Tag: database of the month

Database of the Month: Opposing Viewpoints in Context

Colleen

Opposing ViOpposing Viewpoints in Contextewpoints in Context is a database dedicated to providing an exploration of current (and often controversial) social issues from all different perspectives. On the homepage, users can view the five spotlighted issues from the rolling carousel, browse categories and issues from a list, construct a basic keyword or advanced search, examine featured videos & news, and interact with statistical information on a wide range of issues using maps. All issues are grouped by theme and include the following eight categories: Business and Economics, Health and Medicine, National Debate Topic, Society and Culture, Energy and Environmentalism, Law and Politics, Science, Technology and Ethics, and War and Diplomacy.

Each issue and topic page includes:

  • Overview essay to provide foundational background for understanding the topic
  • Expert Picks resources deemed helpful for discovery and related content
  • Videos, Images, and Audio streaming video, along with a large collection of images and audio, all from reputable research sources
  • Viewpoints pro/con opinion articles to provide multiple perspectives for a particular issue
  • Reference background information in the form of topic/event overviews and biographies
  • News, Magazines, Academic Journals articles from more than 450 full-text English-language international sources
  • Statistics both interactive and static graphs, tables, and charts to support the different pro/con arguments
  • Primary Sources selections from transcripts of interviews, legislative acts, speeches and other sources
  • Websites narrative text accompanying direct link to the sites

Learn More

A short Intro video is provided as an overview to the database. Brief videos on Searching and Topic Pages and Documents are handy for providing tips to getting the most out of this database!

Another valuable library database for researching controversial social issues is CQ Researcher. Read our In the Know post on CQ Researcher to learn more.

Connect

Visit Opposing Viewpoints in Context to begin researching current social issues. You’ll find this resource, along with CQ Researcher, available on the Databases A-Z page.

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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 Ask a Librarian. 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: Mediamark Reporter

Lisa

Mediamark/MRI+Mediamark Reporter, published by GfK Mediamark Research & Intelligence, is a part of GfK’s MRI+ database. Mediamark Reporter provides access to demographic, lifestyle, product usage and media exposure data extracted from GfK’s Annual Survey of the American Consumer.  This powerful combination of data makes Mediamark Reporter a uniquely valuable database for marketers and advertisers.

About Mediamark Reports

Mediamark Reporter contains three types of reports:

  • Product Reports: Product and brand usage data for almost 6,000 products in 550 categories by a variety of demographic characteristics (age, household income, education, media consumption, etc.). Also available are product reports for specific market segments:
    • Teenmark: respondents aged 12-19.
    • Business-to-Business: business decision makers.
    • Upper Deck: the top 10% of U.S. consumers in household income.
    • Local Market Reports: reports for each of the country’s most important DMAs (Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.), as well as a market summary.

    Tip: Product reports provide consumer segmentation data that is very useful for marketing project classes, corporate immersion projects, GB214 and GB320!

  • Media Reports: Media consumption data by a variety of demographic characteristics for head of household, homemaker/principal shopper, household, respondent and spouse.
  • Magazine Reports (Qualitative & Cumulative): Qualitative reports provide information such as number of days spent reading a particular magazine and ad interest/rating.  Cumulative reports provide data on magazine 4-issue reach and frequency.

Connect to this Database / Create a Mediamark MRI+ Account

Mediamark Reporter/MRI+ is available on the Databases A-Z page and the Marketing Databases page. All Bentley users must register for a personal Mediamark Reporter/MRI+ account. Click on Register for Free to begin using MRI+ on the Mediamark home page. You MUST register using your Bentley University email address.

Mediamark Registration
Registration is required.
You must use your Bentley email address when creating an account!

After registering, you will receive an email from MRI asking you to validate your account. Once you have logged-in to the database, you’ll find the link to Mediamark Reporter in the top right corner of the screen:

Mediamark Reporter link
The Mediamark Reporter link is located in the top right corner of the MRI+ landing page.

Mediamark Reporter Help

For more help using the Mediamark/MRI+ database, please contact the Reference Desk.

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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: Communication and Mass Media Complete

Nicholas

AcademicSP imageCommunication and Mass Media Complete is an excellent source of information and research on communication, mass media, and other closely related fields of study. If you need to find articles, especially scholarly articles, for your marketing, English & media studies, psychology, or sociology courses, this is the perfect database to use.  Communication and Mass Media Complete has full text access to over 500 journals related to these subjects , with this access going all the way back to 1915 in the case of some journals.

History

Communication and Mass Media Complete brings together the content of 2 older databases, CommSearch from the National Communication Association and Mass Media Articles Index from Penn State. EBSCO has two working groups comprised of librarians, bibliographers, and communication and mass media professionals endeavoring to enhance and develop the database further.

Browse

If you are familiar with some of our other EBSCO databases, such as Academic Search Premier or Business Source Premier,  searching Communication and Mass Media Complete will be simple and easy. The advanced search screen in Communication and Mass Media Complete is nearly identical to the advanced search screen in those databases.  You can limit yourself to scholarly, or peer reviewed, articles, articles available in full text, and articles published with a certain date range.

C&MMC image

Connect to this Database

Please visit Communication and Mass Media Complete to explore this valuable database further or visit our Databases A-Z 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 Ask a Librarian.  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: Business Insights Global

Liz

Business Insights: Global is Gale/Infotrac’s revamped collection of company and industry information. It replaces Business & Company Resource Center; you’ll find some of the same content, and some new, with several more tools and ways to search. The database contains thousands of articles, reports, case studies, reference articles, rankings, and profiles. Business Insights: Global, while technically a new database, continues Business & Company Resource Center’s role as one of the Bentley Library’s key resources on company, industry, and country information, with an emphasis on strong international coverage.

Tools

Company Finder

The company finder (in the top toolbar) allows you to make a list of companies from around the globe using a number of criteria, including NAICS, number of employees, and revenue. You can then download the list to a CSV file (up to 500 results).

Charts

One of the most useful features of Business Insights: Global is the user’s ability to create custom charts. Click on “Comparison Charts” in the top toolbar, and create a chart comparing companies, countries, or industries on a number of different metrics. You could, for example, compare revenue or sales per employee among Google, Microsoft, and Apple, or compare countries on several metrics, including literacy rates, wage equality, tariff rates, and many more. For example, see the chart below comparing exports of goods and services between China and the United States. (Click the image to see the fine print.)

Search

Business Insights: Global features a single search box, and displays results grouped by source type. For example, a search for “solar energy” turned up most of the source types the database contains, including:

  • company profiles
  • industry profiles
  • case studies
  • association profiles
  • market research reports
  • journal articles
  • news articles
  • videos (with transcripts)
  • rankings

Everything is linked – for example, the company profile for Solar Energy Host (a Canadian company) links to competitors, industry codes and profiles, and charts for both company and industry revenue (to which you can easily add other companies or industries to compare).

Browse

Using the top toolbar or the advanced search, you can search specifically for any of the sources in the bulleted list above. Especially interesting are the rankings, pulled from Gale’s established reference work Business Rankings Annual – they include everything from lists of the largest companies in each state to “World’s Most Ethical Construction Companies” to “World’s Top Airports.”

Connect to this Database:

You will find Business Insights: Global listed on the library’s Databases A-Z page, as well as under the Companies & Industries database subject page.

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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.

Resource of the Month: International Tax and Business Guides

Hope Houston

The library has many databases to help students research global business conditions. You can find many on the library’s Databases by Subject: International Business webpage.  International Tax and Business Guides There are also several free, and mostly free, online services that are very helpful as well.  Deloitte’s International Tax and Business Guides is one such service.

There are two sections in this resource that offer quick overviews of the tax landscape for various countries.  The first one is called Taxation and Investment Guides, where you can find comparisons of corporate tax rates, withholding tax, and indirect tax for 65 jurisdictions.  For example, here is a side-by-side sample of the corporate tax environment for the United States and India:

United States:
Corporate Tax | Statutory: 35%		 India:
Corporate Tax | Statutory:  30-40%
The federal corporate income tax applies to bands of taxable income at rates between 15% and 35%. An additional 5% tax (subject to caps) is imposed on certain bands. A branch tax is imposed on dividend equivalent amounts. An alternative minimum tax is also imposed, calculated on a separate tax base at a rate of 20% (certain credits may reduce tax). The alternative minimum tax is due to the extent a corporation’s tentative minimum tax exceeds its regular tax. The total maximum effective tax rate is 39.5%. The corporate tax rate for domestic companies is 30%, along with a surcharge of 5% (2% for nonresident companies) where total income exceeds INR 10 million. In addition, a 3% education cess (tax), including indirect and service taxes, is levied. The 3% cess applies to the aggregate amount of income tax, plus the surcharge. Nonresident companies and branches of foreign companies are taxed at a rate of 40%, plus a 2% surcharge where the total income exceeds INR 10 million, and the 3% cess. A Minimum Alternate Tax is imposed at a rate of 18.5% (plus any applicable surcharge and tax) on the adjusted book profits of corporations whose tax liability is less than 18.5% of their book profits (effective rate of 20.01%).

 

The second section in the International Tax and Business Guides is called the Highlights series, which offers a quick digest of the tax landscape of 150 jurisdictions, including Azerbaijan, Botswana, Brazil, Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, and Mauritius, to name only a few.  These reports include information about:

  • Corporate taxation
  • Business regulations & intellectual property
  • Foreign trade and investment
  • Filing requirements of doing business in a country
  • Personal & business taxation
  • Labor environment

Combine Deloitte’s International Tax and Business Guides with one of Bentley’s country intelligence databases, such as Global Insight, and you will be able to make informed decisions on doing business around the world.

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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 Ask a Librarian.  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: Morningstar

Kimberly

Many of you may have used this database to retrieve a company’s annual report, but Morningstar Investment Research Center offers so much more than that!

Morningstar covers all stocks traded on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX, and nearly 14,000 mutual funds – nearly 20,000 securities in all. Morningstar Investment Research Center contains powerful screener tools and detailed financial information on stocks, funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), analyst reports for 1,000 stocks and 2,000 funds including buy and sell directions, market sector and industry reports, portfolio management tools, and more.

To learn about this database, the new Tutorial Section provides 8 excellent 2 to 4 minutes clips which introduce you to navigating the database content and using the screening and graphing tools.

In addition, Morningstar offers online self-paced training on investment topics such as Stocks, Funds, Portfolio and Bonds with various content levels from 100 to 500 on these topics.

Learn More

Visit Morningstar’s Investing Classroom (available under the Help & Education area) to discover what additional topics are offered.

Connect to this Database

Please visit  Morningstar Investment Research Center to explore the database further.   You may also access library databases via our Databases A-Z and Databases by Subject pages.

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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 Ask a Librarian.  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: Encore

Stephen

The Bentley University Library is pleased to announce the launch of our new discovery service, Encore.  Over the past few years, in both formal and informal settings, patrons have told us they wanted the ability to search topics from multiple resources, including the LIBCAT library catalog and articles from aggregated database vendors such as ProQuest and EBSCOHost, with one search interface. The Encore discovery service provides users with ability to do just that and to filter results with multiple facets.  Over the coming months patrons will see the Encore search box appearing on Bentley Library webpages and online research guides.

  • The Bentley Library Encore homepage can be accessed by pointing your browser to http://encore.bentley.edu. (The Encore search box also appears on our homepage at http://library.bentley.edu).  Because Encore provides access to licensed electronic resources it is only available to current Bentley University students, faculty and staff.  You will need your Bentley University Email Address and Network Password to login to Encore.

  • To use Encore simply enter a search term in the search box and click the arrow.  Use and “and”, “or” and “not” to expand or narrow a search.  To limit a search to just those items in LIBCAT or the Library’s articles databases click on the “Articles” or “Catalog” (the default) options at the top of the page.
Encore Search
Click to enlarge image.
  • Encore provides an “Advanced Search” option that allows patrons to search using keyword, author, title, and subject indexes just like LIBCAT.  Users can also limit their search by language, format (book, DVD, E-Resource, etc.) and date range.
Encore Advanced Search
Click to enlarge image.
  • Once the search is completed it is now time to filter and organize the results. By default Encore will return results by relevance. If the search was completed using the “Catalog” option, items from LIBCAT will be listed first, followed by links to articles from aggregated databases vendors.  There is also a link to “WorldCat” on the results page, under Other Resources, that will search the WorldCat multi-library catalog for items not owned by the Bentley Library that may be available via Interlibrary Loan (see the “Database of the Month: WorldCat” post from April 17, 2012).  Searches completed using the “Articles” option will only return results from databases.
Encore Search Results
Click to enlarge image.
  • Users who wish to continue using the classic LIBCAT search interface can simply click on the link titled “Classic Catalog” or point your browser to http://libcat.bentley.edu.
  • Encore does not search all of the Bentley University Library’s databases.  It is designed to search articles databases from aggregated vendors such as EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR, Gale/InfoTrac, Project Muse,  Elsevier, CQ Researcher, IEEE, and ACM Digital Library. The “Article” search will return by broad subject categories from those vendors indexed by Encore.

For questions regarding Encore (or any library service) please contact the Bentley University Library Reference Desk at 781.891.2300 or refdesk@bentley.edu.

Database(s) of the Month: Ebooks at the Bentley Library

Macee

Historically, databases of electronic books have often been limited to on-screen viewing and limited printing. Now, with easier availability to affordable personal devices that allow you to read on the go, downloadable books have gained in popularity. The Bentley Library provides both types of ebook databases. Whether you are downloading the latest fiction and nonfiction to take to the beach, studying for licensing or other examinations, or researching and writing a paper, we have a database for that!

Overdrive Downloadable BooksOverdrive Downloadable Books

What’s included? Over 500 eBooks and audiobooks with an emphasis on classic and popular fiction and nonfiction, but including some research materials. New materials are added on an ongoing basis; suggestions for new materials are welcomed at our Suggest a Purchase page.

Is it downloadable? Every book and audiobook in this collection may be downloaded to some combination of computers, tablets, e-readers, smartphones, mp3 players and iPods. Available formats include Kindle, ePub, and PDF for ebooks, and mp3 and WMA for audiobooks. Not all formats are available for all titles.

How does it work? Browse by category, or search the database by keyword, title, author/creator, subject, and more. Then, follow the download instructions provided on the title’s information page.

How to gain access? Direct access is via Overdrive Downloadable Books. A Bentley username and password is required to use the database both on- and off-campus.  In addition, depending on your desired format and device, you may need to download additional software. More information is available in the Getting Started area on the Overdrive home page.

Books 24×7Books 24x7

What’s included?  Books on business, finance, information technology, health and wellness, and productivity. Also included: study guides for exams such as the CFA, and software manuals for business and statistics applications such as SAS and SPSS.

Is it downloadable? Books in this database are presented in electronic format, but must be read on a computer screen.

How does it work? This database is searchable by title, author, keyword, publisher and more, and browsable by broad topic areas such as Business, Finance, IT/Technical and Well-Being. Clicking on a title displays a linked Table of Contents, from which you can navigate the book’s content. If you conducted a keyword search, your search terms appear in the Top Section Hits area.

How to gain access? Direct access is via Books24x7.com (Business & IT Books). A Bentley username and password is required to use the database both on- and off-campus.

EBSCO EbooksEBSCO Ebooks

What’s included?  Nearly 8000 electronic books are included in this general-interest collection. Both scholarly and popular titles are available.

Is it downloadable? The full PDF text of all books in this database may be viewed on-screen. Printing and/or emailing documents is possible, but is limited.

How does it work? Using the EBSCO search interface, browse by category, or search the database by keyword, title, author, subject, and more. Click the link titled eBook Full Text to view the content, then navigate using the linked Table of Contents, or jump to desired sections using the search box.

How to gain access? Direct access is via EBSCO eBooks. A Bentley username and password is required to use the database off-campus.

Safari Tech Books (ProQuest)Safari Tech Books

What’s included? 150 books from the O’Reilly publishing series, focused on technology, digital media, and desktop and Web applications. Sample titles include Designing Social Interfaces, Javascript: the Definitive Guide and Analyzing Business Data with Excel.

Is it downloadable? Books in this database are presented in electronic format, and can be read on the computer screen in HTML or in the Safari Books Viewer. Books can be printed two ways: by chapter in HTML format, or by page in the Safari Books Viewer format. Users may also email a link to the book for later viewing.

How does it work? Search this database by author, subject, or software vendor, or browse by category or software vendor. Once you’ve chosen a book, you can search within the book, or read it via the links provided in the Table of Contents.

How to gain access? Direct access is via Safari Books – Tech Books Database. Off-campus, a Bentley username and password is required to use the database.

In addition to the direct links above, all of these databases may be found at the Databases A-Z page on the Library’s website. If you would like assistance with searching and/or downloading material, please contact us. Happy reading and researching!

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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.