Essential Business Information for Engineering Librarians

1. Essential Business Information for Engineering Librarians Megan Sapp Nelson, Asst. Professor of Library Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

2. Business Research Consists of…

3. Engineering Librarians Most Frequently Need to Know:

4. Company Research • Includes: • Financial data • Profiles • SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis • Competitors

5. Company Research Sources • Resources: • Thomas Register – http://www.thomasnet.com • EDGAR – http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml • Company Websites

6. Market Research • Market Research Reports • Market Share/Size Market Research Sources • US Commercial Service Market Research Library http://www.buyusainfo.net/adsearch.cfm?search_type=int&loadnav=no (Free registration with Export.gov)

7. Industry Research • Classification Schemes • Surveys/Overviews • Statistics

8. Industry Research Sources • Yahoo Finance Industry Profiles http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/ • Current Industrial Reports (U.S. Census Bureau) http://www.census.gov/cir/www/index.html • US Economic Census - http://www.census.gov/econ/census/snapshots/index.html

9. Country Research • Statistics • Profiles • Economic Conditions Country Research Sources • World Development Indicatorshttp://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers&userid=1&queryId=6 • UN Data http://data.un.org/

10. Demographics Research • Statistics Demographics Sources • US Census Bureau American FactFinder • http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en • Statistics by Country – UN http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/inter-natlinks/refs3.htm • Demographic and Social Statistics – UN http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/default.htm

11. Your most important resource • Get to know your colleagues specializing in business information.

12. Resources • Kirkwood, Hal. Business Research Concept Map. http://www.lib.purdue.edu/mel/bizmap/BusinessResearch.html