Business Blog

I’ve really enjoyed working with the faculty and students of the College of Business this quarter. The questions and research projects have been challenging and a great deal of fun. Business researchers have been very active this fall, and many of the library resources have seen extensive use. Below is a list of the 20 most popular electronic business resources for this past quarter. As always, if you have questions about these or other resources, feel free to contact me. Also, to put the list below in perspective, take a look at the Top 25 InfoTree Resources for Fall Quarter.

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Each year, INC. composes a list of the top 500 fastest-growing private companies. The current list can be accessed at the INC website, but you only get to see a small portion of the content. A subscription is required to access the complete list via the website.

The 2004 list is available in Business Source Premier, and this same search should retrieve the most recent version when it is available via BSP.

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Karen Kovacs has released the results of her survey about key business reference sources. The survey was sent to business and special librarians. The survey asked librarians to list the essential 3-5 print and electronic reference sources that they could not live without in answering business reference questions (e.g., company reports, marketing information, financial and other business or industry news ).

The results are below. There were some ties in the voting.
The print resource results:
1. Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys
2. ValueLine Investment Survey
3. Statistical Abstract of the U.S. and RMA Annual Statement Studies
4. Market Share Reporter and Ward’s Business Directory
5. Encyclopedia of Associations and Mergent (all copies)
6. Daily Stock Price Record, Directory of Corporate Affiliations, Industry Norms & Key Business Ratios, International Directory of Company Histories (Gale), NAICS and SIC handbooks, Thomas Register, and Wall Street Journals.

The electronic resource results:
1. ABI/INFORM and Reference USA
2. Business Source Premier (EBSCO) , LexisNexis and Mergent Online
3. Business and Company Resource Center (Gale) , Factiva and Standard & Poor’s NetAdvantage
4. Economic Censuses (U.S. Census Bureau)and Hoover’s Online
5. ProQuest Business Module
6. Bigcharts – http://www.bigcharts.com, ProQuest News & Magazines and Thomson Research

I am quite pleased that the Library owns or subscribes to most of the resources on this list.

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Brand loyalty, as defined in a post on brandxpress:

Brand loyalty is the ultimate goal a company sets for a branded product. Brand loyalty is a consumer’s preference to buy a particular brand in a product category. It occurs because consumers perceive that the brand offers the right product features, images, or level of quality at the right price. This perception becomes the foundation for a new buying habit. Basically, consumers initially will make a trial purchase of the brand and, after satisfaction, tend to form habits and continue purchasing the same brand because the product is safe and familiar.

Some suggested places to look for statistics about brand popularity are as follows:

• Market Share Reporter
• Mintel Reports (Look at the Market Segmentation of a report)
• MediaMark Research

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