Keeping Up With the Librarians

Business Insights: Global has undergone a transformation and is now Gale Business: Insights! It still contains the same content you know and love but aligns with the other Gale databases in terms of look and feel. We're working on updating our site to reflect this change, so you'll see our content reflect this update over the coming weeks.

If you're unfamiliar with Gale Business: Insights, it can help you locate company and industry information. It's beneficial for researching:

• SWOT analyses
• Company reports
• Business intelligence

Check it out today!

I have a rep in my house. Actually, I have two reps in my house. The first is that the bath towels need to be folded in a specific way, or I may become slightly unhinged when someone deviates from my autocratic folding rule. The second is that I can find stuff. We are going to focus on the latter as I don't think there is enough time or interest in unpacking the psychological roots and implications of the former.

I'm really good at finding things. Car keys. Wallets. Cat toys inexplicably dropped into bathtubs. It's a gift that, unlike the bath towel improvement strategy, is truly appreciated by my family. Looking back, I think I was predisposed to become a librarian. There are all kinds of librarians that do all types of work. But at the core of all of us is the desire and ability to find information. I am proud to say that the UOPX library staff shares this quality. In short, I've found my people.

The internet has changed the game for librarians. Face-to-face reference services during established business hours are giving way to on-demand research assistance. We live in a time whose motto might be "I want it now, and I want to get it myself." This applies to information. We know that most people want the easiest path to finding information without having to track down someone to ask. To support this need, we have updated three more on-demand learning tools (guides to help you find stuff).

Mergent Toolkits. We recently added five databases from Mergent to our toolkits page. Mergent provides financial data, company and industry reports, and comparison analysis tools. These databases are powerful tools for doing company and industry research, but at times can be overwhelming. Toolkits pull together videos and help guides that are unique to each database. In addition, we have added some useful but buried "treasures" and special tips to make searching the Mergent databases easier.

Get Started with Company Research. This How Do I guide provides you with a jumping-off point for company research. Sometimes, the hardest part of the research process is knowing where to start. In addition to breaking down the types of available company information, we've added a list of things to consider before you begin researching a company. Forewarned is forearmed. Understanding how the specific characteristics of a company can impact the type and amount of information available can save you frustration later in the research process.

Find a Specific Article or Book. We've streamlined this guide to provide the most effective ways to locate an article or book in the library. Not only do we break down the steps, but we also have a new video that will walk you through them and give insider search tips.

As good as these guides are (and they are good), we are always here to answer your questions via the Ask Us! service. That's what we do. We find things. And some of us fold a mean towel.

Do you ever find yourself needing all the nitty-gritty details on a company, like its financial data and the names, ages, and salaries of its top executives? Well, we have three new business databases to help you go into super-spy mode and find all this information and more!

Mergent Online

Mergent Online is where you can really go into spy mode! Besides financial data, it also has company reports and information about the company's history, structure, and executives. If you've ever been curious about how much top companies' CEOs earn, you can look it up here!  

Mergent Intellect

Besides having extremely detailed company information, Mergent Intellect also helps you dig into demographic information about the population. You can find U.S. census data and learn more about the demographics of any population in the U.S., which could be helpful for marketing professionals. You can even do a residential search and look up individuals by name, address, or phone number. To top it all off, it even has a great Learning Center to help you learn how to do all of this. 

Dun & Bradstreet Key Business Ratios  

You can use Dun & Bradstreet Key Business Ratios to find financial data on public and private companies and different industries, including benchmarking data. Are you a number-cruncher who loves data tables that are a mystery to most people? Then this database is for you!  

Ever struggle to use the library? Then, our new Toolkits are for you!

The toolkits offer a central location where you can find the "tools" you may need to help you research a topic or use a resource.

For this launch, we've focused on providing Database Toolkits, which offer tips on how to use our largest, and most popular, databases more effectively. Additionally, there are tutorials if you're new to the database and other insights that might be useful to you. For example, one of our featured databases is Business Source Complete. This toolkit offers links to the database (and in this case, a specialized collection within Business Source Complete: SWOT Analysis), videos on how to search Business Source Complete, and tips and resources that align with research that you may be doing in your courses.

We currently have four toolkits available, with more coming soon! If there's something, in particular, you'd like to see, let us know in the comments or reach out to us through Ask Us!

Ah, it’s never too late in the day for a Wizard of Oz pun, even a bad one.

We’ve recently added some new databases to the library and, while we love all of them, I wanted to highlight some of our favorites.

Business Insights: Global
Struggling with conducting company research? Business Insights: Global can help! It offers comprehensive business intelligence, including company reports and financials, SWOT analysis, industry and market share reports, and case studies.

Gale Health and Wellness
Ah, health information. It’s available in abundance these days. But, how to do you know what’s credible? Enter Gale Health and Wellness. It’s a great first-stop to research a range of health-related issues, from current disease and disorder information to in-depth coverage of alternative medical practices.

Gale Power Search
If you’re a regular EBSCOhost and ProQuest user, Gale Power Search is for you. It combines most of our Gale databases into a single search platform and is a good place to start your research or if you need to uncover a lot of information at once.

Honorable Mention – In Context Databases
We added several new In Context databases (think Opposing Viewpoints-esque). There are too many to mention by name in this post but they cover topics such as environmental science and history. If you're not familiar with our In Context databases, they're great at helping you getting a grasp on a topic by offering overviews, historical context, and current news and research. They also offer related topics to help you branch into other areas of research you might not have considered before.

Check out all our new Gale databases!