Economy

Remember to use our resources like Lexis Nexis, ABI/Inform, and Business Source Premier to get immediate, current, and global coverage of our current economic crisis.

New Items in our Collection

Good news, we recently made room in the budget for the following items:

• Ad Expenditure Summary Book
  
• MRI University Internet Reporter
  
• BizMiner
  
• Journal of Trading
  

I will make an announcement when all of these items are fully available.

Steps to segmenting research

Steps to segmenting research

Posted using ShareThis

New Library Website

Take a look at the new library website that we hope to release soon. The Business page is located under the "libraries and collections" link.

You can also let us know what doesn't work by emailing me.

Falvey Memorial Library

Course Blogs

I just finished building a course blog for the SBI here at Villanova.

Its full of links, videos, downloads, and a slideshow. Hopefully it will develop into a great mode of instructional delivery.

Global Insight

An interesting item.

Wesabe bills itself as a social networking tool that helps you manage your personal finances.

Just testing out this...

Just testing out this new idea. listen

Powered by Jott

Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources

In most cases you will find that this title is far better than simply using a web search engine.

We are proud to announce the online availability of the Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources.

News on the horizon

We are getting a new look for next semester.

Watch as the new website evolves.

Interesting website.

I haven't had the luxury of being able to fully evaluate the content of this website, but it still seems interesting in these days of political debates.

Darfur Scorecard

Open Office Hours

Open walk in hours for Bartley Hall 2008 have been concluded with the closing of the semester. We are all still available in Falvey Memorial Library, just call or email one of the business team to set up a time and location to meet.

Enjoy the summer, congratulations to our graduates.

Energy Policy

I used ABI/Inform to find this article from the New York Times.

Thomas L. Friedman (2008, April 30). Dumb as We Wanna Be :[Op-Ed]. New York Times
(Late Edition (east Coast)), p. A.19.

I am also looking for any articles that might discuss candidate positions on public transportation infrastructure. If anyone can find any, please email them to me so that they can be posted here, unless you prefer traffic jams.

Online data for U.S. Port traffic

Did you ever want to rank U.S. waterways by container traffic? What about foreign loaded container traffic?

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers makes this data available to you for free. Enjoy it.

Gartner Group Intraweb

Have you ever found the Gartner interface to be difficult to search? I have, and I have found a solution.

For example, guess which folder might contain the research you are looking for?

Research
Topic Areas
Business Objectives
Computing Hardware
Software Infrastructure
Business Applications
Application Development
Communications Services
Communications Equipment
IT Services
IT Management
Technology, Society and Public Policy
Semiconductors


Forget it, each of those folders contains more folders. You have to dig and dig, "as deeply as you'd like" according to Gartner...

Try going to their commercial website, Gartner.com and there you can do a search more easily. Remember we only get reports from Oct. 2005-September 2006 so much of what you find on the commercial site won't be available to you.

However, when you do find a report that you think you'd like to check, note the primary (first) author's name or the date of publication. Go back our academic interface and search by Author or Date, since you now know both of those little details.

Access to databases

On Sunday, April 6th, we detected a problem with off-campus and out of library access to our web based research tools (ie, databases). UNIT has been made aware of and is working on this problem at this time.

Please call (610) 519-4270 for research assistance at this time, and until access is restored.

This issue should be corrected at this time. (4:00pm, 4/7/08)

Using the Blackberry

I am, along with two other research librarians, testing the usefulness and functionality of the Blackberry 8820. It's not perfect, but by and large I am finding that it is extremely useful. Many of the students who contact me are very surprised with how quickly I am able to reply. I am able to do this with little or no sacrifice on my part as well, and if it is really is a vacation day or a holiday I just turn it off and pretend that it is locked back at my office and attached to the wall with a wire.

I think that librarians deserve mobile telephones, email, and web browsing capability so that we can stay in touch without having to remain seated next to our wall mounted telephones.

Anyway, today's Wall Street Journal (3.31.08) has an article about the emerging technology that will be coming soon to mobile telephone communications. Here is the citation to that article:

Jessica E. Vascellaro (2008, March 31). Technology (A Special Report); Coming Soon to a Phone Near You: Your cellphone is about to get a lot smarter; Here's what to expect in the months ahead. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. R.1. Retrieved March 31, 2008, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1454142301).

I will take this opportunity to instruct the Villanova community by telling you that the full text of the Wall Street Journal is available via ABI/Inform Proquest. Look it up there yourselves.

I would like to know how much a mobile telephone costs to acquire, operate, and maintain compared to the traditional non-mobile wall / desk mounted unit with the cords and big, easy to read, buttons.

Manufacturing Costs

Lots of questions about this recently...

I have two really good sources, ThomasNet and Alibaba, but you need to learn jargon for material types, sizes, thicknesses, colors, how many you are planning to order, shapes, colors, coatings...

You can get a lot of this background data from reviewing similar patents and from reading articles related to your product in trade publications.

Addendum to International Trade

For those of you that need to know about what products your target country trades or doesn't trade with the United States. Foreign Trade Statistics by Country from the US Bureau of the Census should be just the ticket. Use either SITA or NAICS interactive queries.

International Economics/Trade Data

A few students in a section of International Economics have contacted Bartley Business Info Center and Falvey Memorial Library looking for detailed export statistics for European countries. Most of our statistical databases (Global Insight, EIU, GMID, World Bank) simply offer time series of overall trade. The country profiles offered by EIU, and Datamonitor through MarketLine briefly mention key trade partners and top commodities exported but don't provide extensive data. OffStats a portal for authoritative statistics by country often links to foreign language sources

The United Nations International Trade Center offers excellent tables of exports by product group for many countries in English. Use the drop down menu to choose your target country and link to the export statistical table. This resource may be your best bet for this assignment. Besides offering basic statistics, the ITC offers trade competitiveness rankings by commodity.

Business Research FAQ

Computer technicians at Falvey Memorial Library are working on creating something similar to this Research FAQ but until they are finished with that effort I have built a very simple Business Research FAQ using free software called del.icio.us and I hope that you find it useful.

I even tagged resources that are extremely useful to particular classes, like MKT 1137, MGMT 1102.

Check it out:

Business Research FAQ

del.icio.us links

Management 1102 Surveys

Many of you have seen and replied to the Library Use survey in your 1102 WebCT pages. Thank you. If you haven't seen the survey but still think that you can make a valuable contribution that will improve library services to yourself and other students just email me and I will send you a copy of the survey.

Also, for MGMT 1102 students, don't forget that you have resource guide online as well as an entire list of tagged resources under the Business Research FAQ.

Library Workout Video