Maine Newsstand Archives - Gardiner Public Library

This week the MARVELous assignment involves Maine Newsstand and the ProQuest Database. Those who have been reading along as this blog progresses, may remember that I posted about Maine Newsstand in July. So much for my originality!

The first piece of this assignment is to look at the Maine Newsstand homepage. This page, as are most of the databases, is pleasant to look at – not a lot of extraneous things to distract the user. The Basicsearch works really well, so enough said on that I guess.

Next on my list is to watch the tutorial about Maine Newsstand and ProQuest. This is another very informative and easily understood visual aid created by the staff at the Maine State Library.

What to search?

“Gardiner Public Library” is what my fingers type – notice the quotation marks, I learned my lesson when I blogged about Maine Newsstand in July. I check the Full Text radio box, my results are 346 items. On the right side of the page I see that of the 346 items, 334 are Newspapers, and 12 are Wire Feeds. Not exactly sure what the difference is, I click on Wire Feeds. These look to be articles, originally printed in a local, Maine newspaper and then picked up for distribution through a Wire Service. Not sure whether this was a “DUH” or an “AHA” moment, but either way, I learned something new.

Part of this assignment is to save my search. Easy-peasey – I just click on the Save Search button on the right side of the page, just below the search bar. I am asked to name my search – “library” – makes sense to me. A pop-up window tells me that my search is saved, and I can access the search from Save Searches in the My Researchsection of this page. Because I’m curious, I check My Research.

The My Researchpage has several interesting tabs, which include Searches. Clicking on this tab shows me my search, what database I searched, the date I saved the search, as well giving me a place to add notes, modify my search, delete, or create an alert.

This looks like a database I will be using!

I have checked on several of my fellow bloggers. We all seem to be learning and exploring some exciting information!

Another wonderful addition to the Marvel Databases is Maine Newsstand. I must say this one, as a “Maine-I-Ac” is fascinating.

*** Remember, you must have a VALID Maine library card to access this database! ***

When I open this database, it is set for a Basic Search, and the Full Text radio box is unchecked. I search “Portland Head Light” with 22992 results. The first link that I see is from the Portland Press Herald, dated Mar. 2, 2005. Scrolling down the screen I see that the database indexes from 1993 – 2012. I also see a place to Sort Results By, with choices of Relevance, Publication Date (oldest first), and Publication Date (most recent first).

Other options include

Publication Title – 7 Maine newspapers are included Portland Press Herald, Bangor Daily News, Lewiston Sun Journal, Waterville Morning Sentinel, Kennebec Journal, Maine Times and Central Maine Morning Sentinel.

Document Type – including News, FrontPage/Cover Story, Obituary, Article, Feature, Editorial, Commentary, Undefined, Review, Correspondence, Interview, Letter To The Editor and Market Research.

Subject, Company/Organization and Location all have many, Many, MANY options.

I narrow my search by Document Type and choose to include only Front Page/Cover Story and Obituary. The search is now only 948 articles. Hmmm . . . I sort the search by Publication Date (most recent first). The first several articles are obituaries. Out of curiosity I click on one. I’m not completely sure why this obituary is part of my results. The search terms are all highlighted in the article, but I only see the words Portland and Light.

I go back and eliminate Obituary from my search, and now have 661 results. The most recent article is from the Portland Press Herald, and dated Oct. 21, 2011. Checking this article, I’m still not sure why my search terms are bringing it up.

(**Picture me smacking myself in the head**)

I fix my search criteria – adding quotation marks around the term “Portland Head Light”, the results are now 814 articles, and all of my filtering has been cleared. Clicking on the first article, dated July 20, 2012, I find my search term highlighted – PERFECT!!!

Not wanting to bore you, I am having a great time trying several other search terms, as well as names. Sooo . . . Are you interested in a person in the news in Maine? Try a name search. Are you interested in a specific place or attraction? Try a search.

And ENJOY!!

Ann Russell, Technology Librarian