Maine Newsstand offered a lot to explore. I performed searches on a murder and on the upcoming election. The "narrow results" box that appeared on the right when I was reading an article was really useful, especially the ability to select a specific person's name. The ability to rest my cursor on the "Preview" icon and read an abstract of each article was also a useful way to sort through a long list of articles. Saving the search was easy to do, as was e-mailing an article, and the translation function would be useful for Maine's many French speakers.
Why doesn't Newsstand include all of Maine's dailies? The Times Record, which serves the area serviced by my library, is among those missing. Also, while the ability to search obituaries would be very useful for patrons, including those researching genealogy, my search did not turn up a couple of obituaries that I know ran in the Bangor Daily. I wonder why not?
I have not had an opportunity to assist a patron using Marvel this week, but I'm definitely feeling more confident about my ability to do so.