My first assignment is to use Britannica – Public Library Edition and research something current.
What to research??? I consider local elections but decide that might be too narrow a target, so I decide to find what is available in regards to the elderly woman who recently attempted to clean a holy painting.
Once I am in Marvel and find the Britannica Public Library Edition, I see the familiar search box near the top of the page and several interesting features on the rest of the page. Below the Britannica title I see a Guided Tour and try it. Everything looks pretty straight forward to me, so I begin.
In the search box, I type religious painting clean (notice, no quotation marks) and have five results, none of which appear to be what I am looking for. Next I try “religious painting” + “clean” – over 2100 results. I skim the first few pages and don’t see what I’m looking for.
Hmmm….
I change my search terms to “fresco” + “clean” + “Spain” + “2012” – and am told that there are no matches for my terms, but using alternative spellings there are 264 results.
Okay, what am I doing wrong??
I decide to “Google” it and make sure I have the correct terms. Of course I realize that the correct term is “restoration”! I change my search term from “clean” to “restoration” – 1 result. I try clicking on the Content Sources on the left; these are no help in this search.
Back to Google I go. This time when I search Britannica, I search the term “ecce homo fresco”. Google has told me this is what the painting is. I’m sorry to say, still no luck.
Giving up on this search, I am back at the home page looking through the Research Tools.
Media Collection looks interesting. Clicking on that brings me to a new page with lovely pictures. I try a search – Milky Way. This searches Britannica, but not specifically the Media Collection.
Back at the home page, I click on Timelines. Looks like fun, however not particularly user friendly. I see several varied choices of timelines, and click on one randomly. There seems to be no way to narrow the timeline search. I try moving the pointer to a year not listed. This doesn’t work. If I want a specific year, it seems I have to wait for the slideshow to get there.
The Biography of the Day and This Day in History have a bit more meat. Clicking on those brings a new page with some information about the person or the day highlighted.
All in all, this assignment has been interesting, but Britannica is not going to be my first choice when asked a “current event” reference question in the future.