Arts and Humanities

Return to Internet Links Directory

Please Note: These pages contain links to non-library sponsored remote services and information. The Palatine Public Library District is not responsible for the content, reliability or availability of these services.

Arts

Language & Writing

Literature

Music

Research Databases

Arts

American Ballet Theatre

The season, the tour, the dancers, the ballets!

Art Festivals and Craft Shows 

Artists and artisans can search by date, city, state, and region for events where they can display their work

Art History Resources on the Web

Art Institute of Chicago

Art Market

Learn everything about art and the market of art. Features galleries, InternetArt Magazine and archives with information about artists and their works, actual sale prices, trends and more.

Artcyclopedia

A comprehensive index to online exhibits of thousands of artists. Search by artist's name or browse the A to Z listing. Entries include links to museum sites, image archives, and other online resources.

ArtSource

This site contains links to art and architecture sites including electronic exhibitions, image collections, online art journals, art schools and university art/architecture programs, libraries, museums, and organizations.

Creative Directory Services 

Chicagoland resource for the creative community.

Guide to Art & Craft Workshops

Illinois Art Fair Directory 

This directory is helpful to art fair sponsors, artists and the general public.

Internet Broadway Database 

The official database for Broadway theatre.

MuseumSpot 

Provides links to places to search for museums by country, state, city, museum name, and artist.

National Gallery of Art

Images of more than 3000 works and information on all of the more than 100,000 objects in the gallery's collection.

Picturing the Century:  100 Years of Photography 

Photographs from the National Archives and Records Administration.  Browse the collection by time period or by photographers.

Playbill Online Theatre Central

Great site for anyone curious about theater news, personalities, or planning to attend a production. This easy-to-use site even offers discounts.

Sister Wendy's American Collection

Smithsonian

Language & Writing

Citation Styles

From the Writers' Workshop at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: styles include the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA.)

Citing Sources, From Duke university Libraries

Provides free advice and examples for MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, and CSE styles.

Common Errors in English Usage

EasyBib

Formats your MLA citations for free, and allows you to export them into MS Word. (Also offers APA and Chicago/Turabian help for a fee.)

Elements of Style

William Strunk's Elements of Style.

Graduation Speeches

This directory lists many memorable commencement addresses delivered over the years.

Guide to Grammar and Writing

Includes definitions of sentence parts, rules for comma usage and other punctuation marks, plurals, possessives, capitalization and lots more. You can even "Ask Grammar!"

IPL Teenspace: A+ Research and Writing

A step-by-step guide to writing a research paper from the Internet Public Library.

Jennifer's Language Page

Learn how to say conversational words and phrases in hundreds of different languages.

OttoBib

Automatic bibliography generator. Just enter the ISBN of a book and chose a citation style.

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Contains 200 free writing resources and instructional materials for students, teachers, and trainers. Included are formatting and style guides, grammar and mechanics, internet literacy, ESL, job search and technical writing, and research.

Type It

Use this site to easily type in a foreign language that uses special characters such as Russian, Polish, and Spanish. You can then paste your text into a document or email without losing the characters.

Literature

Blue Letter Bible

Contains 14 searchable and easily comparable versions of the Holy Bible. Additional resources include an encyclopedia, a dictionary, text and audio/video commentaries, charts, outlines, timelines, and maps.

BookFinder.com

A search engine that indexes over 150 million books for sale from the catalogs of over 150 million sellers in 50 countries. Included are new, used, rare and out-of-print titles. 

BookSpot.com 

Book awards and reading lists by theme, by genre, by grade level, and if you liked... subjects.  You will find author information, hot picks, and recommended reads.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

Searchable, hypertext version of the printed work.

Children's Picture Book Database

CliffsNotes: Literature Notes

Provides free access to most CliffsNotes literature guides.

Illinois Authors

A database of authors, illustrators and photographers who are published, live in Illinois, have lived in Illinois, were born in Illinois, have written extensively about Illinois or have works set in Illinois.

INTER-PLAY Database

Resource for locating plays in anthologies. 

Literary Index

Search the master index to Gale's large collection of literary criticisms which is located on the 2nd floor of the Main Library.

Literary Resources on the Net

A link to sites dealing with English and American literature.

LitLine 

Lost Titles, Forgotten Rhymes

This guide from the Library of Congress helps readers identify a literary work when they know only its plot or subject, or other textual information such as a character's name, a line of poetry, or a unique word or phrase.

ManyBooks.net

Free downloads of over 24,000 eBooks and audiobooks available in a variety of formats. A good source for classic literature.

Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet

A comprehensive guide to Shakespeare sources including criticism.

On-Line Books Page

Online Literary Criticism

Sponsored by the Internet Public Library's Literary Criticism Collection. Find biographical and criticism information for over 100 authors and their works.

Overbooked 

Reader's advisory site.

Poetry Foundation

Use the Poetry Tool to search for poems by theme, poet, first line, reading level, and more. From Poetry magazine.

Shakespeare

This site contains the complete works of William Shakespeare on-line, Bartlett's familiar Shakespearean Quotations, plus links to other Shakespeare sources.

SparkNotes

Free online study guides including literature, poetry, and the No Fear Shakespeare series.

VoS English Literature

Voice of the Shuttle. An excellent source for literary criticism.

What's Next?

Search series fiction.

Writer's Digest

A supplement to the printed edition of the Writer's Digest, this site contains the most current information on publishing both fiction and non-fiction.

Music

AMG All Music Guide

All About Jazz

An excellent resource of articles, reviews of CDs, interviews and biographies.

Archive of Misheard Lyrics

Baby Boomer HeadQuarters: Lyrics

Beatles.com

Essentials of Music 

Classical music site that is organized by eras and composers.  Includes a glossary and musical examples in RealAudio.

Fake Book Search

This project allows you to search about 100 fake books to find a jazz or popular song by song title. You can cross-reference the results with our catalog to see if the library owns the fake book.

Folk Music, An Index to Recorded Resources

Historical American Sheet Music

The Historic American Sheet Music project, from Duke University, provides access to digital images of sheet music published in the U.S. between 1850 and 1920.

KIDiddles

Kids song lyrics.

Lyrics Connection

Musicals.Net

Concentrates on 80 popular Broadway shows. Gives in-depth information on each show including song lyrics.

Piano World 

A complete guide to piano care, purchasing, collecting and restoration.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

RockWisdom Song Quotes

Browse or search for a good quote or a lyric.

Sheet Music Consortium

This site provides access to collections of sheet music of popular songs, including full scans of work published before 1923.

Songtitle.info

Music from TV Commercials.

Ultimate Band List

Bands and artists can be searched by name, keyword, genre, or resource. Lists and links are also available for radio stations, record labels and stores, music charts, e-zines, and concert information.

Ultimate '80s Songs

Research Databases

Palatine Public Library subscribes to a number of Web-based services (databases) which are available to users of the Library. Some are available from home and some are for use in the Library only. Resources available from home will require Palatine Public Library cardholders to type in their Library bar code number.

Available from home for Palatine Library Cardholders.

Available to use inside the library.

Bloom's Literary Reference Online

Find literary criticisms, author biographies, essays on topics and themes, synopses, videos, and more in this online collection from Harold Bloom.

Literary Index

Use this to locate critical or biographical material about authors, books, stories, or poems.  Not full text, leads to critical sources.

LitFinder 

Search 85,000 full-text poems, short stories, and essays. Can search by subject, author, and first/last lines.

MagillOnLiterature Plus 

This database includes all the critical analyses and brief plot summaries that are included in MagillOnLiterature, as well as biographies and author essays included in MagillOnAuthors.

NoveList Plus

Online reader's advisory database for fiction and non-fiction.

NoveList K-8 Plus

Search K-8 fiction and non-fiction by author, title, series name, and subject.

Student Resource Center Gold

Covering the major subject areas, including history, literature, science, social studies and more, Student Resource Center provides a selection of reference, thousands of full-text periodicals and newspapers, primary documents, creative works, and multimedia, including video and audio clips and podcasts.

from Gale / Cengage Learning