This year, I have a very special new valentine.

My valentine is named Global Market Information Database, but I like to call him by his nickname: GMID.

GMID is the best! He is so helpful and knowledgeable!

GMID knows all about international industries, countries, and consumers. He showers me with daily articles about global news events and lovingly provides me with endless statistics and research reports from over 200 countries.

He’s the perfect blend of the quantitative and the qualitative!

I would like you to meet GMID.
He can be found at www.library.drexel.edu Click on “Find Databases/Journal Articles”
Search for Global Market Information Databases.

A few tips about getting to know GMID:

1) GMID is menu-driven. That means that you can’t really keyword search to find what you’re looking for. Take a look at the search choices on the right side of the screen and you can click-click-click away until you find the information you need.

2) You may also want to skim this handy GMID user-guide. It’s just 4 pages long, but it can be really helpful to decipher GMID’s interface. http://www.euromonitor.com/pdf/GMID_User_Guide.pdf

3) By licensing agreement, GMID is only available to current Drexel faculty, students, and staff. Sorry, Alumni — even if you come to campus, you will not be granted access to GMID.

I know that the minute you meet GMID, you’ll want this database to be your valentine, too!

* Originally published on February 14, 2008. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT .

Finding statistics such as market share, demographics, or production statistics can be a real drag. There’s nothing more frustrating that sifting through thousands of articles, trying to find what types of food people eat before they go to bed, or the market share of steakhouse chain restaurants, or what automotive features are most important to mothers.

For these types of questions, I recommend Tablebase, a really useful database that provides tabular information pulled from a variety of trade publications.

How to find Tablebase

1) Start at www.library.drexel.edu
2) Click on “Databases/Articles”
3) You can use the “Browse Databases by Title” list to find Tablebase
4) If you’re off campus, you’ll be prompted to log in using your Drexel email username and password

Tablebase Tips

- Don’t be alarmed by the complicated search screen. You can use the keyword search at the top, or the variety of the pull-down menus. I find a combination of one or two keywords and the “concept term” menu works well for me.

- Once you get your results list, you can look at the tables, or if you’d like see the article from which the table was pulled, click on the document icon on the far right side of the screen.

- If you enjoy using Tablebase’s extensive search options, you may also want to try its sister database Business & Industry which provides articles instead of tables.

* Originally published on November 15, 2006. For business research tips & tricks in real-time, subscribe to LIB-BIZ-KIT.