Happy New Year from Wilson Biographies

Everyone at H. W. Wilson hopes that your 2011 is a happy and productive one. To mark the start of another calendar year, we're celebrating those people whose birthdays fall on January 1. As usual, all the answers can be found in Biography Reference Bank, or you can wait until later today when we will tweet them.

1) Born January 1, 1735, I am best known for my part in the Revolutionary War, but I was also a popular silversmith and engraver. Who am I?
a) Captain John Parker
b) John Singleton Copley
c) Paul Revere

2) Born January 1, 1895, I was named assistant director of the newly-formed Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice under William J. Burns in 1921. Who am I?
a) Kenneth McKellar
b) J. Edgar Hoover
c) Joseph McCarthy

3) Born January 1, 1970, I am best known for directing movies like Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Who am I?
a) M. Night Shyamalan
b) Paul Thomas Anderson
c) Kevin Smith

4) Born January 1, 1912, Victor Reuther helped organize the first sit-down strike by which U.S. labor organization, after which the union's membership grew from less than 100 to approximately 30,000?
a) Teamsters
b) Congress of Industrial Organizations
c) United Automobile Workers

5) Born January 1, 1449, I was a scholar, writer, and poet, and was appointed ruler of Florence, Italy, at the age of just 21. Who am I?
 a) Pico della Mirandola
b) Lorenzo De Medici
c) Dante Alighieri

6) Born Jan 1, 1986, I turned down football offers to play basketball and am now a power forward with the Boston Celtics. Who am I?
a) Glen Davis
b) Kevin Durant
c) Dwight Howard

7) Born January 1, 1767, my considerable writing talents were already obvious to my family by the time we moved from Britain to County Longford, Ireland, in 1782. Who am I?
a) Maria Edgeworth
b) Mary Shelley
c) Sarah Siddons

Find National Film Registry Titles on Cinema Image Gallery

Lonesome - 1928

Yesterday the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress published the list of 25 films chosen for preservation in 2010.

Taking in documentaries, popular features, early talkies, silent shorts, and Academy Award winners, the list spans the period 1891-1996. The list takes in such well-known titles as All the President's Men, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Front Page, as well as more obscure movies like Lonesome and Make Way for Tomorrow. 

H. W. Wilson's Cinema Image Gallery contains multiple records for most of the films on the list, including 153 records for The Empire Strikes Back, 47 records for McCabe and Mrs Miller, 13 records for Grey Gardens, and 36 records for Malcolm X. Whether your patrons are looking for images to use in a classroom discussion on movie preservation or just looking for more information after seeing the list, Cinema Image Gallery on WilsonWeb is the first place to come for comprehensive coverage and a wide range of images from the listed movies.

John Lennon quiz with Biography Reference Bank

Wednesday, December 8 was the 30th anniversary of the shooting of the singer, sixties icon, and activist John Lennon, outside his apartment in New York. To mark this anniversary, today's Friday quiz is all about the man and his music.

As usual, you will find the answers to the quiz in Biography Reference Bank, or you can wait until later today when we will tweet them. If you are a Biography Reference Bank subscriber, we particularly recommend you check out the biography of Lennon that appeared in Current Biography in 1965, for a flavor of how the Beatles were perceived at the very height of their popularity. For example:

"Originally regarded as a manifestation of good-natured protest of youth against the established order, the Beatles have since found their place within the Establishment, as evidenced by their designation, in June 1965, as members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire."


1) John Lennon's parents were named:
a) Alfred and Julia
b) Cynthia and Sean
c) Brian and Mary

2) John began performing with Paul McCartney in the late 1950s under a name derived from British Air Force slang. What was that name?
a) The Fox Cubs
b) The Nurk Twins
c) The Two Tommys

3) Which prominent American chronicler of the Sixties called John "one of the few Englishmen whom English literati have hailed as a genius of the lower crust"?
a) Gore Vidal
b) Hunter S. Thompson
c) Tom Wolfe

4) What was the name of the 1998 album containing previously unrecorded Lennon material?
a) Reimagined
b) Diamonds in the Rough
c) Wonsaponatime

5) What was the name of the single that was released a month after Lennon's death in 1980?
a) "Woman"
b) "Starting Over"
c) "Give Peace a Chance" 

Courtroom Dramas on Cinema Image Gallery

We recently expanded our genre categories on Cinema Image Gallery to include courtroom dramas, which means you can now pinpoint examples of this popular genre by simply choosing this option from the Genre dropdown list on the Advanced Search screen.

From modern courtroom dramas like The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Boston Legal to classic legal stories like Twelve Angry Men and Perry Mason, Cinema Image Gallery images can illustrate or inspire lectures and classroom discussions on law-related topics like:

• How famous trials were conducted.
• Realism in courtroom dramas.
• Changing gender and racial profiles of courtroom players.
• The effect of social media on the conduct of trials.
• Presenting forensic evidence in the courtroom.
• Public speaking skills.
• Changing legal practices.

...and much, much more.

Whether you are involved in a law or legal studies program, a media or film program, or a drama or writing program, you will find a wealth of material within Cinema Image Gallery's courtroom drama genre to improve your presentations or projects.

December Birthday quiz with Biography Reference Bank

December can be a difficult month to celebrate your birthday, because it sometimes gets mixed up in the holiday season. So today's quiz celebrates notable people with birthdays in December. You can find all the answers in Biography Reference Bank, (try a search using the date fields to get the results you want), or you can wait until later today when we will tweet them.

1. Born on December 19, 1906, my time as premier of the Soviet Union was marked by a detente in relations with the West, including the first United States-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
a) Leonid Brezhnev
b) Aleksei N. Kosygin
c) Nikolai Khrushchev

2. I was born on Christmas Day, 1887, and later became known as the "No.1 innkeeper". Who am I?
a) Pancho Barnes
b) Charles Ballard
c) Conrad Hilton

3. Born on December 17, 1937, a Forbes list of the world's richest people listed me as the wealthiest person in Australia, 94th in the world. Who am I?
a) Kerry Packer
b) Rupert Murdoch
c) Geoffrey Bible

4. I was born on December 19, 1915, and when I sang on stage I usually went without makeup and wore a simple black dress. Who am I?
a) Edith Piaf
b) Alice Fay
c) Billie Holiday

5. I am a singer who was performing the national anthem at Pittsburgh-area sporting events before I was eight years old. I turn 30 on December 18. Who am I?
a) Britney Spears
b) Christina Aguilera
c) Josh Groban

6. I am a British actor who was nominated for a Tony award in 2010 for my portrayal of Hamlet. My birthday is on December 29. Who am I?
a) Tom Hardy
b) David Tennant
c) Jude Law

7. In 1961 I left a $1,700-a-week job writing for the Garry Moore Show to try my hand at standup comedy. I celebrate my birthday on December 1. Who am I?
a) Steve Martin
b) Steve Allen
c) Woody Allen

Thanksgiving quiz with Omnifile

To mark the fact that Thanksgiving is almost here, today's quiz celebrates that holiday as well as giving you a taste of the variety of publications you can peruse if you have an Omnifile Full Text, Mega or Select subscription.

You will find the answers in Omnifile, or you can hang on until later today, when we will tweet them.

Our illustration comes from Art Museum Image Gallery, another key Wilson resource.

1) Which food company fields approximately 100,000 phone calls each November, and around ten years ago was consulted by President Josiah Bartlett (Martin Sheen) in an episode of the West Wing?
(from an article in Advertising Age)

a) Butterball
b) Epicurious
c) Food Network 

2) Which ancient Greek word is usually understood by Christians to mean "to give thanks", although this was an uncommon concept in antiquity?
(from an article in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly)


a) Filotimia
b) Eukharistein
c) Gratitude

3) Why was Squanto able to interpret for the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621?
(from an article in Native Peoples)


a) A trapper taught him English.
b) He went to a missionary school.
c) He had already spent some time living in England.

4) Which three native birds do Texas chefs recommend trying as an alternative to turkey at Thanksgiving?
(from an article in Texas Monthly)

a) meadowlark, blackbird, cowbird
b) chicken, goose, wrentit
c) dove, duck, quail

5) Which little known event is known by some people as "the real first Thanksgiving"?
(from an article in School Library Media Activities Monthly)

a) October 1615: Lost French trapper Jean Baptiste Charbonneau celebrates his rescue by sharing his food with the Shoshone tribe.
b) November 25, 1620: Native Americans at the English court demonstrate their Thanksgiving feasts.
c) September 8, 1565: Admiral Pedro Menendez and Father Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales share a meal with the Timucua tribe in La Florida

6) Which astronomical phenomenon occurs close to Thanksgiving?
(from an article in Astronomy)


a) Sun spots
b) The Leonid meteor shower
c) The Hale-Bopp comet

7) Which Disney movie took just $16.6 million over its opening Thanksgiving weekend in 2002 to become one of the studio's least successful animated features?
(from an article in Variety)

a) Pocahontas
b) Treasure Planet
c)  Lilo & Stitch

Thanksgiving ideas from Omnifile on WilsonWeb and WilsonWeb Mobile

Wilson Omnifile is certainly a key resource for academic research, but it contains a wealth of material from popular publications also. Using either your office version or your WilsonWeb Mobile account, try a search for Thanksgiving, then choose Recipes from the document type dropdown list. This will turn up a host of articles that include holiday offerings from Rachael Ray, Emeril Lagasse, and more, as well as articles with recipes designed for children to help with, and handy ideas for leftovers.

Remember that if you choose to listen to the recipes using ReadSpeaker, you can play them back at the speed that suits you, and you can select only the parts of the article you need to hear. Language translations also makes these articles available to anyone who is working on their English skills.

Thanksgiving menu 1905 by George Elbert Burr

For other ideas for the holiday, keep Thanksgiving as your search term, choose All from the document type list, and select Education from the list of subject areas. This will return articles on fostering gratitude among school children, as well as craft ideas for the occasion, which could be useful for art classes in school, a project in the library, or to give parents inspiration for keeping kids occupied between now and the holiday.

(The pictures in this article were taken from Cinema Image Gallery and Art Museum Image Gallery, two more excellent sources of art and craft inspiration for Thanksgiving or any other holiday.)