Business Information Sources 2

BUSINESS INFORMATION SOURCES MODULE 2: SEEKING FOR BUSINESS INFORMATION – SELECTED WEB-BASED INFORMATION RESOURCES EnIL International School on „Business Information Literacy”, 13-17 October 2008, Rome, Italy Dr. Sabina Cisek Associate Professor Institute of Information and Library Science, Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland

The Module 2 structure and content

Seeking for business information – selected Web-based information resources

Part A: Getting started

Part B: Company information

Part C: Financial information

Part D : Markets, marketing and international trade information

Part A: Getting started

Web searching tips

General Internet resources

Business information „starting points”

Business dictionaries, encyclopedias, glossaries

Web searching tips

Do not rely on a single source

You need to cross-check information

What if it would be out of service?

There are millions of search engines and other search services – global and local, general-purpose and specialized – not only Google 

Do not believe in everything – evaluate information and Websites

Use searching functionalities – advanced search, Boolean connectors, help, operators (+, -, define), phrase searching, etc.

Discussion: How to decide whether a website contains reliable information? Criteria for information evaluation?

General Internet resources and services (I) – may be useful for business information

General-purpose, global in scope, search engines/services

AltaVista http://www.altavista.com/

AlltheWeb http://www.alltheweb.com/

Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com/

Google http://www.google.com/

Mamma http://www.mamma.com/

Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com/

and many, many more …

General Internet resources and services – … (II)

Quality-controlled subject/information gateways

Digital Librarian: a librarian's choice of the best of the Web http://www.digital-librarian.com/

Intute http://www.intute.ac.uk/

Librarians’ Internet Index http://lii.org/

RefDesk http://www.refdesk.com/

General Internet resources and services – … (III)

Deep Web / Invisible Web search tools

CompletePlanet http://aip.completeplanet.com/

Deep Web Research ( weblog ) http://www.deepwebresearch.info/

IncyWincy: The Invisible Web Search Engine http://www.incywincy.com/default

The SearchSystems.net Public Records Directory http://www.searchsystems.net/

Scholarly search services

Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/

INFOMINE http://infomine.ucr.edu/

Open Access full texts – archives, digital collections, full-text databases, e-journals, repositories …

DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals http://www.doaj.org/

Fulltext Sources Online http://www.fso-online.com/home_login.cfm?sid=14099995

OAIster: http://www.oaister.org/

OpenDOAR – Directory of Open Access Repositories http://www.opendoar.org/index.html

Business information „starting points” – specialized search engines, subject gateways and Web directories – business, economics, management (I)

AllBuziness: http://www.allbuziness.com/

BRINT the World's No. 1 Resource for Business Technology Management and Knowledge Management: http://www.brint.com/

Business.com: http://www.business.com/

Business information „starting points” – … (II)

CEOExpress: http://www.ceoexpress.com/default.asp

European business directory: http://www.bizeurope.com/

globalEDGE: http://globaledge.msu.edu/

Inomics® EconDirectory: http://www.inomics.com/cgi/econdir

Business information „starting points” – … (III)

Intute: Social Sciences : http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/business/

Krislyn’s Strictly Business Site: http://www.strictlybusinesssites.com/

RBA Business Information on the Internet: http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/

The WWW Virtual Library – Business and Economics: http://vlib.org/BusinessEconomics

Business dictionaries, encyclopedias, glossaries

Finding dictionaries, encyclopedias, glossaries:

EuroTermBank http://www.eurotermbank.com/Default.aspx

Glossarist – Business http://www.glossarist.com/glossaries/business/

OneLook Dictionary Search http://www.onelook.com/

About.com: Economics http://economics.about.com/

About.com: Business and Finance http://about.com/money/

Answers.com – Business http://www.answers.com/main/business.jsp

globalEdge – Glossary http://globaledge.msu.edu/resourceDesk/glossary.asp

Part B: Company information

Information about different types of organizations:

publicly trade companies (listed on stock exchanges)

private companies

state-owned companies

not-for-profit organizations

government bodies

Information about:

Company background – name, address, website, contacts, identification number; managers; line of business – products, services; legal status and type of a company; size, number of employees; corporate affiliations; basic financial data (income, profit or loss, turnover)

More in-depth information – company finances, competitors, history, perspectives, policies (ecological, social, etc.)

Company information sources

Directories, yellow pages, databases

National/official registries

Business/industry/product classifications

Lists/rankings

Annual reports and other formal documents

Stock exchanges’ websites and services

Trade magazines, journals, news services

Companies’ websites

…

Company directories, yellow pages, databases

globalEdge – Company Directories: http://globaledge.msu.edu/resourceDesk/companyDirectories.asp

Central & Eastern European Directory On-Line: http://www.ceebd.co.uk/ceebd/industdi.htm

Hoover’s: http://www.hoovers.com/free/

Europages, the European Business Directory: http://www.europages.com/ , http://www.europages.net/

Kompass: http://www.kompass.com/

ThomasNet ( USA ) : http://www.thomasnet.com/

Short assignment: find on the Web the yellow pages / business telephone book for your country and describe its information content

Company identification numbers – come from:

official / governmental company registers (in most countries companies and other organizations have to be registered with a government agency or a court or a statistical office – and get a national registration number); examples –

Company registration around the world ( links to registers ) http://www.commercial-register.sg.ch/home/worldwide.html

RBA – Official Company Registers http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/registers.htm#general

UK Companies House – Worldwide Registries http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/links/introduction.shtml#reg

commercial information providers; the most important is DUNS Number by Dun & Bradstreet

Global, international, local lists/rankings of companies

Gary Price's List of Lists http://www.specialissues.com/lol/

Forbes http://www.forbes.com/lists/

Fortune http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/

Short assignment: What type of information one can get from rankings? Check Forbes and/or Fortune lists and their information content.

Part C: Financial information

Financial information ≠ company finance

Financial information = investment information

Financial info: stock exchanges, quotes, charts; financial instruments – securities, bonds, shares, etc.; investment funds; bank products, credits; currencies, money, rates of exchange; insurance, retirement

To understand financial information one needs to know specialized, technical terminology – importance of glossaries!

Financial information in general-purpose search engines

Google Finance: http://finance.google.com/finance

MSN money: http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp

Yahoo! Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/

Securities, stock exchanges, quotes

NYSE, New York Stock Exchange http://www.nyse.com/home.html

Quote.com http://new.quote.com/

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – Investor Information http://www.sec.gov/investor.shtml

World Federation of Exchanges http://www.world-exchanges.org/WFE/home.Asp

Currencies, currency converters

OANDA, The Currency Site http://www.oanda.com

FXConverter – multilingual currency converter for over 164 currencies and 3 metals http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic

Universal Currency Converter http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Dictionaries, glossaries and investor education

Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/

NYSE – Glossary http://www.nyse.com/glossary/Glossary.html

NYSE – Investor Education: http://www.nyse.com/about/education/1022630233386.html

Part D: Markets, marketing and international trade information encompasses:

information about markets – local, national, international, global – background, people (demographics, consumer behavior, income), economic indicators and statistics, etc.