Homework Help For Students – PPL Research Databases

The Peoria Public Library has access to fantastic databases to help you study for your next big test, do research for your paper, or find out about the author behind your favorite book. You can find articles, journals, books, quizzes, and even learn a language. Check out all of these helpful databases. Use these databases at the library or at home—just make sure you have your Peoria Public Library card with you at home!

• The American Museum of Photography: See all from historic to contemporary photos and how to do it at this virtual museum.
• Artcyclopedia: Find images, websites, articles about artists, movements, mediums or search by artwork title.
• Art History Resources on the Web: Art by historical period and geographic location, including art movements like Impressionism and Post-Modernism.

Need songs or sound for your next class presentation? Want to try your hand at making a mash-up? Browse these audio collections and tools to find songs you can use or remix.

• Audacity: This free download is an audio editor, recorder, and mixer.
• CC Mixter: Browse this collection for remixes with Creative Commons licenses that let you listen, use, or mash-up music.
• Free Sound: This database features sounds, songs, beeps, or clips that you can reuse.
• Jamendo: Stream, download, or share music from this large database of Creative Commons licensed music.

These image collections are full of photos, images, and artwork that are historic or new, famous or unknown, extraordinary or ordinary. Browse to be inspired, to learn something new, or to find great primary sources for school projects.

• Calisphere: A project of the University of California, this database has collections of photos, cartoons, diaries, newspaper pages, and much more.
• Getty’s Open Content Program: Search the large Getty collection of open content images–from paintings to sculptures and photos to documents, all about a variety of different topics.
• Illinois Digital Archives: With several collections from libraries, museums, historical societies, and more, these photos and documents represent a broad range of Illinois history.
• Library of Congress Print & Photographs Online Catalog: The Library of Congress has digitized over 1.2 million images. Browse all of the different collections or find picture lists about specific topics.
• NASA Image Galleries: Interested in the unknown? Explore space and NASA engineering in this fascinating collection.
• National Gallery of Art Images: Over 29,000 open access images are are free to download, browse, and share via the National Gallery of Art.
• Washington State Coastal Atlas: Even if you’re not in Washington, the tools and images in this digital coastal atlas are worth exploring.
• Wikimedia Commons: Browse these images, sounds, and videos by topic, source, category, or see what is featured each day.

• Climate Change: Find out what’s happening with the environment, U.S. policy, and what you can do to help.
• CNN Student News: News formatted especially for student needs.
• First Headlines: Top news organized by topic and location from all over the world.
• Local News: Peoria Journal Star

• Absolute Shakespeare: Comprehensive resource for Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets, poems, quotes, biography and the legendary Globe Theatre.
• Google Translate: Translate from or to popular foreign languages.
• Poetry 180: A poem a day for American high schools from Billy Collins, former poet laureate of the United States.
• SparkNotes: SparkNotes features the most current analysis and themes. Written by students and recent graduates who specialize in the books they cover. SparkNotes features sections you won’t find elsewhere, like key facts, motifs, and symbols.

• Hippocampus: Offers multimedia lessons and course materials to help you with instruction, homework and studies.

• Citation Machine: Citation machine helps students and professional researchers to properly credit the information that they use.
• Codecademy: Want to learn to code? Get started learning JavaScript, HTML, PHP, Python and more and make projects like apps and games, too.
• Easel.ly: Create your own infographic and show off information visually with this tool.
• How Stuff Works: Check here to find out how anything and everything works.
• Khan Academy: Learning is a game with Khan Academy–earn badges through different activities as you brush up on a variety of skills.
• New York Times Learning Network: The Learning Network offers innovative, interactive activities based on today’s New York Times.
• Our Documents: Use this site to look at and learn about 100 important documents in U.S. History.
• Purdue OWL: Have questions about your works cited or bibliography page? Not sure about grammar or punctuation? The Purdue Online Writing Lab has answers.
• Seriously Amazing (Smithsonian): The Smithsonian answers some seriously amazing, seriously crazy questions about nature, technology, stories, and more.
• Shmoop: Find learning guides about different subjects or practice for the ACT or SAT at Shmoop.
• Study Guides and Strategies: Study guides and strategies, straight talk tools and methods for succeeding in school. Includes advice for taking tests, collaborating with others, critical reading skills, effective note-taking, etc.
• Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright: Confused about copyright? Learn what’s okay and what’s not from this site, brought to you by the Library of Congress.
• Wonderopolis: Is the five-second rule true? How are prices set? What do you wonder? Wander over to Wonderopolis and discover the answers.
• World Digital Library: Check out primary sources from around the world spanning from 8000 BCE to 2013.

• Music Theory: Ricci Adams’ music theory and teen-created basics of music.

• Animal Diversity Web: Browse through the different classes of the animal kingdom for pictures, sounds and information on the species you’re researching.
• Ask the Astronomer: This is an archive of thousands of questions visitors have sent Dr. Sten Odenwald since August 1995.
• The Biology Project: An online interactive resource for learning biology, sets of problems and tutorials that will lead you through learning topics in biology.
• Frank Potter’s Science Gems: Science ideas and experiments divided by categories and grade levels.
• General Chemistry Online: Compounds, tutorials, FAQs, and “Chemistry Exam Survival Guide.”
• Genetic Science Learning Center: Learn the basics of genetics.
• Jet Propulsion Lab: Look at actual photos of the solar system, NASA missions, infrared photos, cosmos and much, much more.
• The Physics Classroom: This popular physics tutorial gives you the basics, using graphics and practice questions.
• Savage Earth: Volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis explained, with animations for viewing how they happen.
• Science Buddies: Contains lots of links on how to do a science fair project.
• Web Elements Periodic Table of the Elements: All about the chemical elements with good illustrations: descriptive data, history, uses, compounds and more.
• Windows to the Universe: See images, movies and animations that explore the Earth and Space Sciences and the historical anc cultural ties between science, exploration and the human experience.

• Bio: Features over 7,000 biographies and daily highlights of newsworthy, compelling and surprising points-of-view.
• Black History Month: Black history, contemporary issues, biography and many other resources.
• CIA: The World Factbook: General information and extensive statistical data on countries of the world.
• Country Studies: Historical, social, economic and political background of countries throughout the world.
• Distinguished Women of Past and Present: Biographies of women writers, educators, scientists, heads of state, and many others throughout history.
• Encyclopedia Mythica: Folklore and myth from countries around the world, including biographies of all the goddesses, gods, and heroes.
• History Place-Holocaust Timeline: A timeline with Holocaust events and photographs.
• Virtual Library Index of Native American Resources on the Web: Links to the nations, their histories and cultures. Scroll down past the notices to the index on each page.
• Women’s History Month: The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society.
• Year by Year: An online almanac of current and historical information.

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