Category: databases & e-resources

Following the Impact of the Japanese Earthquake: Using Global Insight and Factiva

Colleen 1 Comment

On March 11, the northeastern region of Japan was devastated by one of the largest earthquakes on record. The resulting tsunami, with its 30 foot waves, wiped out whole coastal areas and currently a difficult search and rescue mission is underway in towns made isolated and nearly inaccessible by the path of destruction.  Meanwhile, the world is watching as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was hit by the 9.0 earthquake, struggles to avoid a nuclear meltdown after numerous emergency failures resulted in structural damage to the reactors and left spent fuel rods exposed.

In light of the unfolding crisis in Japan, the library is featuring two databases to track and monitor the events in Japan and their impact.  Use Factiva to track global news stories and Global Insight for analysis and forecasting of how Japan’s crisis may impact the global economic and political scene.

Factiva

A major provider of news with over 28,000 sources from more than 200 countries in 23 languages and nearly 600 continuously updated newswires, Factiva provides a diverse offering of news content.

To read news stories about Japan in Factiva try the following search from the Search > Search Builder menu at the top left corner of the database home page:

  1. Click on Region.
  2. Click on the + icon next to Asian Pacific Countries/Regions.
  3. Click on the + icon next to Eastern Asian Countries/Regions.
  4. Click on the + icon next to Japan .

The above search will find articles about Japan from all Factiva’s news sources; however, it is also possible to search individual news sources and Factiva provides some Japanese news sources of interest:  

  • ACN Newswire (English language – daily real-time updates from Tokyo)
  • Akita Sakigake Shimpo (Japanese language)
  • Electric Daily News (English language – articles on the Japanese energy and electricity industries)
  • Japan Energy Scan (weekly publication in English -articles on energy scene in Japan and renewable energy; includes statistical data on imports and consumption)
  • Japan Times (English language Japanese daily newspaper)
  • Japanese World (English language continually updated text feed of news and fundamental data primarily about companies listed on the Tokyo and other Japanese Stock Exchanges)
  • M Data TV Watch-Tokyo (covers nine major programs of Japanese TV )
  • Nikkin (weekly publication with comprehensive financial news Japanese language)
  • Yamagata Shimbun (Japanese language daily)

Global Insight

Use Global Insight to read analysis on the disruption, risks and outlook following the earthquake.   The database contains a special In Focus report which provides ongoing analysis of the operational situation, the implications for economic growth, the political consequences, and the dangers of a major nuclear disaster.  Below are some tips to get started.

  1. The database is currently featuring quick access to its In Focus report on Japan.  From the database homepage, look for the link to Japan’s Post-Quake Recovery: In Depth on the right side of the page.
  2. Additionally, there is a comprehensive report about Japan in the list of Country Reports on the left side of the page. The country report provides a summary of key issues to watch and outlines the six-factor country risk.

For additional information about using Global Insight, please refer to our earlier article on this database.  A complete listing of the Bentley Library’s databases is available here.

Database of the Month: Academic Search Premier

Nicholas

Academic Search Premier, published by EBSCOHost, is one of the essential databases used by colleges and universities of all types and sizes. It provides access to a broad variety of information, both scholarly and popular, in a wide range of academic fields and disciplines.  This is a great database to use for any number of classes, from English and Expository Writing  to History, Psychology, and Sociology courses.

Full text coverage is available for over 4,600 journals and periodicals, with over 100 of these titles providing full text access back to the year 1975.   In addition, this database provides indexing and abstracting for more than 8,500 journals. For a full list of journals available through Academic Search Premier, with coverage and full text information, take a look here.

Searching

  • Use the Advanced Search screen to limit your search results to articles in scholarly journals, articles from a particular publication, or full text articles only
  • Use the Subject: Thesaurus Term function on the results page to narrow your search results by subject
  • Narrow your search results to articles published within a certain date range

Other Functions

  • Print, email, and export the article to EndNote or RefWorks using the Tools functions
  • Use the Cite function to create the citation for an article in 7 different citation formats, including MLA and APA
  • The Folder function allows you to save relevant search results for later viewing
  • Use the Search for a Full Text Copy of the Article function to see if an article is available through another Bentley database

For further information on this resource, take a look at the Help page here.

Please visit the Academic Search Premier database here.  A complete listing of the Bentley Library’s databases is available here.

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Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please contact the Reference Desk.  If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact our Coordinator of User Education, Elizabeth Galoozis.

Database of the Month: Mintel Oxygen

Lisa

If you are looking for information about consumer markets, products, and brands, Mintel Oxygen should be the first database you visit.  Covering the US, UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain, Mintel’s research reports are one-stop shopping for consumer market intelligence, data, analysis and news.

Whether you are researching fast food or footwear, mobile phones or online shopping, green marketing or green living, Mintel has it covered.  Mintel publishes over 600 market research and consumer lifestyle reports each year in the following categories:

♦ Beauty & Personal Care ♦ Drink ♦ Finance
♦ Food ♦ Foodservice ♦ Health & Wellbeing
♦ Household ♦ Lifestyles ♦ Retailing & Apparel
♦ Technology ♦ Travel

Each report provides primary consumer research – unraveling key trends, behavior, and attitudes.  Researchers looking for demographic and psychographic information will strike gold with Mintel.  Reports also include valuable market data such as market size and forecast, market drivers, segment performance, brand share, and retail channel data.  To top it all off, you’ll find information on new products, product innovations and marketing strategies.

Create a Mintel Account:

To use the Mintel Oxygen database you must register for an account using a Bentley email address.  At the Mintel Oxygen log-in page, first-time users should click on [Create a Personal Profile].  Complete the registration form using your Bentley email address.

Learn More:

Please visit Mintel Oxygen to explore this valuable database further.  For help, check out Mintel’s Quick Start Guide.  Visit our Databases page to view a complete list of our resources.

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Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please contact the Reference Desk.  If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact our Coordinator of User Education, Elizabeth Galoozis.

Database of the Month: Oxford English Dictionary

Liz

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has always been more than a place to look up definitions and pronunciations; it’s accepted widely as the authority on the history and meanings of words in the English language. The online version of the OED recently underwent a major overhaul – and through the Bentley Library’s subscription, you can explore the English language in several different ways. The OED can answer questions from “Did Shakespeare coin the word ‘bedazzle?'”* to “How many words in the English language originated in Africa?”**

Search

You can, as always, search for a word and find in its entry: the word’s etymology, pronunciation, definition, and quotations –  including the word’s first known appearance. (For instance, the word “marketing” in the sense of “promoting a product” was first used in Harper’s Magazine in 1884.) In the new version, however, all this information is linked to the OED’s new features. You can see all the other entries that cite Harper’s or where other forms of the word “market” came from, see biographical information on cited authors, or view the word within the fully integrated Historical Thesaurus (more on that later). The new interface also makes it easier to save, email, print, and cite entries.

Browse

What really makes the new OED much more impressive than your standard-issue online dictionary, though, are the tools for exploring words. The Historical Thesaurus (published in print last year) lets you see how a concept developed in written English over time – for example, the word speech (first appearing around the year 888) preceded the word language (around 1300), which preceded the word idiom (around 1575).

Browse by “Timelines” to see when words (all, or by subject, region, or language of origin) entered the language. The timeline below shows how words developed in the area of Politics:

Browse by “Source” to see the top 1000 authors and publications that the OED’s quotations come from. Shakespeare is well-known for coining words, but when it comes to words’ first appearance in writing, Chaucer has him beat by almost 400 words.

You can also browse by “Categories” – or conduct an Advanced Search based on those categories, which include:

  • Usage (e.g., colloquial and slang, derogatory, euphemistic)
  • Region
  • Language of Origin
  • Subject (e.g., Economics, Food and cooking, Computing)
  • Part of speech

*The entry for ‘bedazzle’ identifies its first recorded use in The Taming of the Shrew (1616).

**Browse by region and the number the OED gives is 1266, including words like ‘commandeer’ and ‘jukebox.’

Connect to this database:

Please visit the Oxford English Dictionary database to explore this valuable database further, or visit our Databases page to view a complete list of our resources.

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Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please contact the Reference Desk.  If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact our Coordinator of User Education, Elizabeth Galoozis.

FASB Accounting Standards Codification

Kimberly

Know Your Code

The FASB Accounting Standards Codification is the single source of authoritative nongovernmental U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (US GAAP).  The Codification is available within Accounting Research Manager (CCH), but the Library also subscribes to it as a stand-alone site.

As indicated on the screen shot below, there are three features of particular note about the FASB Accounting Standards Codification Site.  They are:

  1. The “What’s New” area helps you keep track of the latest changes in the Codification. You can view what’s new by date, by topic or by document.
  2. The “Cross Reference” area will direct you to a section of the Codification when you have an older accounting reference. If you find a mention of a previous accounting standard, such as a FASB Statement (FAS) or a Statement of Position (SOP), in an article or textbook, use the Cross Reference area to get directed to the current section of interest in the Codification. The Cross Reference area is also useful for quickly navigating to a section of the Codification  when you have a document number such as 926-20-25-4.
  3. The “Notice to Constituents” provides information that will help you understand the Codification’s structure, content, style and history and provides excellent guidance on how to reference the Codification in financial reports and from within the text of a research paper.

Structure of the Code

The Codification’s classification system is significantly different from the structure of previous accounting standards. The structure is as follows:

Topic SubTopic Section Paragraph
Entertainment-Films Other Assets-Film Costs Recognition General-Overall Deals
926 20 25 4

Citing the Code

One question we get at the Reference Desk, quite a lot actually, is “How do I cite the Codification in my bibliography?”. Since inquiring minds want to know, the following is my interpretation of how the Codification would appear using:

APA Format

Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). (2010). Accounting standards codification TM. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Retrieved from http://asc.fasb.org/

MLA Format

Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Accounting Standards Codification TM. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010.

RefWorks Users:

If you use Refworks, here is an example of how to fill out the fields when you “Add a New Reference” to your account.

Ref Type: Generic
Source Type: Electronic
Output Language: Unknown
Authors, Primary: Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
Title, Primary: Accounting Standards Codification TM
Pub Year: 2010
Publisher: Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
Links: http://asc.fasb.org/
Retrieved Date: 4 Nov. 2010 (MLA) (APA doesn’t require a retrieved date for this type of source)

***Please, always double check with your professor when referencing your sources.***

Connect to this database:

Please visit FASB Codification to explore this resource further, or visit our Databases page to view a complete list of our resources.

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Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please contact the Reference Desk.  If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact our Coordinator of User Education, Elizabeth Galoozis.

Database of the Month: JSTOR

Hope Houston

is like exploring your grandpa’s attic and finding a corner under the eaves stacked high and deep with letters, diaries, old photographs, military histories, an 1878 issue of the American Journal of Mathematics, and a review of Corporation Finance and Accounting by Harry C. Bentley.

Searching through JSTOR’s Arts & Sciences Collections will also unearth an article on the various dialects of slave workers on a Cuban coffee plantation in 1790, an image of a woman traveler and geographer in 1897, or the rate of turnover in the American labor force of the 1960s.

JSTOR is one of the premier databases for research in the humanities, and now with JSTOR’s Business Collection, you have access to 68 scholarly business journals, too. In all, Bentley faculty and students may peruse over 620 full-text journals in more than 50 disciplines, including:

  • African Studies
  • Archaeology
  • Business
  • Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
  • Feminist & Women’s Studies
  • History
  • Irish Literature
  • Law
  • Mathematics
  • Middle East Studies
  • Political Science
  • Public Policy and Administration
  • Zoology

Calling all researchers and authors!

As you know, JSTOR offers some of the world’s most reliable sources for academic content. Interacting with that content has just gotten easier using JSTOR’s powerful Data for Research (DfR) faceted search interface. Using Data for Research allows you to quickly and easily define content of interest through an iterative process of searching and filter results from approximately 1.25 million articles. More about this service may be found here – http://dfr.jstor.org/info/about/.

Connect to this Database:

Connect to JSTOR and explore this valuable database further, or visit our Databases page to view a complete list of other library resources.

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Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please contact the Reference Desk.  If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact our Coordinator of User Education, Elizabeth Galoozis.

Get Informed: Library and Online Resources for Voters

Liz

Midterm elections are scheduled for Tuesday, November 2, less than three weeks from now. Senate races are going on in 36 states; races for governor are taking place in 37 states (including Massachusetts), and races for the House of Representatives are going on in every state. Wherever you’re registered to vote, you can arm yourself with information about candidates, ballot questions, and more with the following library-recommended resources.

Get the latest news coverage through the library’s subscriptions to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and more (including local Massachusetts newspapers) through our News databases. Or, search for transcripts of interviews with candidates through LexisNexis Academic, which includes transcripts from media outlets like Fox, NPR, and ABC. Just click on the “News” category on the side, and choose “TV & Radio Transcripts.” (A recent search for the phrase “senate race” in the last three months yielded 1,591 results!)

Want information about where to vote, or what’s on your local ballot? If you’re a Massachusetts voter, there is a limited number of Voter Information Packets located near the magazine rack in the library entrance from the Deloitte Cafe. You can get the same information by going to the Massachusetts Election Division website – you can locate your polling place or check out this year’s three statewide ballot questions. If you’re registered in another state, similar information can be found at the League of Women Voters’ Smart Voter website. Just enter your address to locate your polling place and local ballot.

And if the election’s got you interested in American politics, the library has tons of books and DVDs on U.S. politics and government, and voting and political participation in the U.S., not to mention recent books and audiobooks about political figures like Karl Rove, John Edwards, Michael Bloomberg, and Ted Kennedy.

As Thomas Jefferson said in a 1789 letter, “[W]herever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government.” (You can read the whole letter, if you want, in the library’s copies of Jefferson’s papers.)

Database of the Month: SAGE Sociology Full-text

Lisa

The SAGE Sociology Full-text database has just been added to our extensive list of database offerings! Not just for sociologists, this database will have broad appeal to researchers in a variety of fields. The collection provides us with the full-text of many core journals that were previously only accessible via Interlibrary Loan.

SAGE Sociology includes the full text of 36 peer-reviewed journals published by SAGE and participating societies, covering such subjects as Childhood, Contemporary Sociology, Comparative Sociology, Consumer Culture, Classical Sociology, Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, Leisure Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Sport, and Sociology of Work and Employment (Labor Studies).

The following journals are included:

* Ranked in the Thomson Reuters 2009 Journal Citation Reports®
  • Acta Sociologica*
  • American Behavioral Scientist*
  • Armed Forces & Society*
  • Body & Society*
  • Childhood*
  • Cultural Sociology*
  • Current Sociology*
  • Ethnography
  • European Journal of Social Theory
  • Gender & Society*
  • International Review for the Sociology of Sport
  • International Sociology*
  • Journal of Black Studies*
  • Journal of Classical Sociology
  • Journal of Consumer Culture
  • Journal of Contemporary Ethnography*
  • Journal of Family Issues*
  • Journal of Sociology*
  • Journal of Sport and Social Issues*
  • Men and Masculinities*
  • Race & Class*
  • Rationality and Society*
  • Sexualities
  • Social Compass*
  • Social Science Information*
  • Social Studies of Science*
  • Sociological Methods & Research*
  • Sociology*
  • Space and Culture
  • Theory, Culture & Society
  • Thesis Eleven
  • Time & Society*
  • Work and Occupations*
  • Work, Employment & Society*
  • Young
  • Youth & Society*

Connect to this database:

Please visit the SAGE Sociology database to explore this valuable database further, or visit our Databases page to view a complete list of our resources.

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Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please contact the Reference Desk.  If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact our Coordinator of User Education, Elizabeth Galoozis.