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What's this Wiki for?
The purpose of this Wiki is to experiment with an alternative form delivery of library information. Traditionally, recommend library resources are listed in subject guides or pathfinders. I have three subject guides that cover business information resources: one for General Business, one for International Business, and one for Marketing. While these Research Guides contain good information, they are difficult to update. In addition, they are terribly boring to read, are not searchable, and contain duplicated information. This wiki might be a good alternative to the traditional research guide format, and could perhaps compliment the Business Blog quite nicely.
What does it do?
This wiki will contain the same information found in the research guides mentioned above. In addition to the listings of books, databases, and websites, this wiki will contain how-to information. For example, I hope to have articles on how to find demographic data, or how to find SWOT analyses or industry overviews. These articles will in turn link to the most appropriate resources for a topic.
Understanding the Biz Wiki's Organization
Because the Biz Wiki uses the Media Wiki software, this wiki has to be organized in certain ways. Some of the organizational terminology cannot be changed, so definitions are provided below to make the wiki easier to use.
What is a category?
Categories are used to organize wiki articles by common characteristics. Categories may have subcategories, which will be more specific than the parent category in which they reside. For example, a broad category is International Business, which contains some articles pertaining to international business. The International Business category also contains more specific subcategories, such as Country and Culture. The link to an article's category will be at the bottom of the article, and clicking the category link will find similar wiki articles. In the case of the Biz Wiki, you will find similar business resources in the same category.
What is an article?
In wiki terms, "article" refers to any page that is added by a user. Articles are organized by category to make them easier to find, and to make it easier to find similar articles. For the Biz Wiki, there are currently two article types. These are described below.
Article Type: Research tools
Since the primary purpose of the Biz Wiki is to organize business research tools (reference books, websites, databases), quite a few articles in the Biz Wiki will simply be the name and description of a particular resource. For example, Encyclopedia of American Industries is an article about a particular research tool. This article type will generally include:
- the title of the resource
- format of the resource (reference book, online database, website)
- a description of the resource
- possible uses of the particular resource.
Article Type: Research guides
Articles in the Biz Wiki may also be research guides for particular topics. Examples of this type of article include Doing Business in Another Country or the Automobile Industry Guide. You will be able to recognize most of these articles by the Table of Contents at the top of the page. These articles may contain the following:
- a description of what the article is about
- possible search terms
- print resources
- electronic resources
- topic definitions
- and more.
How do I use the wiki?
Browsing
There area a couple of different ways to read the Biz Wiki. You can start by browsing the categories on the Main Page. The main categories will link to a number of subcategories. You will find articles and resources about your topic in each of the subcategories.
It is important to think broadly about your topic when browsing your the categories. For example, if you are doing research on General Motors, you would probably start with the Company Information category link on the Main Page. You will notice that there is not a category or a specific article for General Motors (or any other company for that matter). Rather, there will be lists of resources in each category that will point you to databases, reference books, or other resources that will most likely be useful when researching General Motors.
Searching
So what is the deal with searching the Biz Wiki? It's got two buttons to click, so which one does what?
The "Go" Button
The "Go" Button is the default search method. If you type in a search topic and then hit the Enter key on your keyboard, the wiki will do a "Go" search. This search will search the titles of articles first, and will find any listings with the search terms in the title. For example, if you search for Market Insight and click "Go" (or hit the enter key), the wiki entry for Market Insight will be displayed immediately.
The "Search Button"
The "Search" button works a little differently than the "Go" button. The "search" button will search the entire full text of the Biz Wiki. For example, by typing in Market Insight in the search box and then clicking "Search", the database will retrieve two results. One for the article for Market Insight, and another for Standard and Poor's Industry Surveys, in which the database Market Insight is mentioned.
Using the right search terms
The Biz Wiki uses a fairly simple database structure, so the search interface may not be as powerful as you are used to. You do not need to add the word "and" between terms when combining terms. Also, there is not a way to only perform phrase searches in the Biz Wiki. Also, commonly used words (and, for, of, the, and quite a few others) will be ignored by the search feature. A larger list of common stop words, or words which cannot be searched, can be found at the Meta Wiki Help page.
How can I get more help?
This wiki was designed to get you started with your research, but odds are, somewhere along the way you might get stumped. When this happens, you can contact the Biz Wiki's creator, Chad Boeninger, with your questions. Should you get stuck adding content to the Biz Wiki, please feel free to contact Chad with these questions as well.
