Tag: database of the month

Database of the Month: DemographicsNow [New Database!]

Lisa

Demographics Now logoJust a few weeks ago the Bentley Library added DemographicsNow to our collection of databases.  DemographicsNow provides demographic, business and consumer data from the U.S. Census and other public and private sources.

Although U.S. Census data is freely available via their American Factfinder database, DemographicsNow has a more intuitive interface and built-in reporting features that gives it an edge over the Census’ site.  DemographicsNow also provides information on 23 million businesses and 206 million people/135 million households. This combination of data and business intelligence makes DemographicsNow an important resource for anyone needing to analyze the demographic and market potential of a geographic area.

There are three main components to the database: Demographics, Businesses and People. A mapping function is also available, allowing users to create custom thematic maps.

Demographics

This is the most impressive of the three components.  Use it to access U.S. Census data  from 1980-2010, view current year estimates, and get 5-year projections for any U.S. geographic area. A custom area can also be created using radius or drive time (minutes).  Users can choose from three report types – summary, comparison and rank – each of which can be downloaded in Microsoft Word, Excel, PDF and HTML formats.

This will be a “must-use” database for anyone developing a business or marketing plan (this means you, GB320 students!).  Marketers, sociologists, economists, and political scientists alike will find many uses for this data and will appreciate its easy retrieval. Data includes:

  • income
  • housing
  • race
  • age
  • education
  • retail spending
  • consumer expenditures (CEX)
  • businesses
  • MOSAIC segmentation (MOSAIC is a consumer segmentation that describes/classifies American consumers in 71 types and 12 groupings that share similar demographic and socioeconomic characteristics)

Businesses

Search for information on a specific company or perform a custom search to compile a list of businesses that meet certain criteria, such as size, industry, location and ownership type. The database even includes out-of-business listings back to the year 2000. This component of DemographicsNow is especially useful to entrepreneurs, job-seekers and others who want to create a customized list of businesses.

People

Search for information on a specific person or perform a custom search to compile a list of contacts that meet specific criteria, such as address, area code or U.S. Census neighborhood data averages (household income, family size, median age, number of vehicles, etc). Small business owners or salespeople may use this database to create targeted customer mailing lists.

Mapping

The mapping tool allows users to map their results, create custom geographies and view demographic variables in thematic coloring scales.

Connect to this Database

Please visit DemographicsNow to explore this valuable database further.  A series of brief, informative tutorials may be accessed using the “Help & Info” link in the top right corner of the DemographicsNow database.  You may also access library databases via our Databases by Subject and Databases A-Z 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 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: CQ Researcher

Nicholas

CQ Researcher is a source of in depth, comprehensive reports on a range of social, political, economic, and scientific issues. The reports provide an overview, background and chronology, maps and graphs, and bibliography related to a particular issue. Each report is written by an experienced journalist and addresses a specific question related to an issue. For example, the report titled Campaign Finance Debates poses the question “Should regulations be loosened further?”. The reports go back as far as 1991 and continue to be published every week.

History

CQ Researcher was originally published as Editorial Research Reports from 1923 to 1956,  before being bought by Congressional Quarterly. During these years, Editorial Research Reports provided in depth reports on current events to subscribing newspapers.  The publication changed its name to CQ Researcher in 1991 and is currently owned by SAGE Publications.

Searching CQ Researcher for Reports

You can search CQ Researcher for reports on the topic you’re interested in in two basic ways: keyword searching and browse by topic. Use the Quick Search box at the top of the screen for basic keyword searching. This will oftentimes be enough to find a report on your topic.  When you’re looking at a list of search results, be sure to check out the date of the report on the right.  If you are interested in up to date information, an older report isn’t what you’re looking for. You can arrange the reports in chronological order from oldest to newest or newest to oldest by clicking on the blue arrows under Date.  There is also an advanced search option available where you can limit your search by date range, topic, and specific section of the report.

You can also browse for reports by topic by selecting Topic from the Browse Reports drop down menu in the upper left hand corner of the screen.  Once you select one of the topics listed, a listing of more specific topics will appear, related to the original topic.  For example, the U.S. Presidency topic brings you to a list of 4 sub-topics: Campaign Finance, Campaigns and Elections, Party Politics, and Powers and History of the Presidency.  When you click on one of the more specific topics, a listing of reports related to that topic will appear.

What’s in the Reports?

Each report has the following sections:

  • Introduction
  • Overview
  • Background
  • Current Situation
  • Outlook
  • Pro/Con
  • Chronology
  • Short Features
  • Maps/Graphs
  • Bibliography
  • The Next Step
  • Contacts

The Pro/Con section provides the two sides of the argument discussed in the report, each argument put forth by an individual associated with the issue. The Next Step section lists additional published sources, mostly articles and books, on the topic of the report.  The Contacts section has contact information for government agencies, advocacy groups, and think tanks related to the topic of the report.

Each report also lists related reports in the Issue Tracker for Related Reports area in the upper right corner of the report.  The Cite Now link will create a citation of the report in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Bluebook citation styles.

Connect to this Database

Please visit CQ Researcher 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.

Database of the Month: WorldCat

Liz

Wouldn’t it be great for research if libraries worldwide put their collections together into one searchable database?  Well, WorldCat is just that database. When you search WorldCat for a subject, author, title, or keyword, you’ll be searching the physical and digital collections of thousands of libraries around the world. WorldCat is a service of OCLC, a nonprofit research, libraries, and information organization. It grows every day from member libraries adding new items.

Why WorldCat?

You may wonder why you would want to search WorldCat instead of only searching Bentley’s own catalog and databases, or instead of a bookselling site like Amazon. Here are a few reasons:

  • You can get a comprehensive picture of the research. If you’re trying to find everything that’s been published by a particular writer or on a particular topic, WorldCat covers a larger, different set of items than either the Bentley catalog or Amazon. It includes archival and other local-level items, dissertations, electronic journals, and more.
  • Unique and out-of-print items will always be included. WorldCat provides information about resources for the purposes of research, not sale, so neither its records nor its search algorithms reflect what has sold the most copies, but what’s most relevant to researchers.
  • Many of the same useful features are available. WorldCat includes the capabilities to read and post reviews (it pulls in reviews from GoodReads and other sites), add tags, create lists, and export records in several ways.

See Who Has What

WorldCat also zeroes in locally (based on your zip code) to show you libraries near you who own the item you’re looking for.* While we do our best to build a collection useful to our users, Bentley doesn’t own everything. If you’re looking for an obscure book on the history of horticulture, or maybe pulp novels from the 1950s, your needs are probably better served by another collection. WorldCat will show you a local library where you can find the item, or you can immediately request it through our interlibrary loan service by clicking “Request via Interlibrary Loan.” An example of how you can see libraries near you that own an item is below, using Mad Men: Season One.

 *Always double-check that the library (including Bentley) owns the item, and that it is available to be checked out or examined. Contacting individual libraries is the best way to do this.

Connect to this Database:

You will find WorldCat listed on the library’s Databases A-Z page, and every database subject page. Just look for this box:

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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: NBER / National Bureau of Economic Research

Hope Houston

Founded in 1920, the National Bureau of Economic Research is the leading private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. The NBER is committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community.

The National Bureau of Economic Research highlights recent projects, publications, and new working papers on all aspects of economics and the economy.  Daily updates are posted on the front page.  Searching for specific topics ranging from the global financial crisis to incentive pay and employee performance is quick and easy using the search box located in the upper right hand corner of the database screen.

The database is divided into five distinct report activities –

  • Working Papers & Publications where you may access reports and chapters from books in process
  • Activities which report on NBER’s programs and working groups (e.g. Development of the American Economy, Entrepreneurship, Health Economics, etc.)
  • Meetings – summaries of meetings on a spectrum of economics topics
  • Data – Boston Census Research Data, Current Population Survey, New Economic Releases, Vital Statistics are some of the frequently requested data sources through NBER

 The most frequently searched for data are:

  •  US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions
  • The NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee Report
  • The Latest NBER Working Papers and Chapters for Forthcoming NBER Books

Some of the available papers listed the Week of March 12, 2012 include:

Target-Date Funds in 401(k) Retirement Plans
Olivia S. Mitchell and Stephen Utkus

On the Road: Access to Transportation Infrastructure and Economic Growth in China
Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Nancy Qian

Gasoline Taxes and Consumer Behavior
Shanjun Li, Joshua Linn, and Erich Muehlegger

Does Universal Coverage Improve Health? The Massachusetts Experience
Charles J. Courtemanche and Daniela Zapata

 Connect to this Database:

You may find NBER listed on the library’s Databases A-Z page, as well as under the Economics Databases 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.

Database of the Month: American FactFinder

Kimberly

American FactFinder is a web tool provided by the United States Census Bureau that offers access to some of the Bureau’s largest data sets, including information from the Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Economic Census and Population Estimates Program. American FactFinder helps you find population, economic, housing, industry, and business data about the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas. Many of these statistics are broken down at the national, state, county and place levels.

On January 20, 2012, American FactFinder went through a major upgrade and now has a new look and features.

Searching American FactFinder

You can use the Quick Start box located in the middle of the screen to pull up tables or data files that meet your search criteria. You can search by topic or table or for a specific state, county or place.  You may use the links on the left side of the page (under Search Using the Options Below) to browse topics, geographies, race and ethnic groups, or industry codes associated with the many different statistical data sets contained in the site.

The data in American FactFinder comes from several censuses and surveys. To learn more about the individual surveys click on the symbol next to each table on the search results page.

Learn More About this Resource

Click here to discover more information about the new American FactFinder or to view an excellent (5 minute) virtual tour of this new service.  If you need any assistance using American FactFinder or any other library resources, please contact a Reference Librarian.

Connect to American FactFinder

American FactFinder is available at http://factfinder2.census.gov/. Please note: American FactFinder works best with Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. Other browsers may not perform as expected.

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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: Web of Science

Stephen

Web of Science Web of Science (WoS) is a cited reference index, which is one of the best tools for discovering and retrieving accurate citation information from as far back as 1956. WoS allows researchers to trace particular research forward in time or backward in time to see how published scholarship grows and helps researchers focus on a wide array of published scholarship. WoS is published on Thomson Reuters’ Web of Knowledge research platform.  Bentley subscribes to three WoS citation indexes:

  • Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) — 1956-present
  • Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) — 1975-present
  • Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) — 1977-present

WoS lets users search for topics, authors and publications, as well as, eleven other indexes.  Users can search for and limit data based in times span (within a date range, from a date, or before a particular date).  Lemmatization allows users to find alternative forms of the search term, for example, tooth and teeth.   Results can be limited by publication date, relevance, times cited, source, author, and publication.  The Web of Knowledge platform provides a number of useful tools that work with WoS including the Journal Citation Reports (JCR).  The learn more about JCR please see Database of the Month for June 2011.

Citation Mapping:

WoS citation mapping tool tracks an article’s cited and citing references through two generations, allowing researchers to visually discover an article’s wider relationships.

  • Go forward and backward in time to track citing and cited references
  • Color code, re-configure and organize your citation maps to discover trends in citation activity
  • Completely interactive!
  • Access via any Web of Science full record

To learn more about citation mapping please visit the citation mapping tutorial from WoS.

Registering with WoS and Remote Access:

Users can click on the “Sign In” link at the top of any WoS webpage to register become a registered user.  To register one should be on-campus with a Bentley University I.P. address.  Once registered, users will be able to access WoS from off-campus.  Registering with WoS will also allow users to set up search alerts, save custom searches and search histories, and select a starting application that enables them to start their session in a specific database rather than on the All Databases (default) page.

Connect to this Database:

Users will find each of the WoS databases (Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index and Science Citation Index) listed under their individual names on our Databases A-Z page as well as on any applicable databases by subject pages.  The databases can be searched individually or cross-searched in any combination.

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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: MathSciNet

Colleen

MathSciNet is the major search tool – and most comprehensive resource – for the international literature of mathematics and statistics. MathSciNetCreated and maintained by the American Mathematical Society (AMS), MathSciNet provides access to citations, abstracts, and limited linking to full-text for articles and reviews from 1940 to the present. The database offers subject indexing of historical, recent, and forthcoming mathematical publications with over 100,000 new items added annually.

More than Just Journals and Citations

As of this writing, MathSciNet indexes more than 1,900 current journals from the American Mathematical Monthly to the Journal of Difference Equations and Applications, and links to the full-text in databases such as JSTOR and Science Direct are available for some articles. But the database also contains a wealth of other resources including:

  • full-text access to Mathematical Reviews (MR) –the AMS journal reviewing the world’s mathematical literature
  • full-text access to Current Mathematical Publications (CMR) – the AMS early awareness journal, a subject index of recent and forthcoming mathematical publications
  • indexing of conference proceedings
  • indexing of books
  • indexing of Ph.D. theses with direct links to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database

At present, MathSciNet contains records for over 2.7 million total publications. Starting in 2000, reference lists from the original articles have been added for a select list of journals called Reference List Journals. The Citations Block for each publication provides links to citations from reference lists and to citations from reviews.

Advanced Searching

In addition to the standard keyword, author, title, and subject searches, users can search for highly cited articles by year or by subject using the mathematical subject classification codes (MSC). To search using MSC, reference the classification schedule found from the Free Tools link in the upper right corner of the home page. While there, use the search tab Collaboration Distance to research connections and collaborations between authors. Free Tools has two additional browsing features of interest – Current Journals and Current Publications – to learn about recently published works.

Learn More

In response to requests from MathSciNet users and librarians, MathSciNet now offers tutorials on how to get the most out of searching. These tutorials treat each of the tabbed areas of MathSciNet – Publications, Authors, Journals, and Citations – as well as Free Tools and Preferences. Users are helped to take advantage of the rich structure of the databases underlying MathSciNet. Every user is likely to find a feature or search that they have not previously used.

Connect to this Database

Please visit MathSciNet 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.

Database of the Month: Plunkett Research Online

Macee

Plunkett Research Online (PRO) offers business intelligence information including industry/market trends and statistics, company profiles, professional organizations, and job prospects, making it ideal for industry/market researchers, for prospect/sales management projects, and for job seekers.

Plunkett Research analysts profile approximately 8,000 companies in 28 industries, with 1,000 new companies added to the list yearly. Each industry receives a complete update once per year. The previous year’s data is archived and available to users.

Industry/Market Research

The home page provides a clickable list of 28 industries for which Plunkett’s analysts supply a mix of proprietary data and data from government sources. In addition, Plunkett provides information for groupings of companies by geographic location, revenue size, and/or company type. All types of companies are included; for example, about 20% of the companies are privately held and about 30% are headquartered outside of the U.S. Data is searchable within and across industries.

Each “Industry Research Center” offers detailed information about:

  • Industry market research and trends
  • Industry statistics
  • Company profiles
  • Definitions of terms used in particular industries and for business in general
  • Industry associations, trade organizations and professional societies

The information is cross-searchable by keyword and can also be searched using advanced options. Where available, archived data is presented as a print-style Almanac in PDF format. Depending on the industry, data goes back seven years or more.

Reporting Tools

Plunkett enables users to export company contacts and/or lists of professional organizations and societies, in Excel or plain text format.

Also, using Plunkett’s Build-a-Report ℠, the user can create a custom PDF-formatted industry report for printing, emailing and/or saving.

You’ll be able to select exactly the companies you want to target. Criteria you may select by include annual revenues, size by employee count, specific industry sector by NAICS code, city, state or country of headquarters location and more. Directory information includes corporate address, phone, fax, website, revenues, profits, number of employees, subsidiaries, and up to 27 executive names by title.

Job Seeker Resources & Tools

For job seekers, in addition to the industry and company tools discussed above, Plunkett Research offers:

  • A separate Employer Search by major (U.S.-based, 2,500+ employees) and mid-size (U.S.-based, 150 to 2,500 employees) companies, with export and print functionality in Excel or plain text
  • Job market trends and statistics
  • Tips on the job search process
  • External links to the government publications Occupational Outlook Handbook and the Career Guide to Industries
  • Links to career websites and temporary employment agencies

MyResearchAccount

Sign up for a free research account and receive the following benefits:

  • Set up your own personal research profile and create a history of your searches
  • Save your searches and save comments about the search results
  • Receive alerts about new data posted to Plunkett Research Online

Connect to this Database

Please visit http://ezp.bentley.edu/login?url=http://plunkettresearchonline.com to start your research. Begin with the video tutorials at http://www.plunkettresearchonline.com/ResearchCenter/videos/tutorial.aspx, or explore what the database has to offer on your own.

This database is included in the following Library Research Guides:  Company Research,  Careers,  Industry & Market Research,  Researching Employers, and Residential Real Estate Market.  You can also 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 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.