[Michlib-l] MeL Minute - Topic Finder tool

[Borrelli, Eunice (MDE)]

Hello all,

I think I've previously mentioned the Topic Finder tool available in many Gale databases<http://mel.org/Databases> found at MeL.org<http://www.mel.org/>.  It is a way to visualize words and subjects found in the text of search results and can be displayed as a wheel or tiles.  Clicking on a wheel or topic displays documents that contain the specific topic or word being searched for.  While this sounds pretty straightforward, the beauty of Topic Finder is how it provides links to topics you might not even realize are related to your original search and gives information you didn't even know to ask for.  Here's an example.  Dwarf planet Pluto has been in the news lately so I thought I'd do a quick search using Topic Finder and in addition to the obvious results for NASA and Space Probes, I got results for Eris, Dr. Showalter, and the International Astronomical Union.  Eris?  Never heard of it but now I know it's the "...new permanent name for the solar body formerly known as Xena," and as for Dr. Showalter from the SETI Institute<http://www.seti.org/>, he and a colleague calculated the orbits of four smaller moons around Pluto.  Both of these are directly related to the Pluto adventure and Topic Finder showed me the connection.  (These results were obtained doing a search in the New York Times<http://www.galesupport.com/migeoipcheck/migeoipcheck-gale.php?database=SP00>.  Experimenting with other Gale databases yielded similar but different articles.)  Keep exploring and learning!   Michigan residents or Michigan library access only.

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Eunice

Eunice C. Borrelli
Michigan eLibrary Internet Librarian, Library of Michigan/Michigan Dept. of Education
702 W. Kalamazoo St., Lansing, MI 48909
Phone: 517-241-4996    Toll Free: 877-479-0021     Fax: 517-373-5700

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