Week 3

With Halloween rapidly approaching, I find my topics of interest turning to one of my favorite genres: Zombies. While I have a great love for most dystopian fiction I've found that I often enjoy a well-written zombie book, (Or show, I'm hooked on the Walking Dead too.) So I chose that as my subject of search this week.

Of course, as many of you already know, Portland had a bit of undead fun recently when someone changed a roadside sign to warn of zombies ahead, and that was the top hit back on my fulltext search. Other stories told of zombie films being shot here in Maine, zombies playing kickball on the eastern prom, and several efforts to break the world record for the largest performance of the Thriller dance routine.

On a more general note about Marvel, my position in Youth Services rarely gives me the opportunity to educate someone in the wonders of Marvel or the Maine Newstand.. But in my earlier years of a Librarian, when I could be found within the USM system, MARVEL instruction was one of my favorite and most common interactions.

This was approximately six years ago, but at the time many students hadn't yet grasped the advantages of MARVEL's collection of databases. They were thrilled to find that there was a -trustworthy- source that they could search in ways similar to Google.  Often I would get to show how a Google search would lead them to a paywall, and that the university's suite of databases could get them the full text for free. That students could e-mail full text articles to themselves was another tip that brought smiles to their faces. I'm always happy to help people find easier, faster ways to get solid information. MARVEL is one of my favorite tools to show off when I need to help with any sort of research.