Wednesday, October 17, 2012

My first try at the newspaper search! Since we had an earthquake last night, I tried to research Maine Earthquakes. I got over 4000 hits!. Some were applicable some not so. Lots of media sources to choose from as well. I used the Maine Newspaper to get more local articles and then plugged into Proquest for a more broad perspective. They were interesting to read. I tried to get pictures and graphs but that was not going to happen. Perhaps there are no pictures of Maine faults or graphs of Maine earthquakes. Very disappointing as I am sure there are somewhere. Just have to ask the right question.

Then I played with the obituaries. I couldn't find folks I personally know who have died. Like my mother for instance. Finally, because I asked in a certain way I was able to locate her obit. I think it is so aggravating how that works. It is not limited to this Marvel site but all data search engines it seems. I was ready to give up and just reread her obit that I have ! I probably can't find that either however! In any event I enjoyed searching through newspapers and seeing how far a subject or topic can be broken down until it is not relevant anymore.

Because I do not deal with the public as much as some, I cannot comment on how I have helped someone else. Although, I will say I mention Marvel  to my college aged daughter alot lately!

My other main issue concerns the Alert tab. I had to make yet another account. I read one other blogger comment on this as well. Annoying. In any event when I tried to create an alert on my topic, I was unable to do so due to a server error. Computers will be the death of me! I cannot stand that aggravation so I sent a text off to the help guru and he replied to clear my cookies. So I will and see what happens. Now if I didn't know what he meant I would simply go have dessert! Maybe that is the best solution after all. Everything works better after a healthy dose of cookie jar cleaning!

I have tried to read others blogs but not many have done their homework as yet. I will try later on in th week.

4 comments:

  1. I was not able to create the Alert and also received the message indicating a server error. I read your post and tried cleaning up cookies but that did not help. Did not like creating another account. I already have way to many passwords to remember. As far as searching using Proquest I was disappointed with the 10 results that showed up as half of them had nothing to do with the term (southern maine 2012 earthquake.) I suppose if I had narrowed it down further I would have received some awesome information. I did not do an advanced search. I enjoyed reading your post! Marlene

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  2. FWIW, try the USGS website for information about the earthquake: www.usgs.gov. There is a link to the information page on the lower-left of the home page. From there, check out the "shakemap" and the "DYFI" link. DYFI stands for "Did You Feel It," a crowdsourced map of how people from all over New England felt the quake. If you Google "fault lines Maine" there's a .pdf from Colby that is excellent and easy to read...sincerely, a closet Rock Jock from Richmond Middle and High School - Andrea Terry

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  3. I'm glad I'm not the only one who couldn't get those darned alerts to work...I guess we can give the "help" desk guy thumbs down and chalk it up to a bigger issue if so many of us cannot make it work.

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  4. Ok so I am trying to comment on other blogs. I cannot get it to publish. My computer thinks I am a robot and I guess I must be ! any suggestions?

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