new books added to stock in March 2013

To see new books added to stock in the Library, open the Classic catalogue, select Useful Links and finally New Titles.

New databases for company and industry research

This year we have access to two new databases, one for market research, the other for company information.

Global Business Intelligence (also known as GBI Research) was purchased as a replacement for Business Insights. This database provides analysis of industry-shaping issues worldwide through key data and forecasts. The industry coverage matches that of Business Insights, with a focus on:

• Pharmaceuticals
• Medical Equipment
• Oil & Gas
• Chemicals
• Clean Technology
• Power
• Semiconductors
• Mining

Reports can be viewed online, downloaded as a whole into Microsoft Office, or you can select tables and data to download individually.

Global Company Intelligence offers detailed company reports across a broad range of markets and industries.

The available content for each company can be seen at a glance in the results list from the following icons:

The different types of content available are:
C = Company information, facts and figures
$ = Detailed financial information and ratios
S = Detailed SWOT analysis for the company
P = Premium, in-depth company intelligence
N = News stories relating to the company
D = Deals coverage relating to the company

The financial and SWOT benchmarking tool allows you to compare of custom lists of companies based on criteria such as industry, location, revenue and market cap.

Both databases can be accessed by current Warwick staff and students via Encore.

Marketline Country Statistics

I have blogged previously about accessing economic data through the Library’s subscription to Global Market Information Database (GMID). You now have another option for quick access to economic data, this time from Marketline’s Country Statistics database.

This is a part of the Marketline subscription that is often missed, because it is not accessible from the main search or browse functions. Instead, you need to access the separate Country Statistics product through the database menu.

If you’ve used GMID for economic data before then the process for making a request will be familiar to you. First select the country or countries you are interested in, then the economic indicators. For most indicators you will have a choice of the absolute value or % growth. Finally you can choose to view the results as a table, which can be downloaded to Excel, or analyse the results and create various charts from the data.

Warwick staff and students can access Marketline from Encore.

Company Reporting

Company Reporting provides analysis of the financial reporting practices of public companies. This great resource gives access to:

‘CR Monitor’, which covers analysis of the IFRS financial statements of all major public companies. The reports are on individual companies and highlight significant changes in practice, divergence from best practice, inconsistency from rules and restatements of prior year ends.

‘CR Common Practices’, which tracks reporting practices across a wide sample of companies and provides topical analysis on how companies are interpreting accounting standards.

‘CR Emerging Issues’, which provides analysis of changes and trends in reporting practice.

‘CR Extracts’, which links to extracts from recent company reports that are used as evidence in the topical reports elsewhere in the database.

The reports can be searched from the database homepage by keyword, company, country or industry classification among other terms. Search tips are provided on the results screen along with filters to help refine your results. You can also browse reports under each of the content sections outlined above.

Company Reporting can be accessed by staff and students at Warwick from Encore and the Business Databases list.

Visual apps in GMID

Over the past week you may have noticed that the Global Market Information Database homepage has had a redesign. From the main section you can now easily access the menu search and create a My Pages profile.

What you may not have found are the new visual apps that offer a different way of viewing the available data.

The apps are accessible when browsing under the Industries and, Countries and Consumers menus and can be accessed using the menu shown on the left.

The data can be visualised in one of three categories:

• industry overview
• companies and brands
• countries overview

Within each app there is a guide that shows you how to sort the data by different variables.

Videos from the IMF

The IMF produces a range of videos which seek to provide context to current economic issues around the world. They range from videos like “What is Money?” from the Back to Basics series, to updates from the IMF’s Annual and Spring meetings.

All videos can be accessed from the IMF’s YouTube channel.

The latest video asks “Can women save Japan (and Asia too)?

New business and economics tutorial

For the start of the new academic year we have revamped the online tutorial for students of business and economics. The new look tutorial has three sections:

1. Search techniques
   Through this section you will learn the first steps of developing a search strategy to find books and journal articles. Starting with the basics from Get Started and moving on to look at the process of literature searching.
2. Identifying resources
   This section will point you to sources of data, including: economic, social and panel, financial and market research. In addition to links to the key resources in these areas there are guides and video demos to help you use them.
3. Referencing: why and how?
   Once you have found information to use for your assignments you need to know how to give correct attribution to your sources. In this section you will discover why referencing is important, and
   how to use referencing styles correctly.