National Poetry Month (April 2007)

April is National Poetry Month. As the Academy of American Poets notes, T.S. Eliot said, "April is the cruelest month" and with this recent weather I can believe it.

If you're interested in enjoying some poetry, you might try the Fiction & Literature Media Finder. You can combine checking the poetry box with various kinds of searches. For example, you can select original language of literature from the pull-down menu to find Spanish or ancient Greek poetry, as well as poems originally in Swahili or Welsh. If you'd like to read non-English poetry in the original, use the in original language list instead. Challenge yourself by reading some French poetry in French or German poetry in German.

You can also combine poetry with different genres to find things like war poetry (or choose World War I under time for poems about the Great War). Or try one of the great epic poems from Gilgamesh or the Iliad to Beowulf or the Mahabharata.

If you limit to youth under audience, you can find children's poetry in various genres, such as humorous poetry (including the inimitable Shel Silverstein).

To find poetry you can listen to, use the format limiter for audiobooks. From the Videos (All) Media Finder, you can find a few poetry readings on video--if you like the Beats, why not check out Allen Ginsberg? We also have a few film adaptations of poems.

Or just check poetry and type your favorite poet's name in the search box. A few I fancy include e. e. cummings, Rilke and the haiku poet Basho.

If you'd like to read poetry online, we also provide access to a selection of poetry via our subscription to LitFinder.

For media to help you learn more about poetry and poets, try the Mega Media Finder. Among other things, we have many videos, a few CD-ROMs, and a variety of pictures and posters.

Find Stock Footage, Sound Effects, Production Music, and Clip Art

Do you need just the right image for your project? Looking for the perfect sound effect for your presentation? Ball State University Libraries can help...

If you're looking for clip art, we do have a selection of royalty-free images. These can be found by checking clip art on the Software & Electronic Games Media Finder and hitting find.

Wanting sound effects or production music? We have a large selection available from the Sounds & Sound Effects Media Finder. If you go to the Educational Resources Center counter on the lower level of Bracken and ask, they have a number of more detailed print guides to our sound effects and production music.

We even have a little bit of royalty-free stock footage for your productions. Some, such as VideoTraxx 1 from Digital Juice, are on DVD-ROM (searchable from the Software & Electronic Games Media Finder by checking video under clip art and media clips) and some are on VHS (searchable from the Videos (All) Media Finder by typing stock footage in the search box).

Find Chamber Music by Instrumentation

The Chamber Music Media Finder will help you find scores and recordings for different instruments. You may wonder why we offer three types of searches: "exact instrumentation," "including these instruments," and "exactly X parts."

Well, most of the time, most people probably want "exact instrumentation." So if you want duets for flute and piano, you can easily select one flute and one piano and get just that. If you're looking just for scores, don't forgot to select scores under format in the upper right corner.

The other two options can be more helpful with less common instruments. For example, if you want to listen to shakuhachi music, you can choose "including these instruments," any number of shakuhachi (under other woodwinds) and recordings (under format) to get pieces that include any number of shakuhachi parts.

This "including these instruments" option also often works better if you want to include percussion in your search because the number of percussion parts in a given piece of music is not always fixed.

The "exactly X parts" option could be helpful in some cases. Say you play sax and you want to play a duet, but you don't know with whom yet. You could choose scores under format, exactly 2 parts including 1 saxophone, and get all the duets for saxophone and something else without having to specify the other instrument.

How to Find New Movies (Or Very Old Movies)

On the Movies & TV Programs (fiction video) Media Finder, it’s easy to find recent movies by using the original date pulldown list and selecting a recent date range, such as 2005-2006 or 2000-2004. These dates are for the original theatrical release or broadcast date. You can combine these dates with other search options. So if you select 2005-2006 and check comedy, you’ll get recent comedies. You can go the other way, too—check out our films from 1890-1899.