Ancestry.com

This seems like a very powerful resource. I didn't sign up for a free tutorial because that seemed to involve a call to customer service which I didn't want to do. I did wish I had an opportunity to explore this database so I need to plan some time in a public library in order to do that. The tutorial was direct and to the point, but without access to the resource really did little for me. It was interesting to see the potential places it searches for information.

Health Source

There seem to be a wide range of popular and medical titles in the publications list. I was surprised to see Ladies' Home Journal among the titles available since I wouldn't think about that as a health source.

I searched for Osteogenesis Imperfecta which is a fairly rare disease. I found several general articles which were quite easy to understand. There were articles from professional medial journals which were more technical, so less useful to the average person. I do like that there was a mix of both professional and more accessible types or sources.

The main page for Medline plus is very appealing. I remember having used it years ago and only a medical person would have wanted to use it. The links and news are all about smoking, diabetes and weight loss which are certainly mainstream topics. I like the way the links are set up with tabs for various populations and then topics that might be of interest to certain groups rather than a general population. When I clicked on women and then weight control there was quite a bit of basic useful information. It was definitely written for the average person just looking for some basics.

The "Drugs and Supplements" search also seems to be useful. It gives good readable information about the drug you search. It seems like it would be a good place to suggest to patrons who have questions about medications they are on.

Doing a search for osteogenesis imperfecta on Medline also yields a number of results. Much of the information here is also fairly readable and understandable by the average person.

The videos certainly provide plenty of options to watch surgeries and procedures. I'm not sure if I'd want to sit through an entire video of whatever procedure or surgery I'd be about to have, but I think some people might like to see that.

I like Medline. I feel like it's a bit more user friendly that Health Source Consumer Edition but I think Health Source has the potential for more in depth information. I guess I would recommend either or both to a patron depending on the individual and their needs.

Business Resources

When I searched FM radio the majority of the results I got were trade journals. Since I really don't know anything about the subject, or ways to better modify what somebody might be looking for it didn't seem too productive. I do like the visual search, but I had some trouble with it. When I tried it the other day it worked well, but this morning it wasn't coming up with any results at first. Then the visual search "button" wasn't clickable. I reloaded the page and tried again and got results. I don't particularly like the first view you get, with the "columns" display style because I find it hard to scan the results. When I change it to the "block" display style I like that. I like that you can sort results either by subject or publication, which might be useful to help organize and see options for articles. I had never explored the visual search at all and after seeing it here decided to then try it on some other databases. I really like the potential of this option for use with students. I wonder if they might like to use it better because it seems like it might make the results more "user friendly." I am definitely going to try it next week with a class I will be working with.

When I do a very general search for small business owners resources on EconLit I get what seems to be some useful information. There are a variety of subjects that might be helpful such as new firms,  startups and taxes. I did get quite a bit of older information, but once I switched to visual search option and then filtered my results by date it seemed like I had some relevant and potentially useful information.
I had a bit of a hard time finding information on small businesses and the Environmental Protection Agency. If I put the EPA in quotes it didn't come up with anything. I did get some results using some other search terms and combinations.
Finally, with a search for tax policy and small businesses I did get some very specific and direct results that seem to be useful for a small business owner.

I picked JC Penney for my national business to search. I got information about company performance mostly from newspaper sources. When I searched Shaw's I got again primarily newspaper results, with some TV and radio transcripts as well. The articles had a bit more variety including stories on layoffs, advertising campaigns and health benefits for workers. I tried a couple of Maine trucking companies and got either nothing or very few results. I did get an article on Dysarts about their support for a child literacy program which was kind of nice to see.

Value Line Research Center is not a database I will find myself using or showing others how to use very often. I think if I had any background in investments I might find it useful so I will certainly keep it  in mind, but I found myself being bored and overwhelmed by the amount of information. I did find it interesting to read the report on Amazon and how the stocks seem to be rebounding.

For the Wall Street Journal search the first results I got were more about health care in general. When I sorted the results by date instead of relevance it was actually less useful because the articles were all over the place about topics. I thought the suggestions about health insurance and health care expenditures would probably be much more useful for the average small business owner.
In general I like the ability to create alerts about my topic so that I can get current articles as they appear rather than having to keep going back in and searching the database to see what is new.

I absolutely love Novelist for basic things like figuring out which book is next in a series. It's a quick way to be able to direct students to the correct title when they want to know "which one comes next." The view sort feature is nice also because I can get a description of the book quickly so I can tell them what it's about.
The Read-alike feature is also very helpful. Students always want recommendations for something like what they've just finished. It's hard to keep coming up with something especially when it's an author I don't really know. I like being able to have a description of the author's style and then a list of other authors who are similar and why. It also helps to be able to have recommendations for similar titles when a student has favorite book and wants something else to read. It might also be a way to give students books that otherwise might go overlooked or I might not think about because they've been on the shelf for a while.