Friday, October 29, 2010

Halloween Horrors from Art Suite

If you are already an Art Suite subscriber, you can find a host of Halloween ideas and activities to liven up your library at the scariest time of the year. If someone is checking out Hitchcock's Pscyho from your movie library, for example, you could point them to Garry Leonard's article in Film International, which examines the relationship between horror movies and the economic climate with specific reference to that classic movie.

Art Full Text also has a lot of Halloween resources for younger patrons, like a craft project such as a paper bag haunted house, as described in the October 2007 edition of Arts & Activities. Or, from the same volume, you could try "Awesome Autumn Cut-Ups" for schools or groups where Halloween is less of a focus.

You can also use the resources in Art Suite to create a Halloween quiz for your patrons or staff, like the one below. All the pictures and posters come from Cinema Image Gallery and, as usual, you can find the answers there or you can wait until later today when we will tweet them, in the scariest manner possible, of course.

Because the quiz features movie posters, we are looking for the country where the film is set, rather than the name of the film (which would be too easy, even for a Friday).




Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Happy Halloween from Wilson Omnifile

Whether your library patrons are looking for learning or light reading around Halloween, Wilson Omnifile can provide it.

An article from the International Journal of Regional and Local Studies examines a festival similar to Halloween, that of Hop tu naa, which takes place on October 31 on the Isle of Man, a dependency of the British crown that lies off the coast of Great Britain. The festival sees children going around the neighborhood with a turnip and candle lantern, singing a song and soliciting donations to buy fireworks for Guy Fawkes Night. The article also discusses the similarities and differences between Hop tu naa, modern Halloween, the Celtic festival of Samhain, and the Christian festival of All Saints or All Souls Day, so it makes an interesting starting point for class discussion, a writing assignment, or an imaginative art project.

Parents looking for tips on feeding trick or treaters more healthy alternatives to candy bars might find something to help them in an article from Supermarket News, Fall 2009, which talks about the efforts that parents and some retailers are making to move kids away from unhealthy choices on the spookiest night of the year.

The popular topic of a healthier Halloween is continued in an article from Men's Health, 2009, which contains several recipes for satisfying your sweet tooth without sabotaging your diet.

Remember that you can download these articles for later listening, like when you're putting together your shopping list for this weekend, or when you're actually in the supermarket picking up those all-important Halloween treats.


Remember also that many of the articles are available as PDF page images, so if you are using Omnifile for craft, recipe, or art project ideas, you should look for the PDF icon to find pictures where they are available in the original article.

(Our image is a Library of Congress poster from Art Museum Image Gallery, another essential source of Halloween inspiration.)

Friday, October 15, 2010

October is American Archives Month

Since 2006, the Society of American Archivists have been marking American Archives Month by providing free resources for their members so that they can make visitors more aware of what archives have to offer.


Previous years' resources are available to download here.

The H. W. Wilson Retrospective Collection is an excellent set of resources that will bring out the best in any library's 20th-century collections, making them easy to locate and easy to make use of. Several of our retrospective databases also include links to full-text stories, books, essays, and more, expanding your library's resources without adding any extra volumes to your shelves.

Contact a sales representative if you are interested in any of these comprehensive, precise resources that greatly enhance the search capabilities of any type of library:

Applied Science & Technology Retrospective: 1913-1983
Applied Science & Business Periodicals Retrospective: 1913-1983

Art Index Retrospective 1929-1984

Biography Index Retrospective: 1946-1983
Book Review Digest Retrospective: 1905-1982
Business Periodicals Index Retrospective: 1913-1982
Education Index Retrospective: 1929-1983
Essay and General Literature Retrospective: 1900-1984
Humanities Index Retrospective: 1907-1984
Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984
Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908-1981
Library Literature & Information Science Retrospective: 1905-1983
Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982
Short Story Index Retrospective: 1915-1983
Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1983