Perhaps a little known fact is that most public libraries in large citiesand towns offer corporate library cards for the businesses that reside in the city the library serves. Even better those same public libraries have a plethora of online databases accessible via the library's Webpage for library cardholders.
Part 3 of this series on competitive intelligence resources takes a look at multiple free Web-based databases often accessible via many public libraries online resources from the comfort of your office, home, or while you are traveling by simply going to the library's Website and loggin in with your library card.
Subscriptions will of course vary from library to library, but the main ones that come to mind are annotated in the list below, and include both company directories and business news databases.
Business and Company Resource Center, a Gale Group resource database of detailed company and industry news and information (company profiles, brands, rankings, histories, investment reports).
Business Index ASAP a Gale Group database that covers management issues, economic indicators and business theories and practices, as well as on the activities of companies and industries worldwide.
Business Source Premier an Ebscohost database of full-text articles from 2800 scholarly journals and business magazines covering management, finance, economics, accounting, and international business.
Corporate ResourceNet an Ebscohost business database contains full-text articles from nearly 1350 magazines and journals, ranging from popular general publications to trade journals to academic journals. It also contains detailed company profiles for the 5000 largest companies in the world.
Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Directory database features 14 million company records, including all U.S. businesses and the most significant segment of Canadian businesses. It provides comprehensive marketing information on both public and private companies and their executives.
Gale Directory Library a Gale Group database with authoritative directories on companies, associations, and more. The Associations Unlimited database was merged into this database.
General Business File ASAP a Gale Group multi-faceted business database providing information from magazines and journals, directories, and company and industry reports. Also includes company rankings.
ProQuest Newsstand provides a searchable online collection of current newspapers to help you quickly find text articles relevant to your research. This resource also will suggest related documents and topics for further exploration. Newspapers covered will vary depending on the library's choices. Most would include the big papers like Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc. and likely include the local city newspaper(s).
ReferenceUSA an InfoUSA resource providing a directory of business and residential addresses taken from telephone books and other sources. Listings for over 12 million businesses and 102 million residents in the U.S.
Regional Business News an Ebscohost database offering a full-text news service database with business stories from all regions of the world. Updated daily.
So get thee to your local library, sign-up for a corporate or personal library card, and begin taking advantage of these many free online databases.
No comments:
Post a Comment