At Northeast CONTACT, we urge consumers to be their own best advocates by staying informed and educating themselves and their families. There is a number of tools available to help consumers in this process.

One of the most effective and comprehensive information-gathering tools is called MARVEL!, and it’s available free to everyone in Maine. MARVEL! is Maine’s virtual library, and it’s accessible on your home computer or through computers in schools and libraries across the state.

The service is a collaboration of the Maine State Library, University of Maine, the state Legislature and the Maine Telecommunications Educational Access Fund. MARVEL! offers readers full text and abstracts from books, newspapers and magazines.

The information you gather is the same stuff you’d read in those books, newspapers and magazines at your local library; the difference is, you can read the words in the comfort of your home, collecting information on a whole range of issues affecting consumers of all ages. And you can get more reliable information than the many unfamiliar Web sites delivered by a search engine that may be paid to put them in prominent view.

Consumer Reports, Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report are just a few of the thousands of resources MARVEL! offers. As anyone who has recently subscribed to a magazine knows, keeping the best and most current information on a topic on your bookshelf or coffee table can get expensive in a hurry. The collaboration-funded virtual collection beats the price every time.

Not all current magazine articles will be offered in the full text version; otherwise we’d never buy any magazines. But you can read most of the fairly recent ones in their entirety, and newer abstracts generally give enough details to be worth reading.

Say you’re looking for information about pain relief for osteoarthritis. Choose the database called Health Source, Consumer Edition; type in osteoarthritis and nsaid (for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug), and up pop no fewer than 18 citations in medical magazines and journals. Next to the article list is a topic bar that lets you narrow your search. You also may search Health Source, Nursing-Academic Edition plus other, more technical databases.

If you need information about a company or industry, visit the Business and Company Resource Center database. There’s an index of the Wall Street Journal, so you can read all 23 stories the paper has printed in the past year dealing with toy recalls because of lead paint levels. You can read full text articles from the Bangor Daily News, Kennebec Journal, Maine Times (1994-2002), Morning Sentinel, Portland Press Herald and Sun Journal, with most archives going back about 15 years.

The cost of databases available through MARVEL! tends to rise, while financial support for licensing hasn’t gone up since 2002. A database that becomes too costly may be dropped and another added. Budgets are being prepared now, with representatives of the Maine State Library and University of Maine reviewing usage patterns and vendor prices before making decisions for the coming academic year.

This powerful information resource is worth a look. We suspect you’ll use it a lot. Visit Marvel online at http://www.maine.gov/marvel. You can ask your local librarian for more information, or call the Maine State Library at 287-5620.

Consumer Forum is a collaboration, now in its 30th year, of the Bangor Daily News and Northeast CONTACT, Maine’s membership-funded nonprofit consumer organization. Individual and business memberships are available at modest rates. Interested and motivated prospective volunteers are always needed and welcomed to apply to help with our mission. For assistance with consumer-related issues, including consumer fraud and identity theft, or for more information, write: Consumer Forum, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402-1329.