MARVELous Maine Invitational - Week 7

Health Source – Consumer Edition

Discovery Exercise:
1. In Health Source – Consumer Edition, click on the Publications link at the top of the page and explore the types of magazines and journals indexed in the database.
Seeing as I love the health field, this is a fascinating area to explore! While I have searched some specific information in this section before, I had never explored the publications link. I explored by the alphabetical listing, the tried searching by subject. There is a wealth of information about healthy backs and I discovered a fun read with "Proverbs for Program People • Lessons for Life A Do It Now Foundation Publication by Hal Ackerman". Parenting seems to be well covered as well as drug and pharmaceutical information. Even AARP magazine was represented! Guess I am disclosing my age generation here!

2. Search for a disease or condition, such as diabetes. Sort your results by the most current publication date by clicking on the ‘Relevance Sort’ option.
With diabetes running in the family, this was a logical search. When sorting to the most current publications, I found a nice article on the benefits of eating nuts to help prevent type 2 diabetes.
AMA

(American Medical Assoc.)

Reference List

Palmer S. Go Nuts for Health!. Environmental Nutrition [serial online]. November 2012;35(11):1-6. Available from: Health Source - Consumer Edition, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 12, 2012.

3. Pick one of the articles you found and read through the full text. Was the article written in terms you could understand without consulting a medical dictionary?
The reference cited above was very easy to understand for the average reader. No need for a medical dictionary!


MedlinePlus is produced by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. All the content in this resource is written with the consumer in mind. You’ll find overviews of medical conditions, pamphlets that can be printed, videos of surgical procedures and much more.
Discovery Exercise:
1. Go to Medline Plus 
I did check out Medline as well as Medline Plus.  Medline Plus is available on line at:  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ and it seems to be geared for the general consumer to understand. I did some searching on Medline in MARVEL, and the articles were very professional, and detailed, for the scientists and doctors who would be using them as resources.

2. Look at a few of the links on the main page. What’s in the news column on the right side? Indicate in your blog post what some of the top searches are as listed on the left side of the page

Could not fine the top searches in MARVEL in Medline. The link above has the top searches. They include amlodipine, aspirin, asthma, autism, diabetes, gabapentin, hypertension, lisinopril, metoprolol, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, shingles, trazodone, and vitamin d.

3. Click on tab “Drugs and Supplements” and search for a medication you take or you have seen ads about recently such as Prilosec or Cymbalta. Note the kind of information available.
I looked up Proair, an inhaler for COPD. The information provided is fairly complete for the layman. One can read why it is prescribed, how to take it, side effects, other brand names, generic name, how to store the medication, what to do if overdose occurs etc. 

4. Click on “Health Topics” and search for the same disease or condition you looked at in Health Source. How does the information in MedlinePlus differ from that in Health Source?
Again using diabetes as a topic, the information is very different.To me it seems easier to find general information. The right side of the page has a medical encyclopedia with terms, and a section of related topics.
The main page has an overview with hyperlinks to related topics, then there is a wealth of information as you scroll down, including management, alternative therapies, informational videos, clinical trials, and journal articles. It is easy to navigate. Personally  I enjoy this site more than the Health Source. I might like Health source if I were looking to do serious research for a report, but on a personal level, Medline Plus is easier to find information.
5. Look at the list of videos available by clicking on “Videos and Cool Tools” tab. Pick one video and launch it so you have an idea of what a patron would experience. What did you think of the video?
I launched the Paraesophageal Hernia Repair. This is really serious stuff! One sees an actual surgery taking place in the OR at the University of Maryland. While not everyone will have the stomach for this type of viewing, I found it fascinating, and very sobering as to the seriousness of the surgery. It really makes one think and weigh the risks before how to handle a health issue. Of course, prevention is always the best cure.

MARVELous Maine Invitational - Week 6

Welcome to week 6 of MARVELous Maine Invitational!

When I first read the assignment for this week it seemed daunting! I took it a step at a time, and managed to work my way through most of it. I will come back to it to complete it. Nice that we have an extra week for Make-up work!

Since week 5 assignment, I have completed my visit to all of our participants' blogs, and left comments on a few. I admire the creativity and precise writing of some of our bloggers. I also appreciate the all out effort of others; and to those who have gotten behind, keep plugging along, we can do this! 

Business Source Complete 

Discovery Exercise: 
In your blog, post your findings and observations regarding the following:
1. Do a search for available information on FM radio. Pay attention to the types of sources found.

I typed in the term FM Radio. The result was that my initial search query did not find any results, but the program used SmartText Searching, and came up with 3952 results. The sources were predominantly from Academic Journals and Periodicals. I later limited it to newspapers and the results were 72. 

2. Look for the visual search option and try it. Does it make searching easier or harder?

Using the same search term, it came up with nothing . . . unless I did something very wrong! So I decided to do a visual search for L.L. Bean. That produced results! I learned that the block display style worked best for me. The results showed a lot about their telemarketing plans.

EconLit 

Discovery Exercise:
In your blog post your findings and observations regarding the following:
1. Complete a search to find resources for small business owners.

Using 'small business owners' as my search term, I stayed with the visual search. This produced lots of information, and I noticed how the relevance was scored in each of the blocks in the visual block style format. The Relevance Key is in the upper right corner, and there is a nifty little map where you can drag the red outlined box to different areas of the search results. That was fun to play with! The resources included demographics, entrepreneurship, retirement plans for small businesses, and so much more.

2. Complete a search for items that pertain to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and small businesses.

 Found an article which focuses on the Star Energy program for small businesses.

AMA

(American Medical Assoc.)

Reference List

Trimming bills to improve profits. Aftermarket Business [serial online]. April 2004;114(4):8. Available from: Business Source Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 5, 2012.

3. Complete a search for items that pertain to tax policy and small businesses.

I used the term 'tax policy' and 'small business' and 'United States', even though I thought I was in EconLit, the results were for all data bases, so I had to scroll down to the lower left and select EconLit, that greatly reduced the number of references. I had already limited my search to include only the past 10 years, so I had 9 results with those limiters.  

References

Bruce, D., & Deskins, J. (2012). Can State Tax Policies Be Used to Promote Entrepreneurial Activity?. Small Business Economics, 38(4), 375-397. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ursus-proxy-9.ursus.maine.edu/10.1007/s11187-010-9262-y

Regional Business News 

Discovery Exercise: 
In your blog, post your findings and observations regarding the following:
1. Pick a nationally known company. Search under the company’s name and look at the results.

I searched Home Depot. They recently merged with USHS.
Works Cited

PR, Newswire. "The Home Depot and U.S. Home Systems Close Merger Transaction." PR Newswire US 29 Oct. 2012: Regional Business News. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.

2. Narrow the regional search to something more appropriate for this area of the country.

L.L. Bean was my search term. It produced 102 results.

(American Psychological Assoc.)

References

PR, N. (2012, October 17). HealthFitness lauds employee health focus of L.L. Bean, Inc., 2012 C. Everett Koop Award recipient. PR Newswire US. 

3. Choose a Maine company to see what information is available about either the company or its industry.
I entered Roy Toy, a Machias based log building toy company. Only two results came up.

Reference List

Timothy Jack W. CURRENTS: LOG CABIN KIT; A Keeping-It-Simple Toy. New York Times [serial online]. December 25, 1997:3. Available from: Regional Business News, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 14, 2012.

I tried a different company, looking for more results. Stonewall Kitchen only produced 6 results, and the most current was February 2012. 

I was disappointed in the results of these searches, to me it shows that Maine business, for the most part, is not world news.

Value Line 

Discovery Exercise: 
In your blog, post your findings and observations regarding the following:
1. Look at the current issue of Value Line. Explore the various links for the “Investment Survey,” which is the primary tool available to public library users. Start with “Description,” which gives a good description of the site.  
I found the 'description' to be very helpful. The Investment Education page is priceless for anyone who is new to investing, and using investment sites.

2. Look at the various reports offered: Ratings and Reports, Selection and Opinion, Summary and Index, etc. Familiarize yourself with the information contained in each report and how they differ.
1.  Ratings and Reports: provides full page stock reports, past, present and predicted.
2.  Selection and Opinion: provides Value Line's views on the economy and stock market.
3.  Summary and Index: provides the latest quarterly, summary and most recent data on stocks
4.  Standard R&R Cover Page: provides page numbers for various industries and a few Noteworthy tidbits regarding specific companies. For example, Microsoft was mentioned in regards to Windows 8 being well received, but needing to catch up in the tablet area.
5.  Standard R&R Supplementary: provides brief reports on selected companies.

3. Pick a well-known stock such as Starbucks, General Motors, Apple, etc., and do a company search using either the general search box at the top of the page or “company look up.” Familiarize yourself with the type of information provided by linking to the various tabs at the top of the report. Also look to see if there is a “full research report” available for the company.
SBUX is the symbol for Starbucks. There is a "full research report" available as a single page PDF document. Back to the quotes page, the graph tab showed that the company took a dip in August. The news tab showed that they were opening a second location in Costa Rica.

Wall Street Journal provides indexing to and full text coverage of the nation’s leading business daily from 1984.

Discovery Exercise:
In your blog, post your findings and observations regarding the following:
1. Using the advance search feature, look for articles on small business and health care.

I searched for (small business) AND (health care) and below my search were some suggested subjects, including health insurance and health care policy. 
2. Look at how the results are returned and the suggested limiters offered by the site. What might a small business person be interested in?

I limited the articles to 2012. This narrowed the results to a manageable number. It is interesting that the number of results are 991 for Wall Street Journal (Online) and 593 for Wall Street Journal. Under document type, one can limit to commentary or editorial, which might be something a business person would be interested in to find out the thinking of the readers. The Person tab  allowed options to select political figures such as Obama, Romney, and others. 
3. Familiarize yourself with the options available to follow up on your search, such as creating alerts.
One could create an alert to be notified daily, weekly monthly or quarterly. Another way to receive notice of newly published or newly added material is by setting up an RSS feed. If you choose to create a research account, you can also save your search. 

Well, I do believe that I have completed this assignment. It was a challenge for sure, and I am happy that I am not in business or accounting!