All About Jazz – A very informative advocacy website for Jazz enthusiasts, dedicated to raising awareness of jazz music as well as defining it, and providing reviews and history of jazz artists.

Music Theory – An interactive website that provides less, exercises, and tools for learning musical theory.

Pollstar – A nice resource for tracking touring information and concert reviews for your favorite bands and artists.

Billboard – The online site for Billboard magazine, which provides daily music news, reviews, and chart reports, as well as much more.

Rolling Stone – The online site for Rolling Stone magazine, which offers primarily features and reviews of music, as well as covering subjects such as film, television, and politics.

Literature:

The Hub – A blog from YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association, a part of the American Library Association (ALA). “Your connection to Teen Reads.”

The Newbery Medal homepage – Information and a list of winners for the annual John Newbery Medal, which recognizes distinguished contributions to American literature for children and young adults.

Bartelby – The online literature project offers classic works of fiction and poetry, along with verses and references, for free.

Project Gutenberg – Providing over 38,000 classic works of literature as free ebooks, available for download for just about every device, or readable online.

Spark Notes – Providing study guides and plot summaries to classic works of fiction, as well as resources to help study for tests and prepare for college.

60 Second Recap – An educational video project providing short, interesting video summaries of classic literature titles as well as contemporary titles.

Shmoop – Offering literature learning guides and teach resources, and showing students how writing and learning and more relevant than ever in the digital age.

Free Book Notes – A search engine for literary study guides, pulling from Cliffs Notes, Spark Notes, BookRags, and Wiki summaries, and many others.

Book-A-Minute Classics – A very cool, very fun site that summarizes large works of literature into just a few sentences.

The Shakespeare Web – News and reviews of the Bard and productions of his work.

Shakespearean Insult Generator – Randomly returns insults from the Bard’s works. Fun for you, your friends, and your teachers.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare – An online catalog of all of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, free to read online.

The Jane Austen info page – Contains a hypertext version of Pride And Prejudice, as well as excerpts from Austen’s other novels as well as literary criticism.

The Jack London online collection – A nice resource featuring the novels, short stories, and letters of the famous author, as well as images, bibliographies, and literary criticism.

Literary Criticism resources – Provided by the Internet Public Library, this is an extensive and wide ranging collection of links to critical and biographical websites about authors and their works

Encylopedia Mythica – A searchable database of detailed information about gods and goddesses from both ancient and some modern religions.

Poetry 180 – A poem a day (for the 180 days of a school year) for American high schools, provided by the Library of Congress.

No Flying, No Tights – A nice blog providing reviews for comic books, graphic novels, anime, and manga.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund – The CBLDF is an organization designed to protect the First Amendment rights of creators of comic books and graphic novels, as well as their publishers and retailers.

Favorite Teen Angst books – Celebrating and reviewing books about teenage angst and personal discovery.

YA books in series and sequels – A nice searchable database that helps you keep track of the books in your favorite series.

Rutgers – A vast collection of literary resources from around the internet, provided by Rutgers University.

Geek The Library – A library advocacy site presented by OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center.

* * *

Blogs and websites by authors:

Laurie Halse Anderson.

Jay Asher.

Holly Black.

Libba Bray.

Meg Cabot.

Rachel Cohn.

Melissa De La Cruz.

Sarah Dessen.

Neil Gaiman.

John Green.

Brent Hartinger.

John Hodgman.

Maureen Johnson.

Justine Larbalestier.

David Leviathan.

Carolyn Mackler.

Jaclyn Moriarty.

Daniel Nayeri.

James Patterson.

J. K. Rowling.

Sara Shepard.

Ned Vizzini.

Scott Westerfeld.

* * *

Are we missing something? Please let us know!

For other subjects and resources please see our main Homework Help page.

Soaring.

Don’t forget that this weekend is the Air Show!

The gates open tomorrow and Sunday at 10 AM and the show starts at 11:15 AM each day. You can find more information at the link above.

And here’s something that’s extremely overdue with us…

We wanted to congratulate Ms. Sherriann Tilley for winning our Trivia/Survey contest!

We really enjoyed her entry, and especially wanted to thank her for coming in to pick up on her prize on her birthday and letting us wish her a happy birthday.

And we would also like to thank everyone else who entered. There were a lot of great entries that were a pleasure to read.

Whether you’re going to the Air Show or not, and of course we would strongly encourage you to do so, we hope everyone has an extremely fun and safe time.

Don’t forget to enter our Trivia/Survey CONTEST.

We just wanted to remind you…

Don’t forget to enter our Trivia/Survey contest. Saturday is the last day to enter. All you have to do is answer 50 extremely short and fun questions and email us those answers for a prize. What could be easier than that?

We’ve already gotten some very, ah, interesting answers from several patrons. The only thing we’re missing now is yours.

About Us/About You, and a: CONTEST!

Here’s a little bit about us…

We’re the Robins Air Force Base Library, located in Building 905 on – where else? – Robins Air Force Base, in Warner Robins, Georgia. You are currently reading our blog, and you can find our hours of operations here. We have over 52,000 items in our collection, including books, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, research databases, foreign language help, and downloadable materials. We specialize in knowledge and entertainment, and lots and lots of both.

Our turn offs include: Inconsiderate people, rainy days, patrons who are somehow louder than us (which is a feat, we assure you), people are who are not curious, people who don’t use coasters or who do use too many napkins, being late, dirty keyboards, finding used chewing gum, not being able to find the second sock to your pair, especially when you’re already late, and… Well, our list of pet peeves could go on and on and on…

And besides:

Our turn ons include: CONTESTS!

Okay, that’s us. And now we would like to know a little about you…

And what better way to do that then a survey. A survey and a CONTEST. Prize: A $20 gift card from Best Buy. All you have to do is fill out the 50 questions below (which are short, simple, and easy, and will honestly take you very little time at all), and email us the answers at:

robinsbaselibrary@gmail.com.

It could not be any simpler than that, could it?

Well, we’re going to find out. But, without further ado, the questions…

01. How often do you use the library on base?

02. Would you say that you check out books and/or movies from the library on base more than any other service that we provide?

03. Would you say that you come in to enjoy our comfy chairs and couches and relax for a few moments glancing at one of our magazine subscriptions more so than any other service that we provide?

04. Or, would you say that you use our computers more than any other service that we provide?

05. Please give yourself an extra 10 points if you’re filling out this survey while using one of our computers right now.

06. How many books would you read in a given year? We’re talking about fiction and non-fiction, including anthologies or short story collections.

07. How many books would you say that you claim to read to strangers to look smarter? (It’s cool, we all do it.)

Edited to add: The specific wording of this question has proved problematic for some of our patrons taking this quiz. We meant to ask how many books have you told strangers that you read in order to look smarter and/or cooler. We didn’t mean to ask how many books have you physically read to a person who is a stranger to you. Although, if you have an answer to that question, we’d

08. Do you believe in love at first sight?

09. What is your favorite novel?

10. What is your favorite film adaptation of a novel?

11. What was the last movie that you saw in a movie theater?

12. Would you say that mankind in inherently good or evil, or neither and it doesn’t really matter?

13. If there was an apartment building or an office building that actually had a 13th floor, and your apartment or office was one of those un/lucky enough to be on that 13th floor, would you be okay with that?

14. The quick brown fox jumps over the _________?

15. Who is your favorite author?

16. Why?

17. What is the last book that you ever read by that author?

18. What is your favorite Michael Crichton book and/or movie?

19. What is your favorite Stephen King book and/or movie?

20. When was the last time a machine or a piece of technology really let you down?

21. Have you ever read any books by James Patterson?

22. Did you know that James Patterson has written or “written” (his name appears along side that of a co-author on the cover, but the co-author may or may not have done the actual “writing” contained within the book) books in the adult fiction, adult non-fiction areas, as well as fiction and non-fiction for young adults?

23. If you answered “Yes” to both questions #21 and possibly #22 as well, then how many books by James Patterson have you read?

24. How many of those books, if you don’t mind us asking, were checked out from the Robins AFB Library?

25. Why have you read so many James Patterson books?

26. The same question as question #21, but with Clive Cussler instead of James Patterson.

27. We have a puzzle set out in the library for our patrons to come and help us put together. Once completed, the puzzle will reveal itself to be a depiction of a famous work of art by a famous post-Impressionist artist. If you wanted to tell us the name of that work of art or the name of the artist, that would be great, but what we really want to know is: What is the one and only work of art that this artist sold in their lifetime?

28. Name one or more actors who have portrayed that artist in film or television.

29. Referring back to question #03, you did know that we have comfy chairs and couches, right?

30. Referring back to question #28, you did know that we have a wide variety of magazine subscriptions for you to peruse through, right?

31. If you win this contest, do you want the $20 gift card that is listed above as the prize?

32. Or, for your prize awarded for your hard work, would you rather instead win the chance to take a picture with your favorite library worker?

33. It’s a tempting offer, isn’t it?

34. What was the most played song on American radio in the 20th century and how many times was it played?

35. Now that you’ve found our blog, and we are so glad that you have, what kind of things would you like to see on our blog?

36. Can you cook?

37. And regardless of your answer to question #36, do you like to cook?

38. If you answered “yes” to question #36, or even if you didn’t, and regardless of your answer to question #37, do you like to read cook books or watch cooking shows on TV?

39. Count carefully: What number post is this on our blog? And, for an extra point, how many posts are there on our blog at the time of you answering this survey?

40. This is a funny picture:

Please write a funny caption for that picture.

41. We respectfully request that you do not fail to notice that that dog is wearing a top hat and a monocle, and is smoking a pipe. This is not a question.

But bonus points will be awarded if you can tell us what an appropriately funny name would be for this dog.

Further bonus points will be awarded if the name you choose starts with either Mr. or Mrs. i.e. “Mr. Bigglesworth.” Please do not submit “Mr. Bigglesworth” as your answer for this question.

42. What is, according to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the meaning of life? Or, put more simply, what is the answer to “the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything?”

43. What is a group of crows known as?

44. What is a group of frogs known as?

45. What is a group of unicorns known as?

46. Animals are not allowed to use human language in China. Seriously. It’s against the rules. This rule caused what famous book by a famous author to be banned in China?

Hint: This book is widely considered to be a work for children. You’ve seen movies made of it, some live action and some animated. Songs have been written about this book.

47. Other than the Robins AFB Library, what other FSS/Services facilities would you say that you frequent the most on Robins Air Force Base?

Also, check out the new FSS website: http://www.robinsfss.com

48. What was the last book you read that you’d really recommend to a stranger if you had to, or if you were asked to in a survey much like this one?

49. How did you first discover our blog?

50. Make up a question and give us the answer. We’re not so concerned with the question, but we’d really like to know the answer…

Okay, that’s our survey! And again, all you have to do to enter our contest is to answer these questions, #s 1 thru 50, and email those answers to us at robinsbaselibrary@gmail.com. Please put some variation of “Survey” or “Survey Answers” or “CONTEST!” in the subject line. The contest closes on 04/01/12 at midnight, and we’ll announce the winners the following week.

Wait, did that say “winners” and not just “winner” on it? That’s right, it did. Not only will we be giving out our award to the person who gets the most answers right, but we’ll also pick a random entry, or perhaps the person who’s answers amuse us the most, and make them a winner too. Gotta love those odds.

When you send us your questions, please include your name, your email address (of course), and possibly your phone number. And your phone number, especially if you don’t check your email that often. Please be at least 16 years old, or older, or have a parent or guardian’s permission to participate (regardless of how old you are). If you win, we ask that you please come in and pick up your prize and let us take a picture of you to share with the world here on our blog, and perhaps interview you about how you got to be so smart.