Monday, October 22, 2012

What's New(s)

This lesson is about Maine Newstand which I have never used.  I do mention the Proquest Newspapers (general) database to med students and new providers because they are coming to Bangor from other parts of the country and I think that maybe they might want to read their local newspaper while they are here.  I also use it as an opportunity to point out MARVEL as a resource.

I did a basic search on Alan White (my husband) because he had a book published this past summer and there have been a few local events and I wondered if any newspapers had picked them up.  The search pulled up 2899 items, 99% of which were what we in the info business call "false drops," nothing to do with my Alan White.  The problem was that I needed to be able to do a phrase search.  So I went into the search tips and discovered that I should search "Alan White."  That worked much better. But there are quite a few Alan Whites (a number of whom appear to be criminals) and no mention of the book.  I did another search on Hosmer Pond in Camden (of interest to me) and saved it.  I discovered that articles can easily be translated into other languages.  Also, when you click for the entire article you get full-text, not pdf which is often not good enough for patrons, at least in my setting.  I don't see any way to search for images.  I tried searching Eastern Maine Medical Center strike and looking for images and couldn't find any and I know there were several in the BDN.  I must be doing something wrong.

I haven't had any occasion to show patrons how to use MARVEL this week.  But, if any of the consultants should read this, I want to say that I think the tutorials on the MSL website are great!  I talked about them at our staff meeting this week and sent out the link to all my staff. 

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