Article indexing in WorldCat.org

Last week, WorldCat.org added records from ArticleFirst, ERIC, MEDLINE, and GPO. In short, this means that when you search WorldCat.org, you are now able to find articles as well as books. Details on this service can be found on this OCLC news announcement.

via Lorcan Demsey's weblog

OrgChartWiki from Forbes

Forbes is trying out an interesting experiment in which readers can help build organizational charts of major corporations. The OrgChartWiki is brand new, so it will be interesting to see if the following hurdles can be overcome as the wiki grows:

• Will the data be viewed as reliable? How will the user-contributed information be vetted (if at all?)
• Will the charts continue to just show people or will it also begin to show units. divisions, subsidiaries, etc.?

To give you a better sense of what's available now, here are direct links to some sample charts:

• Apple
• Google
  
• Wal-Mart
  

EconLit with full-text

We have upgraded to EconLit with full-text.

Our business research tutorial gets another nod

At the recent annual meeting of the New Jersey Library Association, a presentation on tutorials for library instruction highlighted our business research tutorial. Details of that presentation can be found here on the blog for the association.

Choice Reviews Online

We've updated our account with Choice so that it includes IP authentication, so that anyone can search the reviews and their essays. However if someone wants to create a list they need to either use their existing username/password or create a new one, which people can do on their own on the right side of the screen.

Internet may not be for everyone

The latest issue (April 23rd) of the Ticker includes an interview with John Pham, the winner of this year's Briloff Prize in Ethics. His prize winning paper was originally written for Jerry Bornstein's LIB3040 class and in the article he recommends the class because it "teaches students to actualize the potential of knowledge found in information resources." Students considering an IS minor might find this article helpful.

Extra credit paper re foreign judgment enforcement

During the research consultations, I helped some very nice grad students who are in an MBA business law class. They can do an extra credit paper on several topics, including enforcement of foreign judgments if the trial/decision in the country where the judgment was made was "fair." This is what I learned:

There can be two types of such judgments, 1.for money and 2. arbitration
Searching for "foreign money judgments" is better than "foreign judgments"

A better word than "fair" to search is "impartial" which is the term used in the Uniform Foreign Country Money Judgments Recognition Act of 1962. (This has been adopted by a number of U.S. states, including New York.) There is a revision, made in 2005, that has been adopted by only a few states. The explanation for the revisions is very easy to understand and is available from the web site of the Uniform Law Commissioners, which also mentions some cases.

I found some cases searching foreign money judgments in Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw.
There are also some law review articles, and some recent cases in Lexis-Nexis law reviews and legal news. (The assignment asks for recent cases.)

The students and I didn't search for arbitration awards. (The paper is to be no more than 8 pages.)

We limited our searches to foreign money judgments being enforced in the U.S., but Lexis-Nexis brought up some Canadian cases (involving American companies that had formed joint ventures with Canadian firms to do business elsewhere and then problems arose. We didn't pursue enforcing judgments in other countries.

I hope this is helpful if anyone else helps students with this question.

Google's transferable stock option program begins next Monday

We might get some questions about this:
For holders of vested Google stock options, the company is pioneering a first-of-its-kind program of Transferable Stock Option (TSO) program next Monday in certain countries. (The U.S. is one of these countries.) "The intent of the TSO program is to help Googlers maximize the value you receive from your stock options by allowing you to auction off your vested options as an alternative to exercising them," according to information from an SEC filing made today (April 20.).

I had trouble getting onto the Investor Information on the Google company website this morning (perhaps too much demand?) but if you access any of the databases for which we can access SEC filings, (Edgar Online I-Metrix, Audit Analytics, Thomson Research, Mergent, Lexis-Nexis, or the free SEC, www.sec.gov., you can find information that the company has filed on the TSO. A printed version of a presentation made to Google employees on Jan. 11, 2007 explaining the program is available. On Edgar Online I-Metrix, look for filings made April 19 and April 20, 8-ks, S-8 Pos, and the FWP. (Google also announced its first quarter earnings yesterday, April 19.)

Problem with accessing Business & Company Profile ASAP

When I tried to access Association Meetings on this database, using the journal/magazine online listing, the Thomson/Gale screen that appears asks for log-in and password information. I am using my office computer. I know that Mike Waldman is out today but I thought I would alert you to this.

Rita

Investext vs. Thomson One Analytics for analyst reports

This may not be news to anyone else, but I was surprised by how much richer a collection of analyst reports can be found in Thomson One Analytics (downstairs in the Subotnick Center) than in Investext Plus. In my efforts to help a professor find a specific report from 2003 penned by an analyst at Morgan Stanley, I found none in Investext and over fifty in Thomson One Analytics.

Literary criticism on specific poems

A student I met during a course-related lecture yesterday for a section of ENG 2150 was having trouble findng criticism on a poem by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) that the student claimed was titled "My Love Is Like to Ice." He said a librarian had already worked with him at the desk for a while and was unable to find any criticism.

I just finished doing some nosing around and thought I'd share what I learned, which I hope is instructive not just for this one particular poem but as a general approach when searching for criticism of a single poem. First, I found that the proper title of the poem is actually "Sonnet 30," although informally the poem is often known as "My Love Is Like to Ice," which happens to be the start of the first line "My love is like to ice, and I to fire:." It is worth knowing that it is common for poems (especially numbered sonnets) to be known by the first line; scholars, though, will typically refer to such poems by their official or real titles. I also discovered that the poem was published in Spenser's lifetime in a collection known as Amoretti.

It is the official title of the poem (or the title of the book-length collection where the poem first appeared) that you will want to use as part of your search, not the informal title of the poem. I suggested in an email to the student that he search for articles in Literature Resource Center and Academic Search Premier with this query:

SPENSER AND (AMORETTI OR SONNET 30)

For criticism in books, I recommended a slightly different query in the catalog:

SPENSER EDMUND AND CRITICISM

I directed him to look through the tables of contents and the indexes in those books for references to "Amoretti" or "Sonnet 30."

Equipment problem in classroom 130; condition of classroom 135

I couldn't get the projector in classroom 130 to come on tonight for an English 2100 class at 7:40 p.m. So, I moved to Room 135 right before the class was to begin, since it wasn't occupied. However, it appears that some work had recently been done in Room 135 as plaster(?) was on the long tables and the carpet really needs to be vacuumed. I have put in a help desk request about the projector.

Rita

Coca Cola announces reorganization and change in focus to its charitable giving

The Philanthropy News Digest, a newsletter published by the Foundation Center, to which free subscriptions are available, reports today that the Coca Cola Company, through its Foundation, has announced a restructuring and change in the focus of its charitable giving. Since many students do reports on Coke, I thought this would be of interest.

The newsletter report contains information from an earlier story in an Atlanta newspaper, and includes:

"As part of the shift, the company will refocus its giving, which had targeted education and diversity, on three areas: water cleanliness and supply, recycling with an emphasis on sustainable packaging, and fitness."

The change is to occur by Jan. 1, 2008. I tried Factiva and I didn't find other mention of this announcement.

Updated handout on searching Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Literature

Some Acc 3000 students, and others, have assignments which involve searching and locating answers to various factual problems by using the Financial Accounting Standards Boards literature. (Some might refer to this as the FARS assignment, "FARS" being the Financial Accounting Research System CD from the FASB of which we have two copies at the reference desk. For most of the students, this is their first introduction to the literature.

I have updated a handout that I prepared for Prof. Ethan Kinory's class last night and I have placed some copies in the reference desk files under Accounting 3000 FASB assignment.

Sources for the FASB literature include:
Print copies, the FARS disk, the free FASB website, www.fasb.org, and the subscription databases RIA Checkpoint and CCH Accounting Research Manager.

To search the accounting literature on RIA Checkpoint, after logging on, the search box needs to be changed to Acctg, Auditing & Corp. Finance.

CCH Accounting Research Manager offers the FASB literature and explanations and interpretations.

We have limited concurrent users for RIA and CCH but I think these are the better choices to use.

What parts of the literature should the students search? The problems are set in the current time, so I suggest that they start with the Current Text.

The Current Text has two parts, general standards applicable to all industries unless the industry has specific industry standards (the second part of the current text). Industries that have specific standards are oil & gas, motion pictures, etc. The Current Text is arranged by subject/topic and incorporates current applicable information from the FASB standards, which may have been amended, and other FASB publications. It provides references (hyperlinked to) to the FASB standards and other publications.

Because the Current Text is not officially part of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, students should not cite the Current Text but to the official standard. This is done by number and paragraph. It is likely that a number of searches may be necessary.



The assignments are trying to do at least four things: Help students recognize issues from a factual situation, search a database, find information and apply that information to the situation, and resolve the issue(s) in the assignment. The new Uniform CPA Exam requires that students retrieve FASB literature to answer some problems on the exam.

The CCH Accounting Research Manager Interpretations and Explanations might provide very useful help to students. The handout also includes mentions of CCH Business & Finance that offers a GAAP Guide, and Lexis-Nexis that offers the Miller GAAP Guide, and Books 24x7 offers a number of books that might be helpful in providing background explanations.

Federated Searching at Columbia University

This Wednesday the Columbia University Libraries launched "crossSearch," a simple federated search tool. It searches across only three interdisciplinary resources: Proquest, Web of Science, and CLIO, their catalog. The announcement states they will be developing more crossSearch tools.

Gotham Gazette article re libraries in city's budget process

Gotham Gazette had an article earlier this week about the "bargaining role" libraries often have in the New York City budgeting process. Happy National Library Week a little early. (It's next week April 15-21).

S&P NetAdvantage TRIAL

We have an ERAC trial to S&P NetAdvantage. I have listed it under NetAdvantage to differentiate it from our current subscription. Why the trial for something we already have? This trial gives us access to several areas of NetAdvantage we currently don't have access to (Louise, Harold or Rita can fill you in) . If you think this is a product CUNY should subscribe to, I encourage you to talk about it to your CUNY colleagues.

NYPL has introduced Federated Searching

SIBL now has a database search engine that searches across many databases or a group of subject-related databases. I tried the "Business" group and found the number of databases included was quite limited. You will find that you can sort your results by database, title, author or date. This is a pilot program and the library is asking for your feedback.

Moody's Manuals

All the historical volumes of the Moody's Manuals from 1909 to the present are now online. They are in a format that looks like a photocopy of the book pages. Searching by company name and year will take you to links to both the full volume (i.e., Industrials) and the company pages. Go to the Newman Library databases page and choose "Mergent WebReports."

Research consultations: appointments and walk-ins

Today is the first day of research consultations in the library. Students have begun to sign up using the online form linked to from the home page (look for the "Research Consultations" graphic in the lower right side of the page). Each day that we are offering appointments, there should be at the desk by 12 noon a printed schedule of the day's appointments.

Students who have pregistered should have already be aware of what room number to go to; when they submit the online sign-up form, they should see a new web page that verifies that they have successfully registered for such-and-such date and time. If a student signs up at least a few hours before the scheduled appointment, Joanne or I will have had a chance to send the student a reminder email that tells the student:

• the date and time of the appointment
• the room number and librarian's name
• the email address for the librarian

The email message also asks the student to email the librarian and describe the topic they need (or the kind of help they need).

Please be aware at online registration for that day's appointments closes out at 12 pm, which allows Joanne and me to create the printed schedule and distribute. In other words, same day registration only works up to 12 pm; after 12 pm, students will have to stop by the reference desk to see if anyone is free that day for a walk-in appointment. The printed schedule at the reference desk will be your guide to what appointments are still available for walk-ins. Please write the student's name in the "walk-ins" column of the printed schedule. After the day's appointments are over, please make sure that the printed schedule at the reference desk is given to Joanne or me.

Thanks.

Census Workshops

Baruch College will host three workshops designed to help faculty, graduate students, and other researchers better understand and use Census Bureau data.

Tuesday, April 17: What Kinds of Data Does the Census Bureau Collect?
Introduction: David Birdsell, Dean, SPA
Facilitator: Rosemarie Fogarty, Information Specialist, US Census Bureau
The first workshop provides an overview of Census Bureau data, using the Census’s website as the starting point.

Tuesday, May 15: Economic Data and Extracting Information from Data Files
Introduction: David Birdsell, Dean, School of Public Affairs
Facilitators: Leonard M. Gaines, Research Specialist, NYSDED and author of Industry Research Using the Economic Census: How to Find It, How to Use It.
Shulamith Gross, Professor of Statistics, Baruch College
Louise Klusek, Librarian, Baruch College
The second workshop covers publicly available microdata on individuals and households, as well as detailed statistics available on for-profit and not-for-profit enterprises. This workshop also demonstrates how to access, download, and begin analysis of these data with statistical software.

Tuesday, May 29: Using the NYCRDC and LED and LEHD Data
Introduction: Sanders Korenman, Professor, Executive Director, NYCRDC Baruch
Facilitators: Warren Brown, Director, Program on Applied Demographics, Cornell University and Research Director, NYCRDC
Rosemary Hyson, Administrator, NYCRDC, US Census Bureau
Lars Vilhuber, Senior Research Associate, CISER, Cornell University
Jeremy Wu, Program Manager, LEHD, US Census Bureau
The third workshop gives an overview of non-public Census microdata available through the secure research facilities of the New York Census Research Data Center (NYCRDC) at Baruch College and Cornell University. A major workshop focus is the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) and Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) programs. The New York State legislature recently passed legislation to allow New York to join the LED program, a resource for the study of state and local business and labor market dynamics. The workshop will cover topics such as how to use the LED for local-level analysis of employees and businesses. Facilitators will also describe procedures for applying for access to non-public microdata through the NYCRDC.

To register, send e-mail to: Abigail_Stevens@baruch.cuny.edu. Be sure to indicate which workshop(s) you will attend.

Using Camtasia

If you are going to the LACUNY Web Management Roundtable Spring Event this Friday on "Creating Tutorials and Podcasts Using Camtasia," you might want to take a look at what other libraries are doing. At the University of Central Florida Libraries their videos go a bit beyond just walking through how to use a database. Here is the link from their recent post to DIG-REF.

The videos at the following link were created with Camtasia: http://library.ucf.edu/Reference/Videos/Default.asp

For more info on the LACUNY program, here is the flyer.

New Trials

We have the following new trials, courtesy of ERAC:

Points of View, from EBSCO, competing pretty directly with Opposing Viewpoints.
It's not the usual EBSCO interface.

LitFinder, from GALE. Connect authors and their texts, poems, etc.

Small Business Resource Center, from GALE. From starting to managing a small business. It seemed interesting, so I checked the titles covered, and we already have access to most of them.

New databases

As previously announced:
Project MUSE has been updated to the Premium collection (335 journals)
Women and Social Movements and Black Thought and Culture from Alexander Street Press have been added.
The above paid for by ERAC/CUNY.

Social Explorer is a database developed at Queens College, that provides data maps of demographic information. It is currently available to all of CUNY.

Foundation Center website as a source of Form 990s

I have learned that if you obtain the login information for the Foundation Center's Directory, available at www.foundationcenter.org, from Melisa Mendez, melisa_mendez@baruch.cuny.edu, you may access the IRS Form 990 for the foundation for which you are searching. The Form 990 is the required yearly filing with the IRS. I tried several foundations, including the Baruch College Fund, and the Form 990s are available back to 2001 as pdf files.

The Form 990 can be useful in numerous information inquiries, such as where the foundation receives income, including investments, and to whom the foundation awards grants, expenses of the foundation, including salaries paid to foundation officers, and others.

Guidestar used to offer the Form 990 as part of its free information but access is now limited to those who have a premium (for a fee) Guidestar service. Accessing the Foundation Center site via the logon information from the Center for Sponsored Programs and Research is an alternative source for the Form 990s.
Rita

Notes from QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference User Group meeting

The QuestionPoint blog features this notable post today with notes from the user group meeting held during the ACRL conference.

Remote Access for Baruch Students

Saad sent out the following announcement this afternoon.

Please note that library remote access authentication procedures were changed as of yesterday:

* All Baruch students are now required to use their User Names (Webmail
User Names or Pharos User Names) and passwords to access library resources
remotely.
* All others can continue using their Library ID numbers, as before, for
now.

Please try the new login arrangement from home yourselves and forward all
related problems to Systems or ask students to send problems through the Technical Help form on the library site.

Blackwell-Synergy journals remote access problems

The last few evenings we have had excessive downloading from their journals from our proxy server. What Blackwell-Synergy does in cases like that is to block that IP address for an hour. It seems to happen in the middle of the night EST (we were blocked from 1am to 2pm this morning, for example). But in case someone contacts us about problems accessing these journals, this is probably why. Saad and I are investigating the incidents, but the IP address should be functional right now.