Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Hidden Away : Business Information

cover of bookHidden away in the Thomson-Gale magazine databases which we (and all libraries in the state) get through the State Library is the Business and Company Resource Center. (Wait! before you click, call the library for the password to use to get into the Gale databases from home). It's much more than a magazine resource. Yes, there are full-text articles in there, from 2000 or more general and specialist periodical titles. But that's only the beginning. There are 500,000 company profiles, with investment reports, rankings, financials, industry overview, company history, etc. as available. This is professional-level business information, coming to us because financial-information giant Thomson bought Gale, the database company which serves the library market.
       It makes interesting browsing. If you choose Advanced Search, then Company Profiles, and ask it for New Mexico as the state/country, it comes up with 1321 profiles. I wish we had known about the Industry Overview feature when we had the library user who wanted some information about the history of tobacco.
       Call the library for the password. Then, starting from the magazine database page, choose "Gale Group", put in the password, and choose Business and Company Resource Center. Other databases can be reached from the same starting point: newspapers, health information, and several other Gale databases as well. And all available from anywhere, once you call us for the password.
       Don't forget that from inside the library you also have access to FirstSearch.

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