By now, it may not be a surprise, as the announcement has been made – MARVEL! has changed. It is now known as Digital Maine Library. It is still an AMAZING database available to all Maine library card holders. This database is provided by the Maine State Library.
When I go to the new site, there are several differences. There is no general search bar visibly available to search the entire site, and there is no alphabet at the top so that I may jump to the database I want. These are just a couple of the changes I see immediately.
Hmmm . . . At the top of my screen I see the website name, ABOUT, VIDEO TUTORIALS and NEED ASSISTANCE. Below that, I again see DIGITAL MAINE LIBRARY / GETTING STARTED WITH DIGITAL MAINE LIBRARY / A-Z INDEX / ADVANCED SEARCH. Below this there is a slide show, with a bit of what we will find here. Scrolling down the page there are three places I can narrow my search choices – SUBJECT, RESOURCE TYPE and AUDIENCE.
Next there is the content of the site. At a guess, I would say that there are close to 100 different databases that can be accessed here – WOW!
Okay, I click on the word ABOUT and am taken to a page that gives me some history of MARVEL! and the DIGITAL MAINE LIBRARY. Very interesting information.
Now I’m interested to see what VIDEO TUTORIALS is all about, so I click there. A page of a variety of lessons appears – from some of the databases, to Facebook, G mail and Instagram. I will have to take some time to check these out.
The NEED ASSISTANCE button takes me to a place with information about who to contact with questions about this site.
In the next line of links, I click on Getting Started with Digital Maine Library. This page gives me answers to some of the most commonly asked questions regarding the new site.
A-Z Index is just that, an alphabetical list of all the resources available here pops up on the left side of the page.
The last link on this line is Advanced Search. This takes me to a page that discusses a couple of the ways that the website sorts, searches and then presents the information to us. I have discovered a Search Bar that is not on the home page. This Search Bar is the one that will search the entire Digital Maine Library website and not only the databases that I choose to look at. Personally, I hope that this will be moved to the home page for the convenience of all of us.
Back to the home page.
Below the slideshow there are three boxes – Subject ; Resource Type and Audience. Each of these has up and down arrows in the box. Clicking on the arrows gives me many ways to narrow my search – perhaps define or refine are a better words. Each set of arrows has many, MANY choices and ways to pinpoint which database(s) will be most appropriate for my search.
Enough for now, I look forward to exploring more on this site, but that will have to wait for another day!