Welcome to the wonderful (really!) world of business
reference!
Course Overview
In this course we'll cover some resources and strategies that will hopefully make
you feel less intimidated when faced with a business reference question and add
to your overall reference aresenal.
We'll learn about:
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the process of business reference itself.
This course focuses on breaking out the differents kinds of business reference
questions and the resources used to answer them so that you can "make sense" of
this fairly vast and complicated subject area
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the importance of creative thinking in business reference
techniques and tips on how to approach a business reference scenario with
confidence
resources for answering business reference questions
You already know the tactics for answering business
reference questions!
A thorough reference interview is key to a successful business
reference transaction
In business reference situations it's easy to get intimidated and/or flustered,
whether because you're unfamiliar with the subject matter or because the person
asking the question presents themselves as "a very important business person
who absolutely must have this information in the next five seconds."
Don't lose track of what you already know--focus on the basics of the reference
interview to get a handle on the situation. Know what the patron is looking for
before you dive headlong into the vast sea of potential sources of information. In
most reference situations, and perhaps especially in business reference
situations, you should rarely assume that a patron is asking for what they really
want. Even if they *are* asking for what they want, it's possible that you can offer
them even more than they expect if you take the opportunity to hear them out
and delve a little beyond the surface of their initial question. Here are some tips
to help both you and the patron:
Reference interview refresher
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Listen to the question and make sure you understand what the patron is looking
for.
Partner with the patron and use what the both of you know (or don't know) to
guide the research process.
Questions to ask the patron:
Clarify the question by:
o asking open- and closed-ended questions
Open example: what kinds of information are you looking for on the widget
industry?
Closed example: Are you looking for the global market size of the widget
industry or just the US market?
Note: as your business reference knowledge (and confidence) builds, your ability
to ask targeted open- and closed-ended questions will improve.
o
paraphrase the question in your own words and ask it back to the patron.
Paraphrase example: So you're looking for quarterly sales for Company X?
o
One of my favorite questions (which works in many kinds of reference
situations) is "If I could give you exactly what you were searching for,
what would it look like?" This puts the ball back in the patron's court and
can help give you some time and perhaps a better idea of what they really
need.
Questions to ask yourself:
o
What does the patron really want to know?
AKA what is their *real* question? Don't be misled by someone who throws
around terminology or buzz words.
o
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Who is this patron asking the question? A professional? A student?
What do they need the info for?
Are they fact checking? "Getting smart?"
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When do they need the info?
Other business reference tips to keep in mind
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Consider web & commercial databases & don’t forget print! (we'll learn
about specific resources to try later in the class)
Remember keyword tricks and other strategies--THINK CREATIVELY.
Look for associations and other specialty groups—don’t be afraid to use
the phone.
Start small then go big if necessary, building as you go--AKA "Pearl
Culturing"
When online searching, look for sources, not just data--remember that a
lot is buried in the "hidden web."
Check the source for credibility. Then cross-check it with another source if
possible.
Keep track of your time and know when to step back and rethink your
strategy or ask for help.
o
Remember: **Don’t be afraid to ask for some time to dig and get back to
the person.**
Finally, grab onto those "teaching moments" and strive to exceed
expectations
You will be doing both yourself and the patron a service if you "talk out loud" as
you work with them to answer their questions. Describe what you are doing and
what resources you are using and articulate your steps and thoughts.
As we'll discover throughpout this class, business reference is not the most
straight-forward of processes and this talking out loud will serve not only as
instruction for the patron, but also open opportunities for them to jump in and
clarify or to notice something additional they can use.
And when you're talking out loud you offer the chance for a colleague to overhear
and perhaps jump in with a suggestion--when it comes to tricky business
reference questions, the more the merrier!
Now let's take a look at business reference questions and see their basic
break-down...
The Business Reference Question (BRQ)
Now that we've reminded ourselves of the importance of the reference interview,
let's take a look at some examples of the kinds of questions you might run across
that can be considered "business reference." Notice that "business" is pretty
broad and can comprise or touch upon other subject areas like
Marketing/Advertising, Economics & Government data, Management,
Accounting, etc.
Some examples of a BRQ:
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Who are the top executives at EDS?
What is the most current national unemployment rate?
What was AOL’s stock price on 4/25/05? What were their 2001 sales?
What is the market share of American Airlines?
What are the quarterly sales and EBITDA for each Starbucks location in Illinois?
Where is your RMA guide?
Can you point me towards where to find information on the smoothie industry?
What is the target market for ipods?
Some of these questions may seem more straightforward than others. Some may
look like Greek to you (or another language, if you, in fact, speak Greek). Don't
worry about that for now. Just understand that business reference questions can
come in many shapes and sizes and degrees of complexity.
The core of most business reference questions can be broken into four general
categories of information. Understanding the general core of what a patron is
looking for can help you determine how best to approach answering their
question. Let's take a look at a rough breakdown of what someone is looking for
when they ask questions such as the examples given above.
Components of a BRQ
The BRQ patron is generally looking for something that falls under one or more of the
following:
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Company Information
Industry/Market Information
Stock Market/Financial Information
Statistical/Demographic Information
In all of these cases, the patron may require *qualitative* or *quantitative* forms
of data or both.
Using the above examples, we can immediately identify the core of each
question (with maybe a little help from a thorough reference interview if we're not
sure about some things):
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Who are the top executives at EDS?
Company Information
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What is the most current national unemployment rate?
Statistical/Demographic Information
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What was AOL’s stock price on 4/25/05? What were their 2001 sales?
Combination of Company and Financial information
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What is the market share of American Airlines?
Industry/Market and maybe Company information
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What are the quarterly sales and EBITDA for each Starbucks location in Illinois?
Combination of Company and Financial information
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Where is your RMA guide?
Industry/Market Information (a trick question if you're unfamiliar with this
source--we'll cover it in the Industry module)
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Can you point me towards where to find information on the smoothie industry?
Industry/Market Information
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What is the target market for ipods?
Combination of Statistical/Demographic and Industry/Market
Some BRQ's can't be answered
One thing to keep in mind when faced with any kind of business reference
question is that not every question can be answered. As a novice business
librarian, it can be tricky to tell which questions can and can't be answered
exactly, but just knowing that there is not always an answer can be a relief in
some cases.
Use your instincts and ask yourself some questions:
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Would a company want their competitors to know this?
Is this kind of data even tracked? If so, would a company release it? For free?
Is there an alternative way to approach this question?
As we delve more deeply into business reference questions and sources, the
elusive nature of some of the data that people are often looking for will become
more evident. Just know that with many business reference questions you'll often
have to rethink the initial approach and work with the patron to come up with an
acceptable alternative.
Now let's take a look at the basic break-down of most business reference
resources...
The Business Reference Question Resource (BRQR)
Now that we know the gist of what most business reference questions are asking
for (company, industry, statistics or finance information), let's take a look at the
general types of resources we can turn to for the answers.
What type of resource you turn to will depend in part on what kind of information
you need. Just as in general reference you rely upon certain types of sources (for
example an encyclopedia or an index rather than a book or a video) for different
information needs, the same is true and then some for business reference.
A BRQ resource will generally cover one or more of the following areas:
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News/Trade/Research Articles
Packaged Industry Reports/Company Profiles
Statistics
Raw data
Directory data
Market Share/Rankings
Private company information
Global/International Information
Content can overlap in each resource, but some cover unique material or have
particular areas of strength. Some types of sources are better for industry
information, some better for statistics, some better for company information, etc.
Most of the time you'll need to search more than one resource to avoid missing
data as well as to compare and contrast what you do find.
Now let's take a deeper look at each kind of resource and see some examples of
each.
News/Trade/Research Articles
Article Examples
Articles are a familiar source of information to librarians. When you're faced with
a BRQ, they can be handy sources of bits and pieces of information on a
company, on a market or on a person. Articles are often one of the few resources
for information on private companies (more on that later) or on industries made
up of small, private companies. Local newspapers can be a great source of this
kind of information. And don't forget trade journals which focus on specific
industry areas. There's a trade journal out there for practically everything, from
Nation's Restaurant News to Floor Covering Weekly to Appliance Retailing to
Ontario Sheep News (check Ulrich's Periodical Directory if you don't believe
me!). Digging through articles is a common task when doing business research.
We'll discuss some of the subscription databases that cover articles on business
later in the workshop.
Packaged Industry Reports/Company Profiles
Report/Profile Examples
Some BRQR's are pre-packaged reports on industries or companies, but
unfortunately, purchased individually, these are almost always expensive (in the
hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars). Analyst firms like Merrill Lynch or
Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers or research firms like Datamonitor or Frost
& Sullivan or IRI produce these reports and sell them for a fee. Some companies
focus on particular areas of research, e.g. Gartner reports focus on technology,
while others cover many kinds of industries/companies. Two good sources for
searching across reports are Investext for analyst reports and
Marketresearch.com for industry reports. You may have some databases
available through your library subscriptions which include this kind of packaged
content. And don't forget that some business encyclopedias contain nicely
synthesized overviews of companies, industries and business leaders. We'll
discuss these and other sources for this kind of information further when we get
to the Industry Information section.
Statistics
Statistics Examples
Statistics are everywhere and you often need to determine who collects
information on various topics in order to get to the statistical information you
need. Sometimes you need to dig through articles to track down a statistic or a
clue pointing to who collects the kind of statistics you're looking for. Government
agencies and other organizations produce loads of statistics--the trick is finding
valid and comparable information. We'll cover sources of statistical data later in
the Marketing/Demographics/Statistics section.
Raw data
Raw Data Examples
Raw data is related to statistics in that you often need to figure out who collects
the information you need before being able to drill down to the specific data
points. Also, raw data is often being requested so that it can be turned into a
statistic--this is often the case with financial information, for example. We'll briefly
cover some raw data sources when we discuss company financials.
Directory data
Directory Examples
If you've ever used a phone book, then you have a good idea of what a directory
provides. In business reference, there are often specialized directories providing
lists of companies that operate in a certain industry or in a certain state. Often
directories will identify private companies in addition to public companies, albeit
with limited phone-book entry type information. If a patron needs to identify or
generate a list of companies, directories are a good place to turn. We'll cover
directories like the Dun & Bradstreet Million Dollar Directory and Ward's Business
Directory in the Company Information section.
Market Share/Rankings
Market Share/Rankings Examples
Often patrons are looking for where a company ranks amongst its peers or how
large a market share it controls within a particular industry. With some creative
digging, sometimes you can build a ranked list, but there are some resources
which focus on ranking companies and/or providing market share information.
We'll cover some of these, like Business Rankings Annual, in the Industry
Information Section.
Private company information
Private Company Examples
As previously mentioned, often articles are the only place to find information on
private companies since many of the standard business information sources only
cover publicly traded companies (we'll define public and private in the Company
Information section). It's good to make a note of the few resources that do
include private company coverage, though. We'll address these in the Company
Information section, too.
Global/International Information
International Examples
Many resources are limited in their scope to only United States or North
American companies/industries. Keep in mind that some resources include or
even focus on international companies. We'll discuss these resources further in
the International Issues section, as well as country information sources like
EIU.com and Viewswire.
Company Information
A business reference scenario often involves looking for company information of some
sort. Some company information questions (depending on the company, at least), are
asking for fairly basic items like a headquarter's address or a CEO's name. More often
than not, though, these company information questions run a little deeper into financial
information and even internal operations questions.
One thing to keep in mind with company information questions, especially as
they veer into the realm of proprietary and trade secrets, is that not all company
information is openly available. This is for a reason: companies do not want their
competitors to know how they do what they do, or how much of it they did last
year or ten years ago, or whether they do it well or not. This is not to say that with
some digging and creative thinking you can't get to some deeper levels of
company information, it's just something to remember when you're approached
with a business reference question that involves company information.
Company information has many uses:
Job Search/Interview Preparation
Patrons often want to identify companies who are hiring or who are active in the
industries they wish to work in. And digging deeper into a company's background
can help put the finishing touches on interview preparation.
Identify the Competition/ Market Research
Finding out which companies are players in an industry can be one of the first
steps towards Industry Research. From a trade name search to determine what's in
use to who's doing what well, competitive intelligence is a popular reason patrons
are asking for company information.
Consumer Issues
Consumers often have questions about the companies that make the products they
buy.
Solicit new Customers
Small business patrons and others may wish to target various companies in order
to build up their customer base.
ID potential Suppliers
Small business patrons and others may need to expand or improve upon their own
business activities by finding new suppliers of various products or services.
...and more!
First steps
When faced with a company information question, first determine whether or not
the company is:
PUBLIC
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shares are traded on a stock exchange
subject to periodic filings and other obligations under Federal securities laws
much *easier* to find detailed financial and other information on public
companies
or
PRIVATE
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shares are not traded on the open market (but there can be shares of ownership)
not subject to same Federal disclosure requirements as Public companies
much *harder* to find detailed financial and other information on private
companies
and then...
PARENT or SUBSIDIARY
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Parent companies control their subsidiaries through its ownership of voting stock.
Subsidiaries are often harder to find information on since many parent companies
do not break out their subsidiary operations unit by unit.
Knowing whether or not a company is public or private will help you determine
which resources are best to start your search in and will guide the rest of your
research.
Company Information Sources
You can find company information through a variety of sources. Where you start
your search will depend on what you already know (or don't know) about the
company and, of course, what kinds of company information resources you have
available to you.
Online sources for company information
Below are some free and fee-based online sources where you can start your
search for company information. Print resources are highlighted at the bottom of
the page. Often, a specialized directory or other print source will be your only
options for finding anything, but it's best (and usually easiest) to start online in the
hopes of getting the most current information available. Companies can
hire/fire/re-title executives, buy or sell subsidiaries and change in other fairly
fundamental ways faster than print sources can keep up with.
Free sources are listed first here, but remember that free often comes with a
catch, either in the form of advertising popping up or registration being required
or some other form of annoyance and/or time-sink. Keep in mind that the time
you spend digging in free sources has a cost, too. As the saying goes, time is
money, so manage yours efficiently and know when it's time to step back and try
another source or re-think your strategy altogether.
Free online company information sources
Hoover's (some free content--covers public and private companies):
http://www.hoovers.com
While it does have additional premium content available to subscribers, if
you don't mind putting up with a few ads, Hoover's offers a lot of basic
company information on thousands of public and private companies all in
one place. Hoover's is a great place to start to find out whether a company
is public, private, parent or subsidiary and to get a quick snapshot of what
you're dealing with. You can keyword search across the company
descriptions, so even if that person is positive that Old Navy is the name
of the company they want to research, you can quickly find it listed in the
Gap, Inc. profile and continue your searching from there. There's all kinds
of free financial information and other data and, even though a lot of what
Hoovers is pointing to is proprietary and costs extra, you can use it to
point you towards resources you may have available to you through other
sources--we'll talk about this more when we get to the "other useful tips"
part of the course.
Don't forget the company's web site!
Find it using www.google.com
Don't overlook the information that can be found on a company's web site.
In addition to company filings (we'll discuss these later) for public
companies and other investor information, even a private company's web
site can provide a wealth of information. Keep in mind that all of the
information is coming from the perspective of the company itself and is
only what they've decided to make available and/or highlight.
Yahoo! Finance (free but lots of ads/links to fee-based reports--only covers
public companies)
http://finance.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Finance includes a profile section where you can get a quick
snapshot of a company. It's easiest to use Yahoo! Finance if you already
know the ticker symbol (we'll discuss these later in the Corporate Finance
section), but they do have a "Symbol Lookup" feature if you don't.
Fee-based online databases to try for company information
The links here point to open web sites that describe these proprietary databases.
You can search some of them using the Business Databases Sandbox module-trials have been set up for a few products to run during the time of this course.
I've noted which ones are available in the Sandbox.
Mergent Online SANDBOX! (public companies only--some international
companies)
http://www.mergentonline.com/
Mergent started out as a company named Moody's and has been
collecting information on and rating publicly traded companies since 1900.
Mergent Online is the name of their product which covers US and
International company and financial information. Their print counterpart,
Mergent Manuals (formerly Moody's Manuals), are described below.
Thomson One Banker (public companies only--includes international
companies):
http://banker.analytics.thomsonib.com/
Thomson Research's products focus on financial information, but their
One Banker product holds a plethora of additional content, including
company profiles, research reports and other information that would
normally have to be pulled together from multiple sources.
S & P NetAdvantage SANDBOX! (mostly public companies--some private
companies--some international companies):
http://www.netadvantage.standardpoor.com
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage pulls together a number of their print
publications, including Stock Reports, Corporation Records, Register of
Public Companies and Industry Surveys. Five year snapshots of public
company financials are covered as well as industry-related news and
competitors. Private companies are covered through their Register of
Private Corporations (also available in print)
Business Source Elite/Premier SANDBOX! (mostly public companies--some
private companies--some international companies)
http://www.epnet.com/thisTopic.php?marketID=1&topicID=4
Although primarily known as a business journal database, Business
Source Elite/Premier/Complete (there are increasingly robust versions of
the original Business Source Elite product being released) contains
thousands of company profiles (published by a company known as
Datamonitor). These Datamonitor reports provide a snapshot of the
company, its history, executives, competitors and for some, even SWOT
analysis (which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
Threats).
Business & Company Resource Center SANDBOX! (mostly public companies-some private companies--some international companies)
http://tinyurl.com/7tyfj
A Thomson/Gale database, Business & Company Resource Center
provides online access to a number of print company and industry
reference products that you can search across. In addition to full text
articles from industry and trade journals, print products include Ward's
Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies, Ward's
Business Directory of Private and Public Companies in Canada and
Mexico Business Rankings Annual, Market Share Reporter, International
Directory of Company Histories, Investext (analyst reports) and more.
Lexis/Nexis Academic (mostly public companies--some private companies-some international companies)
http://www.lexisnexis.com/
LexisNexis holds a wealth of information on public and private companies.
Because you can search hundreds of journals and (more importantly for
smaller company research) newspaper articles, with a bit of digging you
can turn up quite a bit. Additionally, the Business section of LexisNexis
Academic includes the full text of company profiles from Hoovers as well
as SEC filings and financial reports. For an additional fee, LexisNexis
Academic subscribers can add the new Company Dossier product which
has additional functionality and content.
Factiva
http://www.factiva.com/factiva/factiva.asp?node=menuElem1492
In addition to being a great source of articles from trade and industry
publications (including the full text of the Wall Street Journal [Factiva's
owner, Dow Jones, also publishes the WSJ]), Factiva provides a company
report builder feature that pulls together news and financial information
from across a number of content providers.
OneSource Business Browser
http://www.onesource.com/products/content_77.asp
OneSource Business Browser is another "all-in-one" product that features
articles, directories, analyst reports and then some. You can build
company profiles and find additional information on domestic, international
companies in this database.
Some fee-based online Company Directory databases
Often a patron will want to generate a list of companies based on some set of
criteria, for example within the same geographic area or in the same industry, or
having over X number of employees, etc... Not every company information
resource allows for this kind of screening, but online directories are a good place
to start if you have access to them. Here are a few of the standard resources:
Dun & Bradstreet Million Dollar Directory (public and private companies-North American only)
http://www.dnbmdd.com/mddi/
Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar directory covers public and private
companies as well as subsidiaries. You can screen by various
combinations of criteria, including geographic location, industry, sales,
number of employees, etc. A separate subscription is available for
international company coverage.
ReferenceUSA (public and private companies--North American only)
http://www.referenceusa.com
Reference USA provides powerful screening and criss-cross capabilities
(using a number to look up an address or vice versa) for over 12 million
public and private US businesses
Print sources for company information:
If you're in a medium to large sized public or academic library, the reference
stacks can hold a wealth of company information (among other things), if you're
not afraid of digging a little. Please note that many of these titles have either a
stand-alone online version or are available as part of various database packages.
I've tried to note these where possible.
International Directory of Company Histories
http://tinyurl.com/7d5nn
The hundreds of company profiles in the International Directory of
Company Histories are an invaluable source of company information.
Entries are 3-5 pages long and the series is up to over 80 volumes with
frequent updated entries added for companies that have undergone any
major changes. If you're looking for a thorough overview of a company,
this Directory is a must--many smaller companies are included, so it's
worth checking to see what's in there. Also available online through the
Business & Company Resource Center database.
International Directory of Business Biographies
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/
I found an online version of this while building this course. Here is a link to
the print description from the publisher. This directory is a great source of
background information on the CEO's and other leaders of major
companies. A great way to get additional insight into the company you're
researching.
Ward's Business Directory
http://tinyurl.com/cwn5v
According to the publisher, over 90% of the over 100,000 companies
covered in the Ward's Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public
Companies are private. If you have an elusive company to track down, this
is a good place to check. Also available online through the Business &
Company Resource Center database (Ward's Business Directory of
Private and Public Companies in Mexico and Canada is also available in
print and online through BCRC)
Dun & Bradstreet Million Dollar Directory
http://www.dnbmdd.com/mddi/
Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar directory is available in print and is a
good source for private company information.
Directory of Corporate Affiliations AKA "Who owns Whom" by LexisNexis
http://www.lexisnexis.com/dca/
These directories are a great tool in trying to track down a company's
ultimate ownership. There are volumes for public, private and international
as well as a master index for both company names as well as brand
names.
Value Line Investment Surveys
http://www.valueline.com
Value Line is an analyst report of sorts that gives an overview of a
company's stock performance and potential for future performance. Here's
an example of a Value Line Ratings & Report page for Johnson &
Johnson: http://www.valueline.com/samples/sample_jnj.pdf
Mergent/Moody's Manuals (public companies only)
http://www.mergent.com/publish/product51.asp
Mergent Industrial Manuals covers the top 2000 public companies. Entries
include information on company history, financials, management, etc. See
the above notation for Mergent Online for more info.
Manufacturing & Distribution USA (Gale)
http://tinyurl.com/bfj5l
Formed by the union of "Manufacturing USA" and "Wholesale and Retail
Trade USA," Manufacturing & Distribution USA provides statistics on over
850 industries. Some state-specific titles may be available, too, e.g.
Manufacturing Illinois, usually published locally.
The Leadership Directories:
Most often found in a public library setting, the Leadership Directories can
provide a nice snapshot of a company, a nonprofit or a financial institution (these
are the examples linked here--there are additional Leadership directories
published on municipal and other governmental topics) and give key contact
information and other data. An online version is available as well.
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Corporate Yellow Book
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Financial Yellow Book
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Nonprofit Sector Yellow Book
Some (mostly print) resources for industry/company rankings
Ward’s Business Directory
In addition to directory information on companies, there is a section that ranks
companies by sales within SIC code groupings. See above for more information
on Ward's Business Directory.
D&B business rankings
Ranks public and private U.S. companies by sales volume and number of
employees - within the entire United States, within states, and within industry
category by SIC code. Also ranks public companies by size and private/foreignowned companies by size in separate sections.
Business Rankings Annual
http://tinyurl.com/b2x2o
This well-indexed resource lists rankings of companies and industries and
points you towards their original source. It's also available online through
the Business & Company Resource Center.
Gary Price's List of Lists
http://www.specialissues.com/lol/
The List of Lists is a database of ranked listings of companies, people and
resources freely available on the Internet. A great place to look for clues
about trade journals and special issues featuring ranked lists.
Rankings sources from the Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/company/rankings.html
This handy site points you towards a number of the ranking sources listed
here as well as some special issues from journals and other industryspecific sources for rankings.
Now let's dive in a little deeper and take a look at company financials...
A Brief Overview of Corporate Finance & Accounting
Sometimes a company information question will focus in on a company's
financials; that is, how much money they make and how much money they spend
doing so. All companies track this information internally and publicly traded
companies are required to report this information to their shareholders (and the
public) in the form of regulated accounting documents.
You don't need to have a CPA degree or advanced corporate finance skills to
understand a little bit about the basics of company finance. The following should
help to give you an idea of what is and isn't out there and why the information
might be requested.
Public Companies:
Among other laws, public companies are regulated by:
Securities Exchange laws of 1933-34
Previous to the Great Crash of 1929, there was little to no federal regulation of the
securities market. Companies were not held to any standard for disclosure of their
business activities. Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 to restore consumer confidence in the market. These laws
essentially require companies who offer the public the ability to invest in them
(more on this in the Investment section of this course) to be truthful about their
business and its finances and about the risks involved in investing. These laws
also require that people who trade and sell securities must also be honest and put
investors' interests first.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
Sarbanes-Oxley is the latest law governing the securities industry. It was passed
in response to Enron, Worldcom and numerous other corporate accounting
scandals. It essentially requires that CEO's and other company managers sign off
on the information that is released to shareholders. No longer can they claim
ignorance when it comes to their own company finances.
In order to publicly disclose this information, these regulations require public
companies to file certain reports:
Annual Report to Shareholders
status report, contains letter to shareholders from CEO, "glossy"
10K
the SEC-filed version of the annual report
Proxy Statement (14-A)
contains bio info on officers as well as compensation info and shareholder info
Many other filings
including variations of 14-A
currently the SEC is voting on whether to amend disclosure requirements for
executive and director compensation, i.e. requiring companies to note all
compensation a CEO receives, including bonuses like private jets, etc.
Financial Statements
Companies produce many kinds of financial statements which are in turn
reviewed and analyzed by investors, management, lendors and others interested
in the financial stability or potential profitability of the company. Three commonly
used statements are: the balance sheet, the income statement (or profit/loss
statement) and the cash flow statement. Click here for a nice overview of
financial statements in general from a site called Money Chimp (which we'll look
at later in the Investing module, too).
Here's a quick intro to these three sources of company financial information.
Balance Sheet: What the company owns and owes
The balance sheet gives investors a general overview of a company's financial
health. That is, it tells investors exactly what a company owns (assets) and who it
owes (liabilities). Click here for a link to an overview of balance sheets from
Investopedia.com.
Income Statement: How good the company is at making money
The income statement tells investors about the company's profits and losses for a
specific time period. Consider it a snapshot of a company's performance during
any one given time. Click here for a link to an overview of income statements
from Investopedia.com.
Cash flow statement: How a company pays for their operations and their future
growth
Many of the items on the cash flow statement are also found in either the income
statement or the balance sheet, but here they're arranged to highlight the cash
generated and how it relates to reported earnings. Click here for a link to an
overview of cash flow statements from Investopedia.com.
Private/Subsidiary Company Financials and other considerations
The information you can find on private companies, subsidiaries or divisions
leans more toward the anecdotal than to detailed financial reports. Some
directories do give basic financial figures such as (estimated) revenue, but most
private company or subsidiary information will be gained from literature searches
of local newspapers, magazines, newsletters, wire services, and trade journals.
So dig, dig, dig (refer back to the Company Information Sources section for
resources that cover private companies). And don't count on finding detailed
financial data.
When it comes to researching private companies, the name Dun & Bradstreet
often comes up. This may be because they publish the D&B Million Dollar
Directory (which contains private companies and subsidiaries) and so their name
is associated with the topic. They also publish Dun & Bradstreet Credit Reports
and other profiles that they sell for a fee. You'll see these offered for sale on
Hoovers.com and some other sites (D&B owns Hoovers.com). It's important to
keep in mind that these reports usually only provide credit/payment information
(essentially whether or not that company has paid its bills and should you loan
money to them or not), not necessarily financials or much in-depth data on the
company. You'll often have someone demanding a D&B report, though, because
they've been looking all over for information on their private company and come
across mention of these handy reports and think that their search is over.
Remember, if it seems too good to be true...
We'll also cover some sources and tips in the Ratio & Commonsize Analysis
section of the Industry module for some ideas on how to deal with private
company financials.
Now let's take a look at some sources for company financial information...
Company Finance Sources
The resources noted here all contain company financial information, although
many of them also cover other large data sets related to bonds, stock prices, etc.
The goal is to become familiar with some of these product names in general.
Securities & Exchange Commission (free online--public companies only)
http://www.sec.gov
The SEC makes sure that companies give the public basic facts about
their business operations in order that everyone has information upon
which to base investment decisions. EDGAR, the Electronic Data
Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system, is the database you can use on
the SEC website to find most of the various company filings going back
about 10 years. Note: SEC filings are included in many of the business
databases we discussed in the Sources of Company information section.
Also, there are many different websites out there which offer the ability to
search SEC filings and then will charge you to access them. EDGAR
access is free, although you may find that you prefer the search
functionality of another product to access filings.
Thomson One Banker (Not free--public companies only--includes international
companies):
http://banker.analytics.thomsonib.com/
Thomson was mentioned in the Company Information Sources section as
well, but financial information is one of the major content areas.
Lexis/Nexis Academic (mostly public companies--some private companies-some international companies)
http://www.lexisnexis.com/
LexisNexis was mentioned on the Company Information Sources page but
I want to highlight that it contains a Company Financials section as well
which covers mostly North American public companies. LexisNexis
actually pulls their financial data from a separate product called Disclosure
but know that you can quickly pull a company's income statement, balance
sheet and cashflow statement using LexisNexis' Company Financials
section.
Mergent Online (Not free--public companies only--some international
companies):
http://www.mergentonline.com/
Mergent was mentioned in the Company Information Sources as well but
keep in mind that their Online product covers US and International
companies and financials.
Here are some financial products you might find in a business school setting or in
a corporate setting (i.e. not found on the typical reference desk but used in many
business research environments):
Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) (not free)
http://wrds.wharton.upenn.edu/demo/index.shtml
WRDS is primarily owned by larger business schools and is used by upper
level graduates and other researchers but I mention it here because its
primary role is to serve as an interface to many proprietary finance
sources, including Compustat which is mentioned below.
Compustat (not free--public companies only--North American and Global
versions available)
http://www.compustat.com/www/db/me_lev3_01_db.html
Compustat is another primarily professional or upper level graduate
research tool which allows users to pull large runs of financials across
time. Standard and Poor's produces Compustat.
Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP)
http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/research/crsp/
CRSP is another primarily business-school-owned product that provides
historical US stock, indices, bond, and mutual fund securities data.
Don't forget the company's web site!
Many companies link their annual reports and SEC filings under an "Investor
Relations" section on their website.
Other Company Finance Resources
These are some useful sites to help you familiarize yourself with the world of
corporate finance. Again, you're not required to read through all of these and
memorize anything, but just be aware that there are tools out there to help you
understand this complicated topic.
 Campbell R. Harvey's Hypertextual Finance Glossary
http://www.duke.edu/~charvey/Classes/wpg/glossary.htm
I use the sort of dorky-sounding "Campbell R. Harvey's Hypertextual Finance
Glossary" *all* the time. It's a great resource if you need to get a quick definition
of a financial term you've never heard of (like Acid Test Ratio) or an acronym
(like EBITDA or ADR).
 How To Read a Financial Statement
http://philanthropy.ml.com/ipo/resources/pdf/howtoreadfinreport.pdf
 Guide to Financials (from IBM)
http://www.ibm.com/investor/tools/financials.phtml
 How to Read a Prospectus: a guide for beginning investors
http://www.sos.mo.gov/securities/pubs/How%20to%20Read%20A%20Prospectu
s_01.2005.pdf
 The Numbers Game
(Business Week May 14, 2001)
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_20/b3732001.htm
 Unlocking the Secrets of a Proxy Statement
(Business Week March 4, 2002)
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_09/b3772114.htm
 The Fine Print: How to Read Those Key Footnotes
(Business Week Feb. 4, 2002)
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_05/b3768111.htm
Now let's take a look at some considerations for small businesses...
Small Business Resources
Especially in a public library, but in any business reference setting, you will
encounter requests for information from people who want to start a small
business. In addition to the usual company and industry resources, there are a
few that are geared specifically towards the small business entrepreneur.
Online and print resources for Small Business
Small Business Administration (free online)
http://www.sba.gov
The Small Business Administration web site is a great resource to point
people towards. In addition to business plan templates and information on
financing and grants, there are also links to individual state sites and other
useful sources.
SCORE "Counselor to America's Small Business" (free online)
http://www.score.org/
A resource partner of the SBA, SCORE offices are located throughout
each state--SCORE can help your small business by answering tax
questions, helping you find funding and a lot more.
Small Business Sourcebook (print)
http://tinyurl.com/btzsh
A guide to the information services and sources provided to 100 types of
small business by associations, consultants, educational programs,
franchisers, government agencies, reference works, statisticians,
suppliers, trade shows, and venture capital firms
Business Plans and Profiles Index (free online index)
http://www.carnegielibrary.org/subject/business/bplansindex.html
From the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, this is a handy online index to
two of the main print reference sources for Business Plans, the Business
Plan Handbook and Small Business Profiles, plus pointers to individual
titles on starting various kinds of businesses and links to online plans as
well.
Business Plans Handbook (print and free online)
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/business-plans/
A free, online version of the Thomson/Gale Business Plans Handbook?
For now, at least. This has the full text of the Handbook broken out by
volumes and keyword searchable. Here is a link to the print description
from the publisher.
Encyclopedia of Small Business (print and free online)
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/
Another free, online anomoly from Thomson/Gale. This Encyclopedia
defines and then details issues faced by small businesses, including
accounting, competitive bids and outsourcing, among many other topics.
HBS' Baker Library Subject Guides: Venture Capital & Private Equity (free
online)
http://www.library.hbs.edu/guides/venture/
This industry guide from Harvard Business School's Baker Library is
useful for identifying sources of information on venture capital sources.
Make sure to look to the left of the screen for additional content broken out
by format, including trade journals associations, etc.
Financial studies of the small business (print)
http://www.frafssb.com/studies/index.html
Provides industry ratios on small business. Using as a criteria total
capitalization under $2,000,000, financial statements for over 30,000
firms, provided by 1,500 independent Certified Public Accounting firms,
geographically dispersed throughout the country.
Time for the Company Info quiz! And don't forget to play in the sandbox,
too! Make sure to check out the company profiles in the Business Source
Premier database and the company information in Business & Company
Resource Center...
Industry Research
Industry related questions, with all of their possible iterations, are probably the
most commonly-encountered types of business reference questions. Creative
search strategies are almost always going to be in play with an industry question
and it's especially important to work with the patron to determine what they really
want.
It's also important to manage the expectations of the patron when it comes to
industry questions. Make sure to clarify as best you can what might and might
not be out there and emphasize that to pull together a comprehensive industry
overview requires a lot of digging (and/or a lot of money...packaged industry
information takes a lot of time and analysis to compile. Read on to find out why!)
Industry information has many uses
Starting a business
Anyone writing a business plan will want to get a good overview of the industry
their company will operate in before they make any major decisions.
Competitive intelligence
Compiling and analyzing available industry information in order to keep tabs on
your competitors and to position your company effectively is an ongoing part of
most business operations.
Marketing
While the consumers themselves will be discussed in the
Marketing/Demographics module, industry research can also be used to assist in
developing some marketing strategies--knowing what the trends in your industry
are and what the projections are for the future can help a company target their
efforts effectively.
Career
While a job candidate will want to know about the company they're interviewing
with, having a good grasp of the larger industry within which that company
operates can make the difference in a hiring situation.
...and more!
First steps
Define the industry
Most industries are made up of lots of companies, many of them private. And the
companies themselves can participate in more than one industry. What you'll be
able to find about an industry will depend in part on the size of the industry and
how specialized it is. It will be much easier to find information on the airline
industry than on the scrapbooking industry, for example. So, rest assured that it's
not *you* when you can't seem to find an easy list of corporate event planning
companies or the market size of the custom-built bikes for tri-athletes industry, it's
the nature of this kind of industry research.
Ask yourself:



How big is the industry?
Is there another way to describe this industry? e.g. Apparel vs. clothing; Footwear
vs. shoes; Grocery vs. supermarkets
Can we identify any major companies (preferably public) that operate in this
industry? Or can we at least find *any* company that seems to be like what the
patron is looking for? Then we can try to search for similar companies.
Clarify how the industry is defined in the sources of info you find on it
Most industry information resources track only public companies and then lump
them into fairly narrow industry areas and don't go any deeper than that. The
resulting industry overviews and data can be misleading if you haven't clearly
defined what exactly you're looking for. You may find that if you compare the
same industry across two different industry resources head-to-head that the list of
companies identified within that industry will be different or that they even call
the industry something different.
For example, take an industry like retail and a company like Walmart--in
most industry resources Walmart will be categorized as a Discount
Department Store and compared to other Discount Department Stores.
But in reality, the industry they operate in contains Grocery Stores,
Apparel Stores, Consumer Electronics, etc. So if you go into an industry
resource and pull their info on the Apparel market, you'll only get
companies classified as Specialty Apparel Retailers, with no inclusion or
mention of the giant flow of apparel sales generated by Walmart and other
Discount Department Stores. Or, you might find that one resource
categorizes Walmart as a Discount Department Store while another
resource might bundle them in with their Supermarkets & Drugstores
report.
Just be sure to keep an eye on the information you're pulling when it
comes to anything industry-related.
Start big and then drill down
When faced with an industry research question, it's a great idea to step back and
look for broader data first and then try to narrow it down.
As with many business reference questions, the more specific and indepth a patron wants to get about an industry, the more difficult it will be to
find information. If someone is looking for the size of the ipod market in
Contoocook, NH (or even Concord, NH (the state capital) or even all of
NH), it's going to be more difficult to find than total numbers for the United
States. And, depending on the industry, finding international or global
industry information may be difficult given the North American focus of
most industry research sources.
Hunt for clues and be flexible and creative
Industry research is a complex process and usually requires searching in multiple
sources and extrapolating data from what you can find. It's important to
understand this from the beginning so that you don't feel overwhelmed by the
process and so that the patron doesn't get frustrated thinking they are going to get
an answer instantaneously.
Look for




Specialized trade journals and other articles: Depending on the industry in
question as well as the resources you have available to you, an article search is
often the best and/or only way to find industry information. Try to identify trade
journal titles and make sure those are part of your search.
Market reports: Packaged industry reports are a great source of information on
industries, as you might expect. Unfortunately since they've gone through all the
trouble of tracking down the data you need, they often come with a hefty price
tag. Also, a packaged industry report still might not contain the exact information
your patron is looking for or define the industry in a way that doesn't fit with the
rest of the patron's research. But packaged market reports are often worth looking
for on the off chance it's got a lot of relevant info pulled together nicely for you.
Company releases: Company web sites will often link to press releases that will
note market share info. Also, their annual reports and other filings often discuss
the industry outlook.
Specialized trade associations: There is an association out there for almost
everything and they often are great compilers of data on a topic and/or the
publishers of trade journals. (Google is a great resource for identifying active
associations--limit your search in the advanced screen to .org)
Consider SIC/NAICS codes as a tool
Click here to learn more about industry codes.
Cite your data
With all of this digging, it's important to keep track of where you've searched and
to be able to back up any data you've found. That way, if you're finding numbers
that don't compare, you can go back to the original source.
Now let's take a look at some sources for finding industry information...
Industry Information Sources
Online sources for industry information
Free online industry information sources
Yahoo! Investor from Reuters:
http://yahoo.investor.reuters.com
Once you get into this site, there is quite a bit of information here. The link
above takes you to the main Yahoo! Investor page--click on the Industries
link on the left to get to the industry page. There are industry overviews
and also some company rankings features (International companies are
covered but not private companies). This site can be slow to load and
requires lots of clicking to get to where you want to go, but then again, it is
free after all.
Vault.com Industry Overviews (free registration required)
http://www.vault.com/nr/ht_list.jsp?ht_type=7
Vault.com is a fairly well-know business career resource--they publish a
number of guides on various industries which are geared towards a jobseeking audience. Their online site points to a lot of fee-based material,
but there are some useful industry profiles and ranked lists and other
resources here if you look carefully.
Harvard Business School Baker Library Industry Overview Index
http://www.library.hbs.edu/guides/#3
Covering the holdings of Harvard Business School's Baker Library, this is
a great site to go to if you're trying to identify specific industry information
resources. Try to identify trade journals in the specific industry area you're
researching and see if they publish special reports (sometimes these are
freely available online).
Economic Census
http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/index.html
While I wouldn't necessarily start my industry research here, the Economic
Census is a vast source of industry information. So vast, in fact, that an
entire guide called Industry Research Using the Economic Census has
been written to help users weed through the overwhelming amount of
data. The Economic Census is only done every five years, so there are a
number of other reports that occur during the off years (although the data
is not always posted immediately) including the Annual Survey of
Manufactures and the Annual Retail Trade Survey.
MarketResearch.com (free registration required)
http://www.marketresearch.com
Marketresearch.com is aggregator of industry and other intelligence
reports--you can search them for free but if you want a report, it has to be
purchased. However, you can get free access to the abstracts of many of
the reports and sometimes find bits and pieces of industry information.
This is also a good site for determining which research companies focus
on particular industries. One thing to keep in mind when dealing with
packaged industry reports like these--they are quite appealing to patrons
because they sound like the cover exactly what they're looking for (e.g.
The U.S. Market for Golf Equipment), however they should never spend
the (often exhorbitant) amounts of money on these reports without first
asking the publishers to send them a sample of the data and confirming
that it covers what they need (or spending some time digging in other
sources to see if they can find alternative data).
US Industry & Trade Outlook
http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/industry/otea/outlook/
The last version of the Outlook to be published in print was 2000 and
since then, the International Trade Administration's web site has said that
the online version is "well under way." Although this hasn't yet come to
fruition and it's not quite clear what's going on with the web site, if you
click on the "Chapter coverage" link at the top of the page you can get to
global and domestic industry trends and future outlook for a number of
industries as well as shorter overviews of narrow subsectors within each
major industry. Keep an eye on the web site for updates.
Business Week Industry Outlook
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/05_02/B39150502industry.htm
While I haven't been able to find an updated 2006 Industry Outlook from
Business Week, this is a good example of the kind of information you can
find online from various business publications that offer some free online
content. A Google search on your particular industry might not turn
something like this up, so consider going straight to "usual suspects" like
Business Week or Fortune, etc. and drilling down, looking for special
reports and the like. If you can put up with the ads and the ubiquitous false
leads to subscriber-only content (but then again, maybe this is a lead-does your library subscribe?), you can often strike gold. Did I mention that
you usually have to dig for industry information?
Encyclopedia of American Industries (also print version)
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/industries/
While building this course, I stumbled across this free online version of the
Encyclopedia of American Industries. It's fairly low-budget, but in a good
way--no ads, no distractions. It's keyword searchable, or you can browse
by industry heading. I have no idea how long this will stay available, but
it's a good opportunity to check out the content of this title. It provides an
overview of various industries' structure, history, development, industry
leaders, and more. Broken out by SIC code, in the print version Volume 1
covers Manufacturing Industries and volume 2 covers Service and NonManufacturing Industries.
Internet Intelligence Index
http://www.fuld.com/Tindex/I3.html
Created by the Fuld & Company Library, this site provides "links to nearly
600 intelligence-related Internet sites, covering everything from macroeconomic data to individual patent and stock quote information." Notice
the sections on "Industry-Specific Internet Resources" and "International
Internet Resources" further down the page.
Library of Congress' BRS Assists Industry Surveys
http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/assists/indsur.html
This bibliography points to a number of titles featured here as well as a
few more and some online sites for industry information as well
Fee-based online industry information sources
S & P NetAdvantage SANDBOX!
http://www.netadvantage.standardpoor.com
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage includes and online version of their
Industry Surveys. The Industry Surveys cover about 50 broadly-defined
industries and provide a glossary of industry-related terms, and industry
profile, pointers to key publications and associations in the industry, a look
at the industry's current environment, key industry ratios and statistics, an
overview of how the industry operates and a handy section on how to
analyze that particular industry.
Business & Industry database SANDBOX!
http://www.gale.com/pdf/facts/busind.pdf
Busines & Industry database provides full text access to thousands of
trade journals and other reports. This in and of itself is great, but what
makes B&I notable is its unique search features. Rather than the
traditional title, author, subject, keyword options that most databases
provide, B&I offers a deeper level of indexing. The search interface
includes drop down options for what they call Concept Terms (Market
Share or Market Size or Ad Budget or Target Markets, etc.) and Market
Terms (Telemarketing or Loyalty or Campaign Slogan, etc.) as well as the
ability to limit by Document Type (Company Overview, Editorial, Industry
Overview, etc.). You can also limit by geographic area or by industry.
Here's a link to an interesting set of Business & Industry search examples:
http://www.gale.com/customer_service/sample_searches/bi.htm
Business & Company Resource Center SANDBOX!
A Thomson/Gale database, BCRC provides online access to a number of print
company and industry reference products that you can search across. In addition
to full text articles from industry and trade journals, print products include
Encyclopedia of American Industries, Encyclopedia of Global Industries,
Encyclopedia of Emerging Industries, Business Rankings Annual, Datamonitor
Industry Market Research Reports and more.
Value Line Investment Survey
http://www.valueline.com
Short overviews of a number of industry sectors are included in the online
(and print) version of the Value Line Investment Survey.
Print sources for industry information:
Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys
This is the print version of the Industry Surveys available in .html and .pdf format
in NetAdvantage. Industries covered include Autos & Auto Parts, Broadcasting &
Cable, Computers: Networking, Healthcare: Products & Supplies, Restaurants,
etc. If you have access to the print version of the Industry Surveys, the back cover
of each lists all of the industries in the set.
Mergent's Industry Review (formerly Moody's Industry Review)
Covers approximately 140 industry groups and includes lists of top ranked
companies within each industry according to key financial and investment criteria
and comparative financial statistics such as earnings per share and stock price
range. Also includes growth rates for top companies within each industry.
Encyclopedia of Emerging Industries (Gale)
"Details the inception, emergence, and current status of 88 newly-flourishing
businesses and industry segments". AIDS testing, elder day care, genetic
engineering, smart cards, and XML are examples of what this book covers.
U.S. Market Trends and Forecasts
Covers approximately 400 industries in the areas of leisure, business services,
chemicals, consumer goods, food, household, medical equipment, office
equipment, textiles, and transportation. Includes charts and graphs for market
value, market sectors, market shares, and market forecasts.
Dun & Bradstreet/Gale's Industry Handbooks
Includes overviews of smaller industry groups within each volume as well as
statistics, financial ratios, company listings and rankings, mergers and
acquisitions, associations, consultants, trade journals and trade show information.
Industries covered include: Construction and Agriculture, Chemicals and
Pharmaceuticals, Computers & software and broadcasting & telecommunications,
Entertainment and Hospitality, Insurance and health & medical services.
Value Line Investment Survey
http://www.valueline.com
Short overviews of a number of industry sectors are included in the print
(and online) version of Value Line.
Plunkett Research Almanacs
http://www.plunkettresearch.com/HowtoBuy/IndustryList/tabid/105/Default.aspx
Plunkett Research publishes a number of industry almanacs which give a
useful snapshot to anyone trying to get a quick overview on an industry's
trends, statistics and major players. Also available in a CDRom format as
well as online through the Business Source Premier database.
Now let's take a look at some tools for extrapolating financial information on an
industry or company...
Brief Overview of Ratio and Commonsize Analysis
A good way to determine how well a company is performing within its industry is
to compare its financial ratios to those of the industry overall. Financial ratios are
generally calculated using numbers from a company's financial statements.
Depending on which numbers you're dividing, you can get a quick look at a
company's financial stability, its effeciency overall, its profits and some future
indicators of growth. Patrons will often want a source that provides industry ratios
so that they can do these comparisons without having to calculate industry
figures themselves.
Commonsize analysis is a way of translating a company's financial statement into
percentages so that they show trends and can be compared to other companies,
even if they are much larger or smaller. For example, gross profit and cost of
goods sold can be calculated as a percentage of total revenues and give an
indication of how much is being spent to produce versus how much profit is left
over.
This kind of financial analysis veers into the realm of requiring a degree in
corporate finance to understand, but having an idea of the basics behind the
calculations and why someone would want them will give you a better idea of
what sources to turn to and how to advise a patron in their research steps.
Financial questions to ask yourself whether company is public or private:
 Does this company have "good numbers?" (relative to size of company and industry it
operates in)

What can I do with the numbers I *can* find?
Some print resources for industry ratios
Almanac of business and industrial financial ratios
by Leo Troy, PhD. Published by Prentice Hall Lists 22 financial and
operating ratios for about 160 industries. Statistics are based on corporate
activity during the latest year for which figures from IRS tax returns are
published, so they are usually about three years old. Appendix lists
Almanac classification numbers and their corresponding SIC numbers.
Industry norms and key business ratios
http://www.dnb.com/us/dbproducts/sales_marketing/research_verify/directories/
Published by Dun & Bradstreet, the Industry Norms and Key Ratios
product reports 14 ratios for more than 800 SIC categories. Data is
reported for median, upper, and lower quartiles. Includes balance sheet
data reported in both dollars and percentages for each industry category.
Based on reports for over 1 million private and public companies in the
D&B database.
Robert Morris Associates (RMA) Annual Statement Studies
http://www.rmahq.org/RMA/ProductsandServices/RMABookstore/StatementStud
ies/
This core resource for industry ratios & benchmarks is from RMA, a
banking organization (Risk Management Association, formerly Robert
Morris Associates). Arranged by NAICS code, with breakdowns by asset
size of companies in an industry. Also includes brief overview of financial
ratios.
Further explanations & tools
For more explanations on ratios, take a look at the web sites linked below. These
go into better detail and give some good examples. Keep in mind that the goal of
this course is not to teach you highly specialized financial analysis skills, but to
make you aware of some of these processes and to point you towards some
related resources.
Common Size Financial Statements
http://www.netmba.com/finance/statements/common-size/
Financial Ratios and Quality Indicators
http://www.sba.gov/test/wbc/docs/finance/fs_ratio1.html
Financial Calculator site
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/biz/bizcalcs/ratiocalcs.asp
Other tips for determining how a company is performing within an industry
 Look for articles on benchmarking and "best practice"or similar terms for your
industry
 try to find special issues of trade journals. Use Gary Price's List of Lists to get
pointed to some of these.
And also try:
Bizstats
http://www.bizstats.com/
This site offers a quick way to pick a particular industry, input a ballpark
revenue number and then see a quick commonsize analysis chart. Scroll
down and look at some of the other tables they provide. BizStats.com
compiles raw statistical data from numerous sources, performs
computations and edits the information for the most meaningful statistics.
They have a useful explanation of their methodology and, while this kind
of analysis is never exact and it's also not clear how up-to-date the
information is on all of the charts, it's worth a look.
Time for the Industry Research Quiz! And don't forget to go play in the
sandbox, too! Business & Industry is a good one to dig in for industry
information and make sure to check out the Netadvantage Industry
Surveys, too...
International Business Reference Questions
You're bound to come across business reference questions with international
components to them. Whether someone is looking for a foreign company,
international trade data, a global market size or wants to examine the widget
industry in Spain, you'll want to be prepared. International business research is a
topic unto itself and an entire workshop could be devoted to it. Here we'll just
touch upon some of the basics.
Things to consider:
Differences in:

Spelling/Language/Name variants and transliteration
You might be opening up your search to include sources published in the United
Kingdom or other countries, so be aware of spelling variations (globalization vs.
globalisation, e.g.) and terminology (diapers vs. nappies, e.g.) and transliteration
issues (Yeltsin vs. Jeltsin, e.g.)

Legal & regulatory systems
You might want to try to find a source that covers business law in a particular
country.

Industry classifications
As with North American industry research, there may be additional codes or other
classifications that could help you in your research. Be aware of the Global
Industry Classification scheme that exists (as mentioned in the earlier section on
SIC/NAICS)

Cultures/protocol
There are etiquette books that cover business practices in particular, but even a
general guide on local customs might be worth looking into, depending on the
situation.

Holidays/Time
If you've ever tried to call a business in Europe during the last two weeks of
August or India during Diwali or the UK at 3:00pm EST, you'll know why being
aware of holidays and time differences matter. Globalization is changing some of
this, but it is still something to keep in mind.

Currency
This may seem like an obvious factor to be aware of, but always make sure what
currency a company's financials are being reported in. Depending on the source of
the information, sometimes you can change the currency on the fly, but you don't
want to have to re-trace your steps later to confirm whether you noted down Euros
or Yen or Dollars.
Some quick tips




Start with traditional global print or online sources and check for sources of data
and work backwards
Use online business portals—many have international resources (see the
international sources page for more on this
Look for country-specific web sites for global companies (e.g. starbucks.co.at)
Remember that the US government tracks a lot of international data
Now let's take a look at some sources for International Business information...
International Business Information Sources
Some general sources (print and online, free and fee-based) for
international business and country information
Europa World Year Book (print)
http://www.europaworld.com/pub/about#details.ewyb
The Europa World Year Book is a fairly standard reference source and is
found on most academic and public library reference shelves. The twovolume annual set provides detailed country profiles and analytical,
statistical and directory data for over 250 countries and territories. An
online version of this is now available, as well.
NationMaster (free online)
http://www.nationmaster.com/
This site is one of my new favorite resources. While you have to put up
with some ads, this is a great tool for country comparisons across a huge
range of topics, including crime statistics, agriculture, disasters and
democracy. As they say on their web site, "We want to be the web's onestop resource for country statistics on everything from soldiers to wall plug
voltages." Pulling data from sources like the CIA World Fact Book and the
UN and OECD (see below), this is a great tool to use for working
backwards to see who tracks the data you're looking for.
BRASS' "Best of the Best" International Business Sites (free online)
BRASS'"Best of the Best" International Business
A great list of resources for International Business information. Some are
duplicated on this this list, but others are not. (And, OK, maybe I'm a little
biased since I'm the chair of the BRASS Education Committee and we
maintain the Best of the Best web sites, but check it out for yourself).
Global Edge (free online)
http://globaledge.msu.edu/ibrd/ibrd.asp
Global Edge is a comprehensive starting point for global research from
Michigan State University's Center for International Business Education
and Research (CIBER). It's essentially a meta-site with access to
international business and trade information, economic trends and an
index to information resources.
Fortune Global 500 (free online)
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/global500
Linked from the top of their web page or under their "Lists" section, the
Global 500 is the international version of Fortune's standard "500" list
which only focuses on America's largest corporations.
Internet Public Library Newspapers (free online)
http://www.ipl.org/div/news/
A quick way to identify local papers in various countries which may come
in handy later on in your search.
OFFSTATS(free online)
http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/stats/offstats/
OFFSTATS is a great directory to free country statistics from official
sources, culled from all over the internet and the world. Searchable by
country or by region, you can also search this by topic.
United Nations Conference on Trade & Development publications (online and
print)
http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=1717&lang=1
These are great resources for international trade data, foreign investment
and other country-specific and global economic data.
Encyclopedia of Global Industries (print)
http://tinyurl.com/885xz
This Gale encylopedia looks at 125+ business sectors of global
significance and discusses “the origins, development, trends, key
statistics, and current international character." Some of industries included
are Aircraft, Biotechnology, Computers, Internet Services, Motor Vehicles,
Pharmaceuticals, Semiconductors, Software, and Telecommunications.
International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics (print)
http://www.unido.org/doc/3544
The International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics breaks out by
manufacturing sub-sector and by country comparative statistics on
performance and trends in manufacturing.
Industrial Commodity Statistics Yearbook (print)
http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/industry/icsy_intro.asp
A good source of comparative data on world production of various
commodities. The Yearbook provides statistics on the production, in
physical quantities, of about 530 industrial commodities by country,
geographical region, economic grouping and for the world in 590 tables. It
includes data for a ten-year period (1994-2003 in the current edition) for
about 200 countries. These kinds of global statistical sources can take
time to compile which is why the 2003 edition is currently in production as
of 2006.
World Business Directory (print)
http://tinyurl.com/8fkfd
Directory information on over 130,000 companies active in international
trade.
International Financial Statistics Locator (print)
Although it's a little bit dated at this point (published in 1995), the International
Financial Statistics Locator might help you out in a bind if you need to be pointed
towards who tracks certain international financial data.
Mostly fee-based sources for international business information:
I've tried to highlight just a few of the fee-based databases that specifically cover
international business information and which are used in an academic setting.
Many more products from many more companies are available but those tend to
have more of a corporate focus and generally won't be found in a library setting.

EIU.com
The suite of products available from the Economist Intelligence Unit (an offshoot
of the Economist magazine) includes Viewswire. Viewswire is described as a
"business intelligence" product which includes coverage of the political and
regulatory environment as well as economic and financial indicators. The
EIU.com product also covers business conditions, though, as well as additional
economic forecasting and other data.

ISI Emerging Markets
ISI's Emeriging Market Information Service delivers news, company and
financial data on more than 70 emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, Central
and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

SourceOECD
SourceOECD is the publications portal of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and consists of three sections that include
Books and Reports by Theme, Periodicals, and Statistics. OECD, based in Paris,
is a forum permitting governments of industrialized democracies to study and
formulate policies in all economic and social spheres.

World Development Indicators (WDI-from the World Bank)
World Development Indicators provides annual cultural, demographic, economic,
environmental, and health data for 210 countries since 1960. Many of the
economic files compare countries in U.S. dollars.
Country Information
Culturegrams (not free)
http://www.culturegrams.com/
Available in a country-by-county print binder edition as well as in an online
database format now, Culturegrams provide a nice snapshot of a country's
economic and cultural landscape. Brief profiles of customs, diet, religion,
and other lifestyle issues are covered. Here's a link to a sample report on
Bulgaria.
HBS Baker Library Country Guides (free online)
http://www.library.hbs.edu/guides/#4
A great pointer to sources of information broken out by country. Some of
the sources listed here are noted, as well as additional free online sources
and some sources available through Harvard only.
Intersource Country Insights from the Centre for Intercultural Learning
(free online)
http://www.intercultures.ca/cil-cai/country_insights-en.asp?lvl=8
Issues covered for each country include communication styles, displays of
emotion, dress, punctuality, and formality, stereotypes, preferred
managerial qualities, conflict in the workplace, etc. Produced by the
Candadian government.
Country Briefings from the Economist
http://www.economist.com/countries/
While much of this site points to fee-based material, these sections are
clearly denoted and there is quite a bit of free information covering news,
country profiles, forecasts, statistics and more.
CIA World Factbook
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
The CIA World Factbook is widely used in both its print and online form.
Country profiles include information on geography and communication
networks and transportation in addition to the traditional economic and
demographic data snapshots.
Country Analysis Briefs from the EIA
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/contents.html
These profiles come from the Energy Information Administration, a
division of the Department of Energy focused on gathering statistics.
Information on oil, gas and other energy issues by country and by
international region is highlighted.
State Department's Country Background notes
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/
Country profiles here give a brief snapshot of a country's people, history,
government, economics and politics with additional focus on military and
foreign relations.
Export.gov's Country & Industry Market Reports (requires registration)
http://www.export.gov/marketresearch.html
From Export.gov, the United States government's portal to exporting and
trade services, this site provides some market reports on a number of
industries in various countries and also includes information on exporting
in general and other trade issues.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Country Info
http://www.imf.org/external/country/index.htm
Reports on IMF member countries focusing primarily on economic issues
and country risk.
Don't forget


country homepages (yes, they exist!) and tourist bureaus
the regional versions of various search engines and Hoovers and other
international search engines like http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
Annual Reports for Foreign Companies:
CAROL (free registration required)
http://www.carol.co.uk
For Asia, Europe and UK company filings.
SEDAR
http://www.sedar.com
For Canadian company filings and quick company profiles.
Dictionaries and translators:
Directory of online dictionaries and translators:
http://www.word2word.com/dictionary.html
BabelFish:
http://world.altavista.com/
British English vs. American English
http://www.eurotexte.fr/translation/tips_brit_vs_amer.shtml
This is a handy site for a quick overview on some of the different terms used-some could apply to business situations. Others are just fun!
Marketing, Demographics and Statistics...oh, my!
A BRQ often involves a search for data on consumer behavior, trends and other
demographics. And looking for numerical data or other statistics is a common
part of business reference as well. Depending on how granular the patron wants
their data to be, these kinds of requests can snowball into frenzied searches if
you're not careful.
Questions relating to a company's marketing practice or who buys how much of
what start to cross into the realm of proprietary company data. And statistical
questions can be tricky if you can't find the numbers broken out exactly the right
way and/or if the patron wants to be able to compare data between companies or
countries or over time, etc.
That said, rather than being exercises in frustration, these kinds of questions can
turn into opportunities to partner with the patron. As you become more
comfortable with marketing and statistical kinds of questions you'll be able to
guide patrons towards data and other resources that will serve their needs, if not
exceed their expectations.
As with all business reference questions, you'll want to take a deep breath and
step back from the request at first to consider what the question is really asking.
Below are some general tips to keep in mind when looking for marketing,
demographic or statistical data.
Marketing & Demographics
The term demographics is often used in relation to data involving a consumer
market, and marketing data is often tied in with the demographics of consumers,
so I've combined the coverage of the two topics here (even though they could
each stand on their own and warrant a whole class each).
A brief word about MSA's and DMA's
Often someone looking into a company or industry or who wants to start a
business will want to know who the customers are. Or, conversely, they will want
to pick a certain geographic area and learn about who lives there--ages,
incomes, education, etc. In marketing, these geographic areas are often broken
out into areas called MSA's or DMA's, or Metropolitan Statistical Areas or
Designated Market Areas:
Metropolitan Statistical Areas
The United States government divides the country into statistical areas. Each of
these statistical areas is called an MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area). Each MSA
includes the metropolitan city and the surrounding suburban areas as defined by
the United States government. MSA markets cover a smaller area than DMA
(Designated Market Area) markets
Designated Market Areas
A DMA is a geographical region set up by the A.C. Nielsen Company (of Nielsen
ratings fame). The counties that make up a city's television viewing area define a
DMA. DMAs are ranked in order by the number of households with televisions.
All U.S. counties, except the North Slope of Alaska, fall into a DMA. DMA
markets cover a larger area than MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) markets.
Definition Source: Bacon's Media Intelligence Service,
http://www.medialistsonline.com/Help_criteria.asp
Some sources will break out data into both DMA's and MSA's, but others
will only do one and many, neither. Being aware of the definitions can help
you more accurately fulfill your patrons' requests.
Some things to keep in mind when dealing with marketing/demographic
questions


Again, the more narrow/specific the patron gets, the harder it is to track down
some of this kind of data, so start broad and try not to limit yourself to only one
set age-range or small geographic area or even one product.
Companies are not required to report their advertising/marketing budgets, but this
is a notoriously common question: How much does company x spend (and on
what channels--TV, radio, etc.) to advertise product y?
Now let's take a look at some sources that are out there that will help us find
demographic and marketing data...
Marketing and Demographics Information Sources
Consumer Behavior/Demographics
Sourcebook of ZIP code demographics (Also Sourcebook America, CD Rom)
http://store.esri.com/esri/showdetl.cfm?SID=2&Product_ID=719&Category_ID=
72
In addition to standard demographic data and population changes and
projections, this resource provides data broken out by zip codes on total
businesses, total employment, spending potential indexes, "dominant
lifestyles," and other useful categories.
Demographics USA (print)
http://tradedimensions.com/prod_dus.asp
Demographics USA is a directory of consumer data that breaks out, either
by zip code or county (there are two separate editions), data like age, sex,
ethnicity and in addition include calculations on what they call EBI
(Estimated Buying Power) and BPI (Buying Power Index) which
essentially show marketers who has money to spend on non-essential
items.
American Demographics (journal--not free)
http://www.adage.com/section.cms?sectionId=195
American Demographics used to be a stand-alone journal but is now a
part of AdAge magazine. American Demographics contains special
reports on the buying habits of Americans and other consumer-related
marketing issues.
Lifestyle Market Analyst (from SRDS)
http://www.srds.com/frontMatter/ips/lifestyle/
Lifestyle Market Analyst cross tabulates demographic attributes like age,
gender, income, etc., against those groups' likelihood to participate in a
variety of activities (what they call "lifestyles"). These lifestyle activities are
anything from traveling for business, exercising, hunting, owning a dog,
and many others. Data is survey based and broken out by lifestyles (e.g.
so you can look up who says they do what) and by geographic area (e.g.
so you can see what people like to do in specific areas) and by
demographic attributes (e.g. so you can see what women aged 22-35 do
compared to men aged 36-45).
New Strategist publishers (print series)
http://www.newstrategist.com/
American Generation Series e.g. Millennials: Americans Born 1977 to 1994
Who's Buying e.g. Who's Buying for Pets
Money Series e.g. Household Spending: Who Spends How Much on What
Consumer Series e.g. American Marketplace: Demographics and Spending
Patterns
New Strategist publishes books that focus on various segments United
States' consumers. Great for getting quick snapshots of particular
demographic groups or spending trends.
American Customer Satisfaction Index (print)
http://www.theacsi.org/
Produced by the University of Michigan's Ross Business School, the ACSI
measures 10 economic sectors, 41 industries (including e-commerce and
e-business), and more than 200 companies and federal or local
government agencies and scores them based on criteria measuring
customer satisfaction.
Sales and Marketing Management (journal)
Survey of Buying Power (November special Issue)
Sales and Marketing Management is one of the major trade journals for
executives in the sales and marketing field. Each November, they have a
special issue which contains retail sales figures and the latest population
statistics for every U.S. metropolitan and media market.
Proprietary Data Sources for Consumer Behavior/Demographics
The following section highlights sources that you may more often run across
cited in an article that points to some marketing or demographic data than
actually search directly yourself. The price tag on most of these products are
prohibitive for any public or academic institution to have access to, and if you do
manage to get access, most likely all the data you'll be allowed to see will be 3 or
4 years old. Mostly these companies work with other corporations (who pay a
pretty penny because truly this is data that really can't be found anywhere else)
to help them with their competitive intelligence.
It's good to be aware of these companies, though, if only to be better able to
understand what is and isn't available to the average information consumer. Also,
by knowing about these companies you can be alert for the clues you can find in
the sources you do have access to.
Simmons Study of Media & Markets (Choices III) (CDROM)
http://www.smrb.com/
Based on a broad survey, Simmons' Choices III product provides
consumer buying and shopping data on over 8,000 brands in 460 product
categories.
MRI (Mediamark Research, Inc.) (CDROM and online)
http://www.mediamark.com/
Mediamark Reporter provides information on demographics, lifestyles,
product and brand usage, and advertising media preferences reported by
a sample of over 25,000 United States consumers. The version available
to libraries (due to pricing) is dated--usually at least 2 or 3 years old, but it
is one of the few products within reach that will provide item/brand level
sales data.
Global Market Information Database online database from Euromonitor
(GMID)
http://www.euromonitor.com/GMID.aspx
GMID cover over 200 countries and products sold there and industries.
Market share data for numerous products is covered and quick top level
economic data can also be pulled to compare trends across countries and
time.
NPD Group
http://www.npd.com/
The NPD Group bills themselves as the "global leader in sales and
marketing information." Click on their "Industries" tab to see the various
areas of retail they cover. This is a data source you'll often see referred to
in specialty trade and industry journals and often you can hit the jackpot
by stumbling across some bit of data from them that has been published in
an article.
AC Nielsen
http://www2.acnielsen.com/site/index.shtml
AC Nielsen bills themselves as the "world's leading marketing information
company." You may have heard of Nielsen families and television
ratings...there are also Nielsen families who track all of their purchases
with a scanner, which Nielsen then packages into marketing data.
Marketing/Advertising
Ad Age Data Center (online--free registration required)
http://www.adage.com/datacenter.cms
While the free registration doesn't give you full-text access to everything
here, it's a handy way to look at the kinds of topics Advertising Age covers
and get ideas (especially if you happen to have Advertising Age full text
through a database).
Advertising World (free online directory)
http://advertising.utexas.edu/world/
The University of Texas at Austin Department of Advertising has put
together this directory of companies and web sites related to anything
dealing with Marketing. Its many categories include Package & Logo
Design, Children's Advertising, Subliminal Messages and Demographic
Information, among others.
MIT's Library Marketing Subject Guides (free online)
http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/marketing/index.html
A great place to turn to when you're looking for useful resources in the
field of Marketing.
Advertising Red Books (print and online)
http://www.redbooks.com
The Advertiser Red Books track companies which spend more than
$200,000 annually on advertising and provide some ad spending data,
agency and brand data and some other top-level company information.
The Agency Red Books contain profiles of over 10,000 advertising
agencies and includes a list of the accounts represented by each agency
and fields of specialization.
Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) (print and online)
http://tinyurl.com/jcei
SRDS is the leading provider of media rate and data for the advertising
industry. It lists advertising rates, editorial or programming content,
circulation and other basic information about various advertising media.
SRDS also contains selected demographic and market information for
metropolitan areas and counties. It consists of separate volumes for radio,
television, newspapers, interactive media, consumermagazines, etc.
Ad$pender (online)
http://www.tns-mi.com/prodAdSpender.htm
Ad$spender is one of the few products that tracks advertising spending by
both brand and outlet. At one time, print volumes of aggregate data were
available for library purchase, although I think this is only available online
now. Most likely not going to be found in a library due to its pricetag, but
worth knowing about.
Encyclopedia of Advertising (print and online)
http://encyclopedia.adage.com/
The Encyclopedia of Advertising is published by Advertising Age and
covers companies, people and concepts associated with marketing.
Companies and their Brands/Brands and their Companies (print)
http://tinyurl.com/djbtf and http://tinyurl.com/c2tgs
Not sure who makes Nutella? You can look up the brand in the Brands
and their Companies and be pointed to Ferrero USA and then look up
Ferrero in Companies and their Brands and see that they also make
Ferrero Rocher and Tic-tacs, among other products (who knew?). A handy
reference set.
Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands (print)
http://tinyurl.com/awx94
"Approximately 600 of the most popular brands in America" are
highlighted in this three-volume set which published in 1994. Vol. I covers
Consumable Products, Vol. II covers Personal Products, and Vol. III
covers Durable Goods. Some entries are for individual products, such as
Twinkies or Scotch Tape, while others are for brand names such as
Pillsbury or Sony. Entries include brand history, current (as of 1994)
status, current (as of 1994)brand logos or photos, and sources for
additional information. There may be a new edition or update in the works
set to publish in November 2006 from what I can tell in Bowker's Books In
Print. Stay tuned.
Trendwatching.com (free online)
http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/
This site offers a free monthly newsletter that highlights some of the many
trends that this marketing company has identified amongst consumers.
Want to know more about Massclusivity or the Insperience trend? While
Trendwatching.com might not have the skinny on *every* trend, it's a good
site to check for ideas on what's going on in the world of consumer trends
and marketing.
Now let's talk about general business and economic statistical information...
General Business & Economic Statistics
Statistics can be found almost anywhere. The trick is to find exactly what you
need broken out in the right way—don’t forget print sources!
Many statistical questions are related to economic data. It's important to
determine whether or not the patron just needs a quick number or if they'll need a
long run of consistent, comparable data.
The US government collects *a lot* of statistics. The Census.gov site is a good
place to start to look for some potential leads. A great place to start with many
statistical questions is the Statistical Abstract of the United States, which is linked
off of the Census.gov index. This online version is merely a .pdf of the print
version and in daily reference life, I prefer the print because it's a little easier to
flip back and forth from the index to the charts and then look for the original
sources of data.
Some things to keep in mind when dealing with statistical reference questions





Just because a number is found does *not* make it a good or even correct
number.
It’s especially important to check sources when dealing with statistics.
Try to identify groups that would care about the numbers you’re looking for.
Use general sources and work backwards from data—there may be more available
than published.
A lot of statistical data, if it’s packaged the way you want it and involves a
comprehensive study, will cost money. Sorry.
Now let's take a look at some sources for finding business and economic
statistics...
Resources for General Business & Economics Statistics
Statistical Resources on the Web
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html
This site, from the U. of Michigan's Government Documents Library, is a
great place to start when you're trying to figure out which site might have
the statistical data you're looking for. Broken out by categories like
Agriculture, Business & Industry, Foreign Trade, Education, etc., you can
quickly get pointed to useful resources rather than sifting through the
results of a Google search that might not even dig down deep enough
to begin with.
FirstGov (US Government web sites portal):
http://www.firstgov.gov
FirstGov is intended to transcend the traditional boundaries of government
to connect users to all U.S. Government information and services.
Launched in September 2000, FirstGov.gov searches over 186 million
pages of government information, services, and online transactions.
FirstGov also provides a topical index and links to state and local
government, and contacts with government officials. Another good place
to start when you're not sure which agency or group tracks the info you're
looking for.
Gov't Information by Type of Business Need
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/resources/library/govinfo_bytype.htm
Similar to the UMich GovDocs Statistical Resources on the Web site but
from the perspective of someone looking for government sources of
business information, this index from UCLA's Anderson School of
Management Library is a great pointer to all kinds of information.
OFFSTATS (for country statistics)
http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/stats/offstats/
A great pointer to free, official statistical sources from around the world.
Statistical Abstracts
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/
Basically just a .pdf version of the print version, a handy online way to use
the Statistical Abstract. As with the print version, you'll want to go to the
index section first and find out which number chart you need (or you can
browse by category).
American FactFinder
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet
American FactFinder is the search interface for finding data from the US
Census in the form of maps, tables, and reports. There is *a lot* here, but
with some practice and lots of digging, you can get useful data out of it.
Statistics of US Business
http://www.census.gov/csd/susb/susb.htm
Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB) is an annual series (although 2003 is
the most current year available) that provides national and state-level data
on numbers of businesses and employees, broken out by industry. The
series excludes data on self-employed individuals, employees of private
households, railroad employees, agricultural production employees, and
most government employees.
County Business Patterns
http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/cbpview.html
County Business Patterns is an annual series that provides county
economic data by industry. Like Statistics of US Businesses, County
Business Patterns excludes data on self-employed individuals, employees
of private households, railroad employees, agricultural production
employees, and most government employees.
Business statistics of the United States (print)
http://www.bernan.com/Online_Catalog/Title_Page.aspx?TitleID=7705375
Historical data for nearly 27 industries, spanning 30 years for annual data,
4 years for monthly. A useful addition to the reference shelf for pulling
quick numbers rather than wrestling with the many online sources.
Stat-USA (not free)
http://www.stat-usa.gov/
STAT-USA/Internet provides authoritative information and statistical data
from the Federal government to the U.S. business, economic, and trade
community. STAT-USA contains two broad subject divisions: State of the
Nation and GLOBUS & NTDB. Use State of the Nation for current
economic and financial releases and historical economic indicators data.
Use GLOBUS & NTDB for current and historical trade-related data,
international market research, export-import data, trade opportunities,
country analysis, and a trade publications library.
Lexis Nexis Statistical (not free)
http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/1univ/stat/default.asp
Part of many academic LexisNexis packages, LexisNexis Statistical offers
an interface that allows you to search across numerous statistical sources.
OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development) (some
free)
http://www.oecd.org
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is a big
source of global macroeconomic and trade data. Some reports and data
are available for free. Click on the Statistics link on their main page to see
a list of all the categories of statistics they cover.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) (some free)
http://www.imf.org/
The IMF is another respected source for global financial and economic
data.
World Bank (some free)
http://www.worldbank.org/
Another source for global financial and economic data.
Metro Chicago Facts Online
http://info.mcfol.org/www/Datainfo/MapReports/mapreports.asp
The Metro Chicago Facts Online site is a great example of local statistical
information. Working in Chicago libraries, I get a lot of questions about
specific neighborhoods and demographic and statistical data for them--this
site breaks it out nicely and even covers surrounding counties. For some
reason, not a lot of people know about this source, so look around and
make sure you're not missing some local resource that can help make
your search for statistics easier.
Investing
Many investors want to research where to put their money. Learning about a
company or industry can help someone decide whether or not to invest in a
public company’s stock or an investment fund. Stock performance is one factor
that can be used to evaluate a public company or compare it against competitors.
For a basic overview of how the stock market works, check out this site from How
Stuff Works: http://money.howstuffworks.com/stock.htm.
All publicly traded companies have what are known as Ticker symbols (from the
ticker tape that used to be generated in print back in the early days of stock
exchanges). These are one, two, three, and sometimes four or five-letter codes
that are a company's unique identifier on a particular exchange. Most stock price
resources have a ticker symbol search field and it's often best to have the ticker
at hand to quickly pinpoint the company you're looking for.
Many free online sites give basic data, e.g. Yahoo Finance and MSNMoney.
Many fee-based online services also have some free content, e.g. Value Line,
Morningstar. In general, you'll find a source that you like to use best for quick
searches and perhaps others for more in-depth questions. We'll take a look at
some of these on the Investment Sources page.
Most analyst and other packaged data comes at a cost, though many investors
are looking for input on a stock's past performance and predictions on how it will
fare in the future. Keep in mind that we are not investment advisors, but rather
referers to sources of investment information. And, of course, use your own
discretion when taking stock advice from a patron--when I worked at the public
library I once had a patron at the desk who spoke very knowledgeably about a
few stocks and explained clearly why I should seriously think about investing in
them. He then slowly lifted the teddy bear he had been holding the whole time
out of my view and said, "This is Benjamin. He's who told me about those
stocks." Then he turned and went on about the rest of his day. Sometimes I miss
the public library!
Other investment options:
Shares of company stock are one of the most common, although not the only,
investment option.
Bonds
Bonds are similar to stock, only they generally involve less risk. And rather than
purchasing shares in a company, a bond serves more as a loan that you are
providing at a certain interest rate. Here's an overview from How Stuff Works:
http://money.howstuffworks.com/question723.htm
Mutual Funds
Mutual funds are large pools of money managed by an investment company. For a
basic overview of Mutual Funds, check out this site from How Stuff Works:
http://money.howstuffworks.com/question727.htm
Money Market
Investing in a money market as an individual investor generally means that you
are placing your money in an account for a set period of time during which will it
will be used by either banks or governments or other large institutions to lend and
borrow things like bonds, treasury bills or something known as “commercial
paper” [company debt]. You wont' have access to this money, but it will accrue
interest at a higher rate. For a basic overview of the Money Market, check out this
site from Investopedia.com: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/071304.asp
Commodities & Futures
Commodities markets set prices now to sell an item, i.e. commodities such as
wheat, metals, etc., at a later time. For a quick overview of the commodities
market, check out this site from a trading company called Great Pacific:
http://www.futuresbasics.com/Futures_Secrets/Futures_Tools/Trading_Basics.ht
m
A note about name changes and defunct/merged company
considerations
Often a patron will ask for stock price information on a company that has either
gone bankrupt or merged with another company. This can pose a problem
because many sources of company information, at least many of the free online
ones, will often pull a defunct company's information from their system since they
will no longer have an active ticker symbol.
For example, AOL merged with Time/Warner (and Time and Warner Bros. before
this) back in early 2001 and if you try to find a stock price for AOL after that date
there won't be one since AOL as such doesn't exist anymore. In many systems
that collect stock price info (both free and fee-based), trying to look up an earlier
stock price from when AOL *did* exist won't work, either, because defunct tickers
are dropped. That means AOL is gone completely now.
In another, more recent example, Kmart merged in March 2005 with Sears to
form a new company called Sears Holding Corp. Now Kmart's old ticker, KM, has
been dropped from many systems and Sears' old ticker, S, has already been
taken by Sprint Nextel Corp (and, yes, Sprint Nextel is the result of a merger
between Sprint and Nextel that took place about 5 months after Sears became
Sears Holding).
So, if a company's stock price or other information seems to be especially difficult
to track down:

Do some background checking and other sleuthing
look for articles or the Who Owns Whom directory (noted in the Company Info
Sources section) to start looking for some clues on the company's past and present
situation.


Turn to print stock report guides like the S&P sources or to the Wall Street
Journal or another newspaper's stock pages on microfilm (see the next page on
Investment Sources for more info on these).
Try a source like Thomson OneBanker or Business & Company Resource Center
Thomson OneBanker includes inactive companies (although not historical stock
prices). And Business & Company Resource Center (or some of the print
resources it contains like the International Directory of Company Histories,) may
have entries on these now defunct companies (these two databases were noted in
the Company Info Sources section)
Two sources that can be helpful when researching historical stocks
Capital Changes Reports (CCH)
Each entry in Capital Changes contains a chronological history of the stock's
changes in corporate capital structure, including name changes, mergers, spinoffs, bankruptcy filings, stock splits, and other information which may help to
determine an old stock's current worth. It is arranged alphabetically by company.
References to name changes are noted, sometimes leading the researcher to a
"dead-end" such as a bankruptcy notice, and other times resulting in an entry in
which the stock is traded under a different name.
Directory of Obsolete Securities (Financial Information, Inc.)
This "contains a brief profile of banks and companies whose original identities
have been lost as a result of...change in name, merger, acquisition, dissolution,
reorganization, bankruptcy, chapter cancellation." As the title implies, if your
company is listed in this directory, chances are that it is currently worthless,
although in some cases it may have some remaining value. This book includes
company information from 1926 through the present.
Now let's take a look at some sources of investment information...
Investing/Stock Market Resources
Here are some (mostly online) resources that can help you examine stock prices
and related information or just learn about the stock market and other investment
areas. You'll find that you can get some of the same basic stock data in a lot of
places for free online but that if you want to get historical prices or find defunct
companies, you'll have to dig a little.
Investor Education sites:
Investor’s Clearinghouse
http://www.investoreducation.org/
The Investor’s Clearinghouse offers reports and other information on
consumer finance issues such as compulsive buying, senior investment
fraud, retirement savings and home equities. The Investor’s
Clearinghouse is produced by the Alliance for Investor Education, a
nonprofit group comprised of finance-related associations and other
groups and is advised by the Federal Trade Commission, the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Securities and Exchange
Commission's Office of Investor Education and Assistance and other
reputable investment-related organizations. RSS feeds are available and
highlight news and services offered by the members and advisors of the
Alliance for Investor Education.
Path to Investing
http://www.pathtoinvesting.org
Path to Investing is also an objective, investor education Web site. It is
managed by the Foundation for Investor Education. Path to Investing
features what they call “guided trips” where industry experts write on
topics such as bond investment, evaluating risk and return and
understanding home ownership. A “vantage point” section provides
beginning investment information for individual investors and for families.
Path to Investing’s core content breaks out topics like investment goals,
investing essentials and how the markets work, among areas. A stock
market simulation game called the Investor Challenge is also included.
Motley Fool's "Fool School" (free registration required)
http://www.fool.com/school.htm
This is a great site for personal edification as well as to point patrons to if
they'd like to learn a little about investing and some of the various markets.
Money Chimp
http://www.moneychimp.com
This is a fun site that has some great overviews of the stock market plus
other financial and economic topics. My favorite feature is their "Chimp-ago-go" which you can click to learn something random everyday!
CNN Money
http://money.cnn.com/
Billing itself as the "internet home of Fortune and Money" magazine,
among others, the CNN Money site covers all of the markets and provides
numerous tutorials and overviews of finance-related topics.
Yahoo! Finance
http://finance.yahoo.com/
Yahoo! Finance was also mentioned in the company information section.
It's a fairly straightforward site to turn to for easy-to-manipulate stock
information, including historical coverage and the ability to compare
across companies and/or indices. There are additional features like
tutorials on personal finance and the stock market.
Sources of Stock Information
You can get free stock price information from a number of online sources. Some
will point to additional fee-based information and you'll find that you like some
more than others due to their interface, lack of pop-ups, historical coverage,
ability to export to excel, etc. Try a few to see which ones work the best for you.
S & P NetAdvantage--Stock Reports (not free) SANDBOX!
http://www.netadvantage.standardpoor.com
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage includes Stock Reports for publicly
traded companies.
Stock Basics from Investopedia.com
http://www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/
A good place to learn the basics of stocks from what they are to how
they're traded.
BigCharts
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/
Big Charts offers company and industry information, interactive charts and
news services, and historical quotes (for non-defunct companies). This
site also offers lists of the best and worst performing industries based on
stock price percent changes. A great free resource for building
comparative charts of stocks and indices.
Value Line (not free)
http://www.valueline.com/
Value Line products are common in most public and academic library
settings and are used by personal investors and company researchers
alike because of their proprietary rankings, ratings and analysis.. The
Value Line Investment Survey covers about 135 stocks in seven or eight
industries every week. The Small & Mid-Cap supplement covers about
2000 additional smaller companies.
Zack's.com (some free)
http://my.zacks.com
Zack's pulls together data feeds and printed research reports on over
10,000 companies from over 185 brokerage firms. They also record over
25,000 earnings estimate revisions and changes in broker
recommendations weekly.
Bloomberg.com (some free)
www.bloomberg.com
Bloomberg was founded and still majority-owned by New York City mayor
Michael Bloomberg. It provides financial news and data through its
proprietary, stand-alone Bloomberg Terminal. Full access to Bloomberg
data offers coverage of almost every kind of financial data out there, not
just stock information.
Individual exchanges and indices also have information on their sites. Here are
some examples:
 New York Stock Exchange
http://www.nyse.com/home.html
 Standard & Poor's indices (some free)
www.standardandpoors.com/
 Russell U.S. Equity Indexes
http://www.russell.com/us/indexes/us/default.asp
Stocks & Commodity Exchanges
http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/busi/stocks.shtml
This site from Rutgers University lists stock and commodity exchanges
worldwide (including those dealing in futures, options, and derivatives) as
well as sources for market and stock prices and reports.
Initial Public Offerings or IPO's
IPO Basics from Investopedia.com
http://www.investopedia.com/university/ipo/
Start here to learn about IPO's and why they're focused on by many
investors.
Hoover's Online IPO Central
http://www.hoovers.com/global/ipoc/index.xhtml
IPO Central covers UScompanies that have recently gone public or filed to
go public. This service links the user to a subset of entries from the
Hoover's Online site and to S-1 filings from EDGAR Online. Companies
covered include those that initially filed with the SEC on or after May 6,
1996, the first day that all US companies were required to file
electronically. Listings are removed from IPO Central approximately six
months after they have begun trading on a stock exchange.
Yahoo! IPOs
http://biz.yahoo.com/ipo/
A quick snapshot of best and worst performing IPO's and easy-to-navigate
lists and other data.
Sources of Bond Information
S & P NetAdvantage--Bond Reports (not free) SANDBOX!
http://www.netadvantage.standardpoor.com
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage pulls together a number of their print
publications, including Bond Reports that contain corporate bond data and
ratings.
Bond Market Association
http://www.bondmarkets.com/
The Bond Market Association is a good place to start your search for bond
related data. Check out their Investinginbonds.com site linked under "our
other sites" for more information
Bonds Online
http://www.bondsonline.com/
This site covers US corporate bonds, US Municipal bonds, US Treasury
and Federal Agency securities, bond funds, and convertible bonds.
Investinginbonds.com
http://www.investinginbonds.com/
Another good site for learning about bonds
Yahoo! Bonds Center
http://bonds.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Bonds Center has some bond research information as well as
some great explanations of all things bond related under their Bonds 101
Overview section.
CNN Bonds and Rates
http://money.cnn.com/markets/bondcenter/
Another option for getting quick bond data or some basic explanations of
bonds and bond markets.
Sources of Mutual Fund Information
S & P NetAdvantage--Fund Reports (not free) SANDBOX!
http://www.netadvantage.standardpoor.com
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage pulls together a number of their print
publications, including their Fund Reports.
MorningStar (not free) SANDBOX!
http://www.morningstar.com/
Morningstar provides investment research on all kinds of investment
offerings, but one of the areas they are known for is their mutual fund
research. Their print publications are often available in a public library
setting.
Yahoo! Mutual Fund Center
http://finance.yahoo.com/funds
Information on particular funds, quick looks at best performers and lots of
links to overviews of mutual funds and how they work.
Brill's Mutual Funds Interactive Fund
http://www.fundsinteractive.com/
An all-mutual-funds, all-the-time site, Brills offers advice on investing in
mutual funds and articles that explain mutual funds in clear terms.
Value Line Mutual Fund Survey (not free)
Rankings on over 7,000 mutual funds, full reports including analyst
commentaries for an additional 1,500 leading funds, and profile summary
reports on over 10,000 mutual funds.
Fund Alarm
http://www.fundalarm.com/
Ratings on lots of mutual funds with a focus on illustrating when it's time to
sell a fund, versus funds to buy.
ICI Mutual Funds Connection
http://www.ici.org/
Published by the Investment Company Institute, this informative site
enhances public understanding of the investment company industry and
the policy issues that affect it, particularly those involving legislation and
regulation, the U.S. economy, and retirement security. Click on their
Statistics and Research link for lots more info, including .pdf versions of
the Mutual Fund Factbook.
Sources of Commodities & Futures Information
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
http://www.cftc.gov/cftc/cftchome.htm
The CFTC is to commodities as the SEC is to stocks. According to their
web site: "the CFTC assures the economic utility of the futures markets by
encouraging their competitiveness and efficiency, ensuring their integrity,
protecting market participants against manipulation, abusive trading
practices, and fraud, and ensuring the financial integrity of the clearing
process." Their web site has a lot of information on commodities markets,
including a handy glossary.
Chicago Board of Trade
http://www.cbot.com/
CBOT is one of the largest commodities futures exchange organizations in
the world. More than 3,600 CBOT member/stockholders trade 50 different
futures and options products at the CBOT by open auction and
electronically. Over 674 million contracts were recorded in 2005 here.
Rutgers’ Guide to Stock & Commodity Exchanges
www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/busi/stocks.shtml
This Webguide lists stock and commodity exchanges, including those
dealing in futures, options, and derivatives, as well as sources for market
and stock prices and reports.
Historical Stock Information & General Stock/Bond Sources
Some web sites like Big Charts and Yahoo! Finance will give you data going
back a few years. For older data, Mergent (Moody's) manuals can be useful if
you don't need daily prices but are looking for a ballpark estimate. Use old Wall
Street Journals or other newspaper stock pages for daily stock prices--watch out
for name changes of companies as well as acquisitions, etc. (See the previous
page in this module for more info on historical stock research).
Some Print Resources




Daily Stock Price Record (from S&P)
Stocks, Bonds, Bills and Inflation (SBBI) from Ibbotson
CRB Commodity Yearbook (from Commodity Research Bureau)
Investment Statistics Locator
Course review and some final thoughts on doing
business reference
Let's review what this course has covered
Business reference questions generally can be broken down into one or more
of the following core topics:
Company Information
Industry Information
Marketing, Demographic or Statistical Information
Investment Information
Business reference question sources will generally cover one or more of the
following:
News/Trade/Research Articles
Industry or company reports
Statistics
Raw data
Directory data
Market Share/Rankings
Private company information
Global/International Information
A successful business reference interaction will involve identifying the core
information required and the type of source (or combination of sources) that
will be likely to have it



A thorough reference interview is crucial
Many business reference questions will require looking through multiple sources
in order to find an answer
Not every business reference question, especially as asked, can be answered.
When faced with a BRQ, step back and examine it




Is the patron looking for company or industry info? Demographics or statistics?
Marketing or international or investment information? All of the above?
Start with your favorites or '"usual suspects."
Find clues and use them to guide the rest of your research.
Leverage your reference skills and have fun digging!
Above all...don't be afraid to ask for help!




Talk to your coworkers and run your question by them--Tag-team business
reference is not only fun but often more successful than slogging through a query
alone
Call associations or other experts
Take advantage of some of the groups listed on the next page...
Remember that business reference is like any skill...it takes time and practice to
become familiar with the resources and processes. And even the most seasoned of
business researchers will tell you that they learn something new almost every day,
so don't get discouraged if sometimes it seems overwhelming--make that call, ask
for that help!
Now let's take a look at a few other places to look for clues and/or ask for
assistance...
Other Useful Tips and Resources
Here are some other sites that may be useful to you:
BusLib (email group)
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/buslib-l.html
I can't tell you how many times a Buslib member has saved me hours of
searching. Sign up for the Buslib digest and see the kinds of questions
that are asked (and answered!) by other helpful business librarians. Once
you've signed up, you can also search the archives to see if you can find
any helpful pointers. Great for business stumpers.
BRASS (Business Reference and Services Section of ALA's RUSA)
http://www.ala.org/rusa/brass/
If you're not already, you may want to consider becoming a member of
BRASS. The BRASS site has a number of helpful links to not only the
Best of the Best Business Web Sites and the Core Competencies for
Business Reference, but also to handouts and presentations from the
BRASS Program held each year at the ALA Annual Conference. Check it
out!
SLA Business & Finance Division
http://www.sla.org/content/community/units/divs/division.cfm
The Special Libraries Association has a number of active members in its
Business & Finance Division. You can join and sign up for their emails
(and there are usually local groups as well, e.g. SLA Business & Finance
Illinois). A great addition to your business reference support group
network.
Business Information Alert (print journal)
http://www.alertpub.com/hpbia.html
This journal is also available either indexed or full-text through a couple of
different databases, including Business & Company Resource Center.
Their web site hasn't been kept very up-to-date (I'm not sure why) but the
actual publication is worth a look if you have it at your institution or access
through a database. Articles on business topics and lots of reviews on
business books and other resources. If you're interested in becoming a
reviewer, this is a good journal to get your feet wet in.
Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship
http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JBFL/
Another great journal for getting reviews of new resources and just
keeping on top of the business research scene.
Gary Price's List of Lists and Resource Shelf
http://www.specialissues.com/lol/
http://www.resourceshelf.com/
Gary Price's List of Lists was briefly mentioned in the Industry research
section, but I wanted to highlight it here again as a place worth checking
out for clues of all kinds. And ResourceShelf is another great place to go
to see all kinds of new stuff that's out there--the editors of ResourceShelf
do the internet scouring for you and highlight what's out there that you
might want to check out. You can sign up for a digest version if that helps
you to keep up.
Steven Bell's Keeping Up Web Site
http://staff.philau.edu/bells/keepup/
If nothing else, this Business Reference 101 course has probably given
you more things to try to keep up with and learn about than you already
had to deal with. This page alone is giving you all kinds of resources to try
to stay on top of! Steven Bell's Keeping Up site offers a lot of useful tips on
how to stay ahead of the floodwaves of information that are constantly
barraging all of us. Worth the time it takes to sort through to get a few
ideas that will work for you.
Mary Ellen Bates' Tip of the Month
http://www.batesinfo.com/tip.html
Another helpful site to help you save time, all while on your way to
becoming a super searcher. While not specifically business-focused, Mary
Ellen Bates is an independent researcher who has a lot of great ideas for
sifting through piles of business haystacks.
ExLibris
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/index.html
Marylaine Block is a member of the Supersearching elite. Her ExLibris
web site offers helpful insights into all kinds of things, including the
occasional business research development (although this isn't specifically
a business research related site)--she passes along search tips, favorite
sites and "neat new stuff" that she found that week. Worth a look.
Search engines, the invisible web & other search tips
Another area that could have an entire course devoted to it. Without going into
too much detail, here are some "invisible web" and other search resources to put
into your arsenal. While most are not specifically business oriented, becoming a
master or mistress of searching the internet can only help you in your business
reference skills.
The Wayback Machine
http://www.archive.org/
While on the surface, this web site seems to have nothing to do with
business reference, I have found it has come in handy on numerous
occasions when trying to get a glimpse of what a company's web site once
looked like. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine will show you links
from past "snapshots" of how various url's once looked. Try a search on
www.enron.com. An example of a site you can use to "think creatively"
when doing business reference.
Teoma
http://www.teoma.com
Teoma is a search engine that clusters it's results into categories so you
can quickly weed out results for a search on bonds into "corporate bonds"
"james bond" "chemical bonds" etc.
Clusty
http://clusty.com/
Despite its slightly disgusting-sounding name, Clusty is another "cluster
engine" worth trying out.
Vivisimo
http://vivisimo.com/
Another clustering, categorizing search engine. Test them out and see
which one you like best.
Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com/
Let's face it--as librarians today we spend *a lot* of time searching the web
using search engines. Keep up on these tools of the trade here and find
out everything from search tips to search engine ratings to search engine
news.
Don't forget business school library sites and other library sites. Here are a few:
Harvard's Baker Library
http://www.library.hbs.edu/
In addtion to some great business guides and other tips, one feature I use
on this site is to check on the "new books at the Baker Library." Click on
Books to get to this link and see what they're collecting.
Lippincott Library @ Wharton
http://www.library.upenn.edu/lippincott/
Check out their Business Database Wizard for some great ideas and also
use their Business FAQ to see if they can help you answer your own
question.
Michigan's Kresge Business Library
http://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgeLibrary/
Check out their cool Database Finder. Or find something in their collection
of working papers. Or use their version of the "Business FAQ" by clicking
on Find.It.Fast!
Library of Congress: Business Reference Service
http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/
This is a useful resource on researching Business & Economics from the
LOC.
Librarians Index to the Internet
http://www.lii.org/search/file/busfinjobs
All kinds of categories to all kinds of links on various business topics.
Maintained and updated by the LII team--Business is only one of *many*
topics they cover.
Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org
Check out the IPL's links to business topics. Another good source for
browsing at the top-level.
MIT's Library Subject Guides
http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/bus-man/index.html
Another resource for great business subject guides.
Georgetown's Business Intelligence Center
http://www.library.georgetown.edu/bic/
Georgetown offers another site full of useful business research tips and
guides. And don't forget to check out their Help sheets for business
databases, a collection of links to "cheat sheets" for business databases.
A good place to go if you're trying to figure out a tricky database and don't
want to re-create the wheel.
Bizlink from The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County
http://www.bizlink.org/
A great business reference site from a public library. A good place to turn
when you're tired of being pointed to fee-based resources that you don't
subscribe to.
Print guides to Business Research and Resources
The focus on this page has been primarily internet-based resources, but a good
reference book sometimes can't be beat. Here are some staples that should be in
most large libraries' business reference reference collections:



Strauss's Handbook of Business Information : A Guide for Librarians, Students,
and Researchers (Rita W. Moss, Libraries Unlimited, 2004).
Business Information, How to Find It, How to Use It by Michael Lavin (Oryx
1992, 3rd ed. forthcoming?)
Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources (14th edition, Gale 2000)



Basic Business Library by Karp and Schlessinger (Oryx 2002)
Industry Research Using the Economic Census (Jennifer Boettcher, Greenwood
Press, 2004)
Business Statistics on the Web (Paula Berenstein, CyberAge Books 2003)
Business 101 is almost over! Let's take a look at some final thoughts...
Final thoughts on Business Reference 101
I really hope you enjoyed taking this class as much as I have enjoyed developing
it and working with all of you! As I mentioned back in the beginning, no single
course on any topic, is going to make you an expert overnight, but I hope you
now feel like you're ready to refer to yourself as someone who knows (at least) *a
little* about business reference.
One of the best ways to stay sharp and keep some of these newly-found skills
honed is to be aware--business is going on all around you and you're a part of it.
Whenever you fill your car with gas or buy groceries or take an airplane
somewhere or go to the movies, or choose a healthcare or retirement plan, you
are participating in "the market." Maybe you're a shareholder. Maybe you're an
employee. We are all consumers and we are all some kind of demographic (and
so much more, of course). So try to keep up on the business news in the papers
and in general try to recognize all of the business and economic activity going on
around you. This shouldn't be hard--librarians are naturally curious and now you
know you don't have to be afraid of business just because it's business.
Take advantage of the many resources that are out there to help you--sign up for
BusLib, take a look at some other business library sites and see what you can
maybe bring back to your institution. And if it's awhile before your next wave of
business reference questions and you forget some of what you've learned here,
don't hesitate to ask for assistance.
Good luck!!!