Let me know if you’ve heard this one:

Last week, this undergraduate finance major comes by my office. “I’ve been searching in IBISWorld for hours and hours trying to find an excel-downloadable balance sheet for Estee Lauder. By the way, I need a ten-year spread. I’ve looked in every corner, every pocket of IBISWorld and I can’t find it.” So I say to this undergraduate finance major, “The reason you can’t find it is that you’re searching in the wrong database. Mergent Online will have what you’re looking for.” People, I can’t make this stuff up!

Here’s another:

So, this student team all visits me at the reference desk. “Emily,” they moan, “we have spent three DAYS combing through ABI/Inform and Business Source Premier, looking for the perfect statistical chart on HDTV purchasing by demographics. We don’t sleep. We don’t eat. All we do is research, but we can’t find the statistics we need.” “First of all, you can’t do good research when you’re starving and exhausted,” I explain to them. “Next time, don’t wait for three days to talk to me. You can find just what you need in a database called Tablebase.” Seriously! Can you believe it?

Ok! Ok! Just one more:

I answer the phone, and there’s this MBA on the line. He’s actually crying! I mean totally sobbing and hiccupping. “What’s the matter?” I ask him. “All I want to do is create a list of veterinarians in the Philadelphia area,” he weeps, “but I can’t do it! I’ve been fighting with the Business and Industry database all day.” “Dry your tears,” I order, “and try D&B Million Dollar Database. You can create a list based on industry, location, and even size, all in a spreadsheet.” I kid you not!

People, let me explain something. The right search in the wrong database is no way to get what you want. To make it easier to choose the right database, try the library’s research guides. These guides will give you the best resources to use for a variety of different business research tasks.

To find the business resource guides:
Go to www.library.drexel.edu
Click on “Research Guides”
Click on “Business”

* Originally published on May 15, 2009. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT .

First Kellogg’s had us listen to our cereal snap, crackle, and pop.

Now Factiva wants us to listen to our newspapers.

That’s right. Factiva has created a new “listen” capability that allows users to have articles read to them. This feature is available for any article in the database, as long as it has less than 4,000 words. The mellifluous voice is obviously computer-generated and, while lovely to listen to, it certainly won’t win any awards for dramatic interpretation. That being said, it’s a cool feature, and I’ve been enjoying listening to the Wall Street Journal today.

Look for the “Listen to Article” link at the top of most articles, including alerts and newsletters as well.

Find Factiva
1. go to www.library.drexel.edu
2. Search for Factiva in the blue search box
3. Factiva is limited to 11 concurrent users. If you can’t get into the database, wait a few minutes and try again.

* Originally published on May 28, 2008. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT .

This world-wide financial crisis is really harshing my mellow.

Companies and industries are changing so quickly, and I’m finding it difficult and frustrating to do research. For example, my usual favorite for industry research is the wondrous IBISWorld. But IBISWorld is updated every four months. That’s terrific most of the time, but not useful to me these days. IBISWorld’s Real Estate Loans and Credit Lines Industry Report from July 18th, 2008? I’m, like, whatevs. Like that’s going to help me.

So what’s a library user to do?

Here are some of my current databases of choice:

Hoovers
For company information, Hoovers is really stepping up to the plate. Their company information is updated as events happen and is a reliable source for who’s buying out whom. The information isn’t all that in-depth, but it is current.

Factiva
Factiva is also leading the charge for up-to-date information. For stock prices and analysis, use the “Companies/Markets” tab at the top (and check out the interactive charts and graphs). You can also use the “News Pages” link to see the day’s major business newspapers and journals all in one place.

Business & Company Resource Center
Up-to-the-minute industry information is hard to come by these days. Business & Company Resource Center can help. Do an “articles” search within the database for the industry. For example, you can do a search for “Airline Industry” or “Real Estate Industry.” This will give you articles from newspapers, trade journals, and other publications. It’s not as quick and easy as IBISWorld’s reports, but you’ll know the information is current and correct.

For up-to-date resources and in-depth coverage from many sources, check out this pathfinder from our librarian-friend Louise Feldmann at Colorado State University:

Financial Crisis Pathfinder
http://libguides.colostate.edu/financialcrisis

* Originally published on October 17, 2008. Special archived addition of the LIB-BIZ-KIT Archives. Updates are usually added a 4-month lag. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT .

The other day, I was manning the reference desk with Drexel’s engineering librarian Jay Bhatt. Jay was helping a student learn to use library resources, and as they were finishing up, Jay asked the student, “So, what do you think about Google now?”

Music swelled and the student looked up with tears in his eyes. “As God as my witness, I’ll never use Google again,” he promised.

Or something like that happened — perhaps not quite that melodramatic.

Even though librarians are always directing our patrons to other resources, Google is an important research tool.

Here are a few effective ways to use Google for business research:

1. To look at public companies’ annual reports to share holders.
2. To find a professional association helpful to your research.
3. To make sure that you have a correct citation for an article – you’d be amazed by how many times these are slightly wrong.
4. To find a local chamber of commerce for a city you’re researching
5. To locate an image
6. To effectively navigate through online government publications, including the Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Statistics, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Google isn’t always the answer, but it certainly makes sense to use this valuable resource judiciously.

* Originally published on February 28, 2006. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT .

I really should have thought of this before.

We’re always on the lookout for articles.

Articles about the effects of computer use on earning in Italy.

Articles from Fast Company about prediction on the next New Killer App.

Articles about online political advertising in South Dakota.

Articles from the newest Harvard Business Review about global warming.

In order make it possible for all of us to search less and find more, I’ve created a new subject guide just for finding business-related articles. Here you’ll find the best databases for academic, trade, and news articles pertaining to business-related subjects.

You can find it here:
Go to www.library.drexel.edu
Click on “Business” in the green box.
The guide is called “Business Articles”

PS. While you’re there, you may want to take a look at some of the other research guides for business. I use them all the time. And you should, too.

* Originally published on September 28, 2007. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT .

Looking for specific information about how a company operates can be as frustrating as searching for a needle in a haystack. Business and Company Resource Center is an excellent database to use when you are ready to stop searching and start finding.

If you’ve used Business and Company Resource Center to research a company, you probably tried a “Company” search. This makes complete sense. From this search, you probably found a lot of company basics – address, annual sales, number of employees, and a few article categories down the left side of the page. Useful, but not all that exciting.

The real magic in the database is in the “Articles” search. If you do an “Articles” search for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., for example, you will get 1175 articles. If you just want to see these articles in chronological order, just click on the “View 1175 articles” button. However, if you are looking for more specific information, click on “Narrow by Subdivision” button. This takes those 1175 articles and actually categorizes them by topic. Here you will find hard to research categories such as “human resources management,” “forecasts and trends,” and “economic aspects.”

To access Business and Company Resource Center:

1. Go to www.library.drexel.edu
2. Click on Databases/Articles
3. Choose Business and Economics
4. Click into Business and Company Resource Center

Note: if you are off campus, you will be prompted for your last name and Drexel ID number.

The “Articles” search also works for industries as well as companies. Give it a try.

* Originally published on November 17, 2005. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT .

If Dr. Gregory House was a librarian instead of a doctor, he would limp angrily through the library stacks. He would stash his Vicodin pills in books with call numbers that start with RM138.

Librarian Gregory House would slash his cane in the air, and proclaim, “Citations lie!”

And yes, he would be right. Citations do lie. In fact, they lie all the time.

To us it looked like a perfectly professional and reasonable citation. But Librarian Gregory House would jab his finger at the citation, and proclaim, “This citation is lying! Health Marketing Quarterly is a QUARTERLY publication, so it will only come out four times a year! There is no seventh issue!”

After a quick investigation, and popping a pill, Librarian Gregory House would say, “That article titled ‘Choice experiments, site similarity and benefits transfer’ from Environmental and Resource Economics was written by Robert J. JOHNSTON, not Robert J. JOHNSON.”

Frequently, at the reference desk, Librarian Gregory House would look disgusted. “Yes, Anne Perkins has an article in the Harvard Business Review called ‘Bemoaning the Rotten Client’” he would concede. “But it was written in 1993, not 1953! Citations lie!”

It would seem like magic to us — the way he’d hunt down the proper citations. But if we asked very nicely, Librarian Gregory House might explain his process for correcting faulty citations:

1. He would try to find the article with the given citation by searching for the journal using the library catalog.
2. If that search didn’t find the article, Librarian Gregory House would then try a quick Google Scholar search for the citation. He would not look for the actual article, but just a reference to the article.
3. If he found a reference to the article, he’d compare the original citation to the Googled citation to see if there were any discrepancies.
4. When faced with a particularly difficult citation case, he might call for a consult with other librarians at the reference desk, either in person, or by calling 215-895-2755.

For more about finding full article from a citation http://www.library.drexel.edu/resources/tutorials/findingfulltext.html

Google Scholar
scholar.google.com

For more about House

http://www.fox.com/house/

*Originally published on October 19, 2007. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT.

The April 27^th issue of The Triangle had a very interesting article on using Wikipedia for researching academic papers. For the most part, the article stated that using Wikipedia as a reference for a college or graduate school level paper was probably not such a good idea.

But if you can’t use Wikipedia, what should you use instead?

The Drexel University Libraries offers over 300 electronic resources for you to try, with nearly 50 databases specializing in business information. Unless you are planning to work at a university, this is probably the most information rich you will ever be. Please take advantage of these electronic resources, which are available to you for free while you are student.

Of course, our databases may not be as quite as user-friendly as Wikipedia, and are not likely to pop up in a Google search. To help you, librarians are standing by, on call, seven days a week, ready to answer your questions and to point you to quality resources that will make research easier and more gratifying.

Wikipedia can be the first place you go for information, but especially in a university setting, please make sure it’s not the last place.

*****

“Wikipedia use open to debate”
By Sravanthi Dama
The Triangle
April 27^th, 2007

* Originally published on May 8, 2007. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT.

Let’s see a show of hands of students looking for a job or a co-op or career advice. Anyone?

The Drexel University Libraries has brand-new resource specifically for job-seekers. It’s easy to get caught up in all this fascinating job-hunting and career information available through this rich resource including:

- Industry career guides
- Industry employer guides
- Career topic guides
- A day in the life of a…
- Company Q & A with actual employees
- Sample cover letters and resumes
- Careers of celebrities
- Message boards
- and more!

To find the Vault Online Career Library

1. Go to www.library.drexel.edu
2. Click on “Databases/Articles”
3. Browse databases by title

* Originally published on May 23, 2007. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT.

Factiva is a fantastic new database providing articles from nearly 9,000 sources, from 152 countries, and in 22 languages. It is an essential business resource and you should start using it pronto!

You can use the “Search” page to use a combination of keywords and cascading menus to search by source, company, subject, industry, region, or language.

Quickly browse today’s top news from newspapers and magazines in the “News” tab. A pull-down menu on the upper left side allows you to change newspaper groups by region and by topic, including “top business news.”

Finally, take some time to explore the “companies/markets” tab, which offers several interesting features. For example, if you want to know what made a stock soar or plummet on a particular day, click on the stock pricing chart to enlarge it. Click on any day on the chart and you will be taken to articles about that company on that day.

Factiva tips

1. Only 11 people can use Factiva at one time. So, if you can’t log in, try again in a few minutes.

2. Factiva will log you off after about 3 minutes of inactive time. So, in the time it takes to make some tea, answer the phone, or put on a sweater, you’ll be logged off.

3. Interested in the future look of Factiva? Get a sneak preview by click on “Factiva Search 2.0.”

* Originally published on May 5, 2006. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT.