This has been fun to explore! I love to knit, so checked out the knitting section -- so many projects -- my husband won't see me until spring now that cold weather is setting in and my interest in knitting is picking up! It's very easy to find projects to explore and with the PDF versions readily available, there's nothing to hold anyone back from finding something to try. Our elementary school doesn't have many books on crafts, so this might be just the thing for students to explore.

Next I looked at the Outdoors and Nature section. Hunting season isn't far away, so I looked there. Lots of reading and learning opportunities. I can see the hunters in my school really enjoying that section.

In the Help section, I noticed that this was aimed at public library users. I don't remember if I signed up for Marvel use at home by choosing Public Library as my library type. If I had designated "school library" then would I have been able to access this section?

Britannica explorations

This week's assignment was perfect. The students at my little school have not used MARVEL at all, so this is a new experience for all of us. I have 11 computers in my library/computer lab space, so on Tuesday morning I added the MARVEL information to the desktops of each computer. The 5th/6th graders all were working on reports on countries in North America. We looked at the Elementary and Middle School editions and decided that the Elementary version was best for them. They used the Quick Facts link to get basic facts about their countries. They were very pleased to find so much information so quickly. We talked about the U.S. Census and the fact that our 1998 editions of World Book wouldn't have up-to-date census information. Many of the students wanted to know how to access MARVEL from home. I came home tonight to try setting up an account and discovered that I must have had an account years ago in a previous job. I'm struggling to figure out how to retrieve my password.

Novelist

I just spent a few minutes poking around on Novelist Plus K-8. It's perfect for my school! I searched for fiction about football, a topic I'm very unfamiliar with, but our jr. high boys have been playing on a regional team for the first time. This would be an excellent way for me to gather information about books that might catch their interest. I could quietly check the lexiles to guide struggling readers toward something that would be a good fit for them. I can see that this would be very useful!

Looking over the information for David Baldacci's read-alikes, I wished something like that existed on the K-8 section. What an amazing amount of information about other authors. Makes me want to run to my local library and start reading! There would be no end of uses for that feature.

Using Novelist Plus K-8 would be helpful in finding books to add to our collection. It would help develop a more current collection, which is something we desperately need.