Wrap Up

My biggest discovery in doing this invitational was seeing how much information Marvel provides. Each item on the list is a huge resource in itself; taken all together the information seems endless. As a writer and editor, I often use Google to do research; now that I know about Marvel, I have a whole new world of possibilities. I know I will use it in my own work and with clients.

Marvel will also be one of the first things I share with patrons once we move into our new library space in my town and get computers. This is just one more wonderful incentive for us to work toward becoming a recognized public library in Maine.

I can imagine having a Saturday morning or Wednesday evening workshop on how to use Marvel. It will be fun to show people resources such as NoveList — my own favorite — when they ask for book recommendations. I’m sure Ancestry Library will be another favorite in my small town, where many people are interested in local history. It’s a subject that seems to bring people together — young and old, old-timers and newcomers. Inside our new library there will be a special Lincolnville history section and outside there will be an open air museum with historic exhibits. We could have a program featuring these resources and invite someone to tell about their family history and show others how they could research theirs using Ancestry Library.

I expect Learning Express will be another popular resource, especially as people try to expand their knowledge and education in order to increase their work opportunities in this economy. I had no idea all these courses and exams were available online and I know others will be pleased to learn about them too.

This invitational has been a great learning experience and has made me appreciate even more all the resources the state library provides.

EbscoHost

I clicked on EbscoHost Database collection and got the message “Maximum sessions reached, please try again later.” The same message came up when I tried Academic Search Complete and EbscoHost ebook collection. I’m guessing this was because it was Sunday afternoon and many others were using the resource. I’ll try again later …

I tried the next day and was able to get into Academic Search Complete. After clicking on publications I spent some time scrolling through the list and then searched for the New Yorker and it came right up. I also found National Geographic. I was curious about women’s magazines so tried O The Oprah Magazine and did not find it listed.

I typed “zinc in food” in the search box and found several articles about zinc in foods in other countries such as Senegal and Western Cameroon. There was also an article on zinc and Alzheimer’s that I clicked on. It discussed the association between zinc and Alzheimer’s disease, saying this has been reported on hundreds of times but is still a matter of debate.

I also tried a search for probiotics and got a list of interesting articles, most of which were from academic journals and quite technical. I didn’t see much for the lay reader.

I checked several other participants’ blogs and didn’t find anyone who had done this assignment yet. I’ll try to check back later in the week.

I clicked on “health and medicine” and was interested to see all the books and articles that came up. “Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry About What We Eat,” published in 2012 by University of Chicago Press, had table of contents entries on everything from germophobia and bacteria in beef to natural foods in Shangri-La.

When I searched for Constitution Day I was surprised to find the first book listed in the results was “Democracy at Dawn: Notes from Poland and Points East.” Then came “The French Revolution: A History.” I didn’t find any about the United States. I also did a search for U.S. Constitution Day but nothing relevant came up. The only slightly related result was “Arboriculture: History and Development in North America” and on one of the relevant pages it mentioned Arbor Day.

The advanced search for Western history and Nebraska took me to “Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859.” I liked the way I could go to the most relevant pages and learn more about what the book covers.

Learning Express

I tried to access Learning Express but when I clicked on it in the alphabetical list I got a  message saying:

To allow http://www.learnatest.com/lel to be used in a starting point URL, your EZproxy administrator must first authorize the hostname of this URL in the config.txt file.

I registered on Marvel with a user name and password as it said I could from home (I do not have a public library card) but still got this message. And I didn’t see the option anywhere to log in. I also did not get a confirmation e-mail after registering as it said on Marvel that I would. I must be registered, however, because when I tried again it said that user name was in use. This was all very frustrating …

Three days later, after several e-mails back and forth with the invitational organizer and a very helpful tech person, I was able to log into Learning Express. Apparently there had been a problem with my particular e-mail address and the tech person was able to fix it.

I had a look at the choice of available exams and was impressed with the selection. I tried the GED writing practice exam. The setup of the test was a bit confusing at first with the sentences and multiple choice questions. I liked the way I could view the correct answers, however, and get an explanation. This made it a good learning experience. This test was particularly interesting to me as a professional writer and editor. I think it could be even more confusing to someone with less experience.

I chose grammar practice under business writing. Then I added 501 Grammar and Writing Questions, 4th edition to my center. The eBook looked very thorough, with at least 160 pages and sections on mechanics, sentence structure, paragraph development and essay questions. The last section was answers, which would be a helpful part of the learning process.

I browsed the eBook list and had a look at Just in Time Vocabulary. It covered everything from word roots and prefixes and suffixes to words from foreign languages. As someone who loves to read the dictionary, I’m sure I would find this eBook very interesting! It would also be helpful to someone trying to improve their English language and writing skills.

Genealogy Resources

This assignment reminds me how much I’m looking forward to having our own full service library here in Lincolnville! We are off to a great start, with a nice collection of books in our temporary space, but have a long way to go before we are in our permanent home with Internet service and access to resources such as Ancestry Library. I had a look at the tutorials, video and sample searches and it seems like a fun and useful resource. I was also able to do some initial searching from home on ancestry.com and it was exciting to find my grandparents listed in the census. I will try to get to a public library in another town soon so that I can try the library version. It will be interesting to see how it compares to this one used at home. This will also be useful to know once we have access to the resource at our library and I am explaining to patrons how both versions work.

I saw Ancestry Library in the alphabetical list but not Heritage Quest or Sanborn Maps. I was able to learn what the last two are by doing some other searching, but this was a bit confusing.

When I searched my name (first and maiden name) it took me to the option of exploring my father’s or mother’s side and I chose my father’s.

This took me to my grandparents, Franklin and Alice Wentworth, listed in the 1920 census. It gave their address as Russell Street in the town of Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts. I saw the names of my two uncles, Chapman and Strafford, and my aunt, though hers was misspelled — it looked like Symphia (the cursive writing was a bit hard to read), when her name was actually Cynthia. My father, Brandon, was not listed; my guess is this is because Franklin was his father but Alice was his stepmother and he may not have been living with the family at the time. It said my grandfather was born in Illinois in about 1867. He was a civil engineer, which makes sense given what I know, though I don’t remember hearing him called that. It looked like his father was born in Maine and his mother in Pennsylvania, which I didn’t know. I also saw a maid named Ella listed.

When I searched Brandon Wentworth, my father, I got a list that included “public member trees” and one gave my father and mother’s names. It was exciting to find them both listed, even though I hadn’t plugged in anything about my mother yet.

I went to photos and maps at ancestry.com and used the keyword Maine and got a long list of “public member photos and scanned documents.” Clicking on any of these just took me to a promotion to become a member, but at least it gave me an idea of how to search.

Consumer Health Resources

In Health Source – Consumer Edition, I clicked on the Publications link and was interested to see the long list of subjects. I was impressed by the wide variety of sources, from a series of books for teens on alcohol use and abuse and eating disorders, to articles on alternative medicine and food and healing. Most seemed to be from sources I would trust such as Harvard Health Publications.

Next I searched for Raynaud’s Syndrome and sorted by relevance. The first result was an article published in June 2012 on evening primrose oil. I was able to see the full HTML text, which was in a question and answer format. The article described what Raynaud’s is and gave a long list of all the conditions evening primrose oil is used to treat, including Raynaud’s. It also had information on the side effects of the oil and possible interactions with other products, and warned that the FDA does not approve uses for this and other natural remedies.

The second result was a piece called “Raynaud’s: The Big Chill for Fingers and Toes” in the Harvard Heart Letter from February 2010. I was able to read the full PDF text and it was completely understandable — clearly written for the lay person. I did not have to look up any terms in the dictionary. It included a good description of what Raynaud’s is and information on treatment and prevention. Overall it was much more helpful than the first article I tried.

At Medline Plus I immediately saw links I wanted to click on and learn more. This was a user friendly home page — very accessible. At the right were interesting articles on smoke-free cities, calories and alcoholic drinks, and U.S. diabetes rates.

The list of popular searches included aspirin, asthma, autism, breast cancer, calcium and about 10 more — all relevant. I clicked on vitamin D and was interested to see a good description of vitamin D in a summary at the top of the page and then a long list of more in-depth information sources. Again, the layout and presentation made the site very easy to use.

I searched for aspirin and found a long list of articles. Some looked more technical than other information on this site. When I clicked on a few of the individual articles, however, they were all quite understandable.

I clicked on Health Topics and searched for Raynaud’s Syndrome. This took me to a page with a good summary of what the syndrome is and then a list of articles, just like the page for vitamin D. This information gave me a more succinct description of the syndrome right away than the articles I found on Health Source.

I watched a video on allergies. It was simple and easy to understand, with the pictures, audio and text running underneath. Some patrons might want something more in-depth, but this was a good introduction.

Overall, I was most impressed with MedLine and found it much more user friendly than Health Source.

Business Resources

Business Source Complete

I searched for “FM radio” and the first response was “initial search query did not yield any results. However, using SmartText Searching, results were found based on keywords.” I didn’t quite understand this. I got a list of articles from academic journals on radio receivers, amplifiers, interference and other technical subjects.

When I tried the visual search option for FM radio it said no results were found. The general tutorial on the visual search was helpful, though, and I can see how it would be a good tool.

EconLit

I found a good list of articles, reports and books on subjects such as “The Use of Owner Resources and Relationships Among Gender, Strategic Capabilities, and Performance of Small Retail Firms in Ghana”; “Do Entrepreneurial Goals Matter”; and “Human Resource Management in Small Business: Achieving Peak Performance.”

A search of “small business and the EPA” took me to just one article: “Land Recycling, Community Revitalization, and Distributive Politics: An Analysis of EPA Brownfields Program Support.” I was surprised this was all that turned up.

When I tried searching “EPA and small businesses” I got a much longer list that included the above article and also reports and articles on the EPA Environmental Justice Program, methane as a greenhouse gas, hazardous waste taxes, and more — all very interesting.

A search on tax policy and small businesses led to articles and reports on corporate tax and small venture businesses, small businesses in South Africa, public policy toward entrepreneurship, and more. Everything seemed very technical; I’m not sure how relevant all the information would be to a small business owner in my small town.

Regional Business News

I searched for L.L.Bean since it is a Maine company that is nationally (and internationally) known and found news stories on the company commemorating 100 years, committing $150,000 to Hurricane Sandy relief, contributing $1 million to the National Park Foundation, and many more.

I chose the Vermont Country Store for a regional business since I expect it is well known throughout New England but probably not the whole country. The top news story was about the company and the Vermont Community Foundation creating a help fund for employees. Another one was about the store recovering after Hurricane Irene. These were more personal interest stories than useful information for other business owners.

I searched for MOO (Maine’s Own Organic) milk and was surprised that no articles on the company came up even though I have read some recently in state and local newspapers. There were several more general pieces on milk, milk machines in schools, and other subjects.

Value Line

I explored the links for the Investment Survey, including the description of the site, which was helpful. I also had a look at the various reports and got a good idea what is available, though it was difficult to understand all the information.

I searched Starbucks in the general search box and was interested to see the list of articles about a variety of subjects related to the company. This would be useful to someone trying to find information on a company’s environmental responsibility, for example. When I tried “company lookup” I got what seemed to be the company report.

Wall Street Journal

A search for “small business and health care” brought a list of lots of subjects a small business person would be interested in such as health insurance and part-time workers, low-wage employers and the health-care law, and how employers can adapt to the health law. It was interesting to see how using the suggested limiters took me to different lists and subjects. This search led me to some of the most practical information for small business owners in my area.

It was good to see that it is possible to create an alert; this would be a useful tool for helping a small business owner doing ongoing research.

This assignment was definitely a good learning experience, though not nearly as much fun as NoveList!

NoveList

I could have gotten lost in this assignment even longer than I did! After clicking on read-alikes, I kept linking from one author or title to the next, reading the bios and summaries.

I searched for the Three Sisters Island trilogy by Nora Roberts. I haven’t read her books, but many of them have been donated to the library; one woman brought nearly 100 paperbacks. So I have been wanting to try some to learn what makes her so popular. It was helpful to click on “view” above the results and see the covers of all three books in the series. This could help a patron find a particular book in the series or determine which ones they hadn’t read yet.

I spent a lot of time trying the read-alike links, not only for David Baldacci, but also for some of my favorite authors — Rosamunde Pilcher, Maeve Binchy, Joanna Trollope. It was interesting to see how they often came up on each other’s lists; obviously I tend to go for similar types of books. The author bios were all interesting and I read many of these.

I can definitely see how this database will be helpful at the library for making suggestions for patrons. I found myself thinking of friends who like particular authors and what other books I might recommend to them.

The one feature that didn’t seem so helpful when searching read-alikes for my favorite authors was the “reason” for why a similar author was recommended. In many cases the reasons sounded nearly identical no matter who the author was. They seemed to vary more and give more specifics when I searched David Baldacci.

So far all the books for our small library have been donated and this exercise has helped me to see how many are by similar authors. As we get funding to begin purchasing our own books, this database will be very helpful in seeing how we can increase our variety and also fill in where books by certain popular authors are missing.

It’s great to read some of the other blogs and get ideas. One good one was to offer a session for patrons to learn about NoveList — something we will definitely do once we get a computer and WiFi!

Hobbies and Crafts

I decided to explore knitting, which I found under Needlecrafts and Textiles. I have some yarn for a sweater and have been looking for a good pattern. I tried Knitting: Sweaters and Tops and explored the results. Many articles were from the magazine Interweave Knits. When I chose one and clicked on PDF Full Text, however, I got just a blank window. I really wanted to see a photo and pattern for the sweater so this was frustrating.

My library is so new and has such limited funds that we do not subscribe to any magazines yet but people have donated used copies of Interweave and others.

I was curious about some other categories so tried Outdoors and Nature and within that Hiking and went to the article “America’s Newest Long Trail” from Backpacker magazine, March 2012. The PDF Full Text came up blank again but the HTML text took me to the full article about a stretch of the Pacific Northwest Trail.

Under Projects I found books on building a tree house, camp cooking and whittling. In “Little Book of Whittling” there was an article offering step-by-step instructions on carving a wooden back scratcher. Another one titled “Crocheting with Thrums and Locks” in Crochet magazine had instructions for crocheting a hat and gauntlets using thrums and locks. I didn’t know what these were so went to the online dictionary and found that a thrum is a fringe of warp threads left on the loom after the cloth has been removed.  A lock is a cohering bunch of wool, cotton or flax. Interesting that by searching hiking I got to a needlecraft project — my first search category!

In exploring the Help link I clicked on “Reading an Article” and it indicated I should be able to read a PDF Full Text since I have Adobe Acrobat Reader on my computer, so I was still stumped as to why I came up with blanks.

I decided to try again and searched Needlecrafts and Textiles and then Knitting: Women’s. There I found an article titled “LePlume Tunic” in Creative Knitting that said it included a color photo. This time when I clicked on PDF Full Text the pattern appeared with a beautiful photo of the sweater.  I also was able to read “Practical Purls and Everyday Knits” in Creative Knitting.

When I tried “Sweetheart Pullover,” another article from Interweave, it was blank. So it must be that the PDFs are not available for all magazines.

Maine Newsstand

It’s a lot easier to do these assignments if I open two separate windows, one for Marvel and one for the blog. I suppose I could even open three windows, as I also have to consult the Marvel assignment page and going back and forth can feel a bit cumbersome.

I went to Maine Newsstand and did a basic search for Lincolnville, Maine. Then I clicked on “full text” and got 2,837 results. Scanning the first pages of the list I saw many familiar names and stories. I even found one announcing a concert with my husband’s bluegrass band in 2007. Most articles were from the Bangor Daily News; there were also some from the Portland Press Herald. It was fun to read them and be reminded of all this news. I was curious to see how far back the stories went and a sort by publication date showed the oldest article was from 1993, titled “DOT turns hoses on nesting swallows at ferry terminal.”

When I sorted by most recent publication date I found a brief at the top of the stack dated Oct. 17 about Move It Day, Oct. 27, when community members will gather to help pull the old Lincolnville Center School building across Route 52 to its new site, where it will be renovated and become our new library. I am the town’s volunteer librarian and very involved with this project so this was exciting to see.

I also tried an advanced search for Lincolnville and history and the top stories that came up were candidate questionnaires — not really relevant. I was able to find the obituary I searched for right away in the Portland Press Herald.

I tried to sign in to My Research but it kept saying my user name or password was incorrect. Then I saw that I had to create an account first. I also created an alert. I can see how this would be a great tool for ongoing research.

I found another interesting blog by someone who searched for earthquakes after the one we had here Tuesday night. It was helpful to see someone else’s comments and to learn she also found it frustrating to have to create yet another account for saving research and creating an alert.

Some of the blogs seem to be ones that people already had for their libraries and I can’t seem to find where they’re blogging about their Marvel assignments.

We don’t have computers yet at our small library so I can’t show patrons about Marvel. I did, however, just show my husband how I was able to do an advanced search for Lincolnville and his band, the Breezemere Bottom Boys, and immediately find the press release about the concert he did in 2007.

Britannica

A search for “Obama re-election” led me to three articles. An article on liberalism by Max Lerner mentions Barack Obama toward the end: “Newly elected U.S. Pres. Barack Obama undertook, with widespread popular support, a ‘new New Deal’ in which banks were re-regulated—many effectively nationalized—and the automobile industry radically restructured. Formerly overshadowed, modern liberalism gained a new lease on life.”

The credit says “Max Lerner‘s article on liberalism appeared in the 14th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (see Britannica Classic: liberalism).” This would be a good link to follow if I were looking for more context.

The second article, “From Novelty to News Source,” is mainly about Twitter. There is one reference to Obama, saying that in the 2008 presidential election he was “dominated by his opponent, John McCain, in the social media sphere, amassing almost four times as many Myspace friends and more than 20 times as many Twitter followers. This development virtually ensured that future candidates would include a social networking presence as part of their media strategies.”

The third article was “Britannica Book of the Year 2010,” which had a year in review for 2009. It has a few entries that mention Obama, for example, one for July 6: “U.S. Pres. Barack Obama meets in Moscow with Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev; they agree to negotiate a treaty on nuclear-arms reduction to replace the START I treaty, which will expire on December 5.” And under July 8, “U.S. Pres. Barack Obama nominates the geneticist Francis S. Collins to lead the National Institutes of Health.” But I do not find any references to Obama’s re-election.

I was surprised by these three results; I had expected to have articles come up that were more specifically about Obama’s current re-election campaign.

I got many more results after clicking on “Additional search using alternative spellings and phrases,” including some references not related to Obama at all (“Re” about the Egyptian god of the sun and “selection” and “detection” definitions).

I can see that the choice of search words is really important.

While in the article about Twitter I went to “Translate this page” and chose Swedish. The translation was a bit rough, with things like tenses being off, but the gist was there. This was very interesting to me as I speak Swedish and have done some translating. While I can see the usefulness of this tool, I don’t imagine it can match a human translator for accuracy and getting things like idioms correct. I also don’t see a need for such a tool in my small community now, but it’s good to know it’s there in case someone does come to town who could use it for a particular language.

Using the Video Collection research tool I found a wonderful video on Scandinavia that was very well done and informative. Other tools I found particularly interesting were Timelines and Notable Quotations.

I can imagine getting lost in this entire site for hours — the Britannica Blog, the Featured Spotlight, the Biography of the Day — everything looks really interesting. We don’t have computers yet at our small library, but once we do I’m sure patrons will want to use this site to explore too.