Guardian Data Store

The Guardian’s DataStore is an example of data journalism, where stories are generated from data available on a particular topic. Now that there is a move towards open data with governments and institutions opening up their statistics the scope for this form of journalism is growing. The Guardian presents the data they are collecting in a variety of formats, from interactive charts and blog posts to spreadsheets. All can be accessed from the DataStore’s hompage. For example, this interactive guide to government spending:

One great feature of the DataStore is the ability to search government data for countries, cities and states around the world via the Global Development gateway. This data is collected from sources such as the IMF, World Bank and United Nations.

You can also view a list of all of the Guardian’s data blog posts and spreadsheets in one table. This is really useful to see the range of topics covered.

How to access analyst reports

Analyst reports on companies and industries are available through Thomson One Banker. The video below shows you how to log in to Thomson One Banker and search for analyst reports for a specific company:

You can also search for analyst reports by industry. To do this follow the link under Research in the Company Analysis menu to Conduct Research Report Search. You can then add criteria to your search including the industry, region and type of report:

Industry Search - selecting search criteria

Industry Search - adding search criteria

Datastream Navigator updates

In the past few weeks the Datastream Navigator has been updated to version 4.2. With this comes a number of changes to the way you search and browse for series and datatypes. This post covers the main changes:

The Explorer function that was available for Data Categories such as Economics has been incorporated into the main search:

Default Search

Explore Economics

The default search provides a variety of options for refining your results including by source, frequency and adjustment:

Refine Results

You can preview a series and view charts of key datatypes by selecting it in the results list:

Series Preview

More detailed information about the enhancements can be found on the Datastream Extranet which is accessible from within the Excel Add-in (you will need to register for a free account).

A short video introducing the enhancements can also be viewed on the Thomson Reuters Knowledge Network. And an updated Datastream factsheet to help you get started can be found on the Library website.

Finding journal articles that Warwick does not subscribe to

My colleague Jenny Delasalle has written a very useful post on finding the full-text of journal articles that you cannot access through the Library’s subscriptions. Her top tips are:

• if you know the article title and author then try Google – there may just be a free copy available somewhere
• try searching for an open access version using BASE to cross-search institutional repositories
• submit a Document Supply request (for this you will need the support and signature of a supervisor)

You can read Jenny’s full post on the Library Research Support blog.

Finding international economic data with Global Market Information Database

Chad Boeninger, the Business & Economics Subject Specialist at Ohio University Libraries has created this great video showing how to easily find international economic data with Global Market Information Database.

Warwick staff and students can access Global Market Information Database from the Library Catalogue.

Business case studies

I often get asked for help finding case studies on various topics. Here are a few tips for searching for case studies:

• A lot of books available in the Library contain case studies. To find these try adding “case studies” to a keyword search on the Library Catalogue.
• You can search for journal articles containing case studies in a similar way. Add “case studies” to your search on e-journals databases like Business Source Premier or ABI/Inform Global. Alternatively look for an option to limit your search by selecting “case study” as the Document Type.

There are also a lot of case studies available for free online. They are often written by teaching staff in business schools or researcher centre staff. We’ve grouped together some useful links under the case-studies tag on the warwickbuslib Delicious account.

UN commodities data in COMTRADE

There seem to be problems in retrieving commodities data from UN COMTRADE through ESDS (Economic and Social Data Service). However, if you go directly to the website it is working correctly. if you have not used this database before, it is worth a look!

Update (23/01/12): The link to COMTRADE from ESDS is now working again!