Library Hours During Intersession

During intersession from May 28th to June 1st, the Library will be open only on Tuesday May 31st and Wednesday June 1st from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Library will be closed from May 28th to May 30th for the Memorial day weekend. Summer semester hours start on Thursday, June 2nd.

Printing Allocations for Summer Students

Students taking classes this summer will get a thirty dollar printing allocation that will be good for the entire summer regardless of whether they are enrolled in one or both of the summer sessions. Baruch students who are not taking summer classes will not have a printing budget and will need to purchase a vendor card.

Calculators for Summer Session

TI-89 calculators for the first summer session will be distributed at the circulation desk on Thursday June 2nd starting at 9:30 a.m.

Extranet at the Hennepin County Library

The always notable Hennepin County Library in Minnesota has recently launched an extranet to share with the library community resources that previously were only accessible on their intranet. This seems like an interesting idea: a way to share the library's accomplishments with the larger library community. Like us, they have a blog for their reference staff. They've also put up some of the presentations that staff members have made at conferences and workshops.

NYC Education Budget Report

The following report is mentioned in the Gotham Gazette today:

"Education Budget for Dummies"
This report, prepared by the New York City Council Committee on Education, aims to help New Yorkers understand the multi-billion education budget and learn how to influence the budget process. It outlines funding for teacher salaries and pensions, school supplies, capital improvements, transportation, and other costs.

Read the announcement about the report (PDF)

Quote worth sharing from Berkshire Hathaway's annual report to shareholders

In this year's Berkshire Hathaway's annual report to shareholders, I found this catchy line from the sage of Omaha: "In line with Bershire's owner-orientation, most of our directors have a major portion of their net work invested in the company. We eat our own cooking."

RSS feed of new articles in ABI/Inform Global

ABI/Inform Global now offers you the ability to be notified of the addition of new articles in their database. There are dozens of feeds you can subscribe to, all of which are subject specific. The list of feeds and instructions can be found on the ProQuest :: RSS page.

UK banks republishing their annual 2004 results under the new international finanical reporting standards

This week all UK banks will start republishing their 2004 annual results under the International Financial Reporting Standards that went into effect in Europe and parts of Asia on Jan. 1, 2005. I mention this because it will make some comparisons difficult (even for the people who are experts)according to press and other reports. Most banks said before the beginning of the year that adjusted earnings per share under the new rules would fall by five percent or less.

The May 9 Financial Times has an article by Jane Croft, "Banks braced for impact of IFRS: Key companies are about to reveal the effect of new accounting standards."

Under IAS 39, some products previously accounted for as insurance products are now investment products. There is some interpretation going on as to everyone is reading the fine print, says the story. The adoption of IAS 39 was quite controversial.
(I am preparing to moderate a session at the SLA conference on the changes in the international accounting standards. The speakers deal with it every day. I'll keep you posted.)

Rita

London Times back into Lexis/Nexis

We are pleased to announce that The London Times and related titles have been added back into the product. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this temporary interruption. We are very pleased to have it back... just in time for election news in the UK!

The reinstated titles are:
1) The Times and Sunday Times
2) News of the World
3) Times Higher Education Supplement
4) Times Education Supplements
5) The Sun

Please note: It will take a few days to update linking. In the meantime, please use this procedure to access the London Times: Go into Guided News Search. In Step One, choose World News. In Step Two, choose European News Sources, and then click on the Source List link. In the list that appears, scroll down to find "Times (London), The". Checkmark this, and then click on the "Paste to Search" button.


Thank you all for your patience!

Lisa

Lisa Montague Sykes
Lead Academic Editor
LexisNexis Academic
CIS Index

Phone number for Direct Marketing in room 251

is x1530

Economic Data for Regression Analysis

Students from a Macroeconomics class are looking for files of historical U.S. economic data to manipulate using regression analysis. Two good Web sites that they can use are FRED II, economic research from the Federal Reserve banks, and the Economic Report of the President.

Three hole puncher not working

Nelson has removed it.

Historical financials

Can someone please tell me a print source for historical company financials? Thanks.

No printing yet for accounting conference attendees

Although conference attendees do have guest logins for the public PCs, the vendor card printer system does not work when they have logged in. On the 8 PCs behind the reference desk (the ones that don't require any login), the vendor card printing system does work...but these PCs are limited to databases, Blackboard, etc. and do not allow access to the open web.

Borrowing Reference Books

The Newman Library policy is that reference books and non-circulating titles cannot be borrowed from the library but if a faculty member needs an item for his/her research, we can make a case-by-case decision to let the item circulate for a limited time. Please refer the professsor to the Head of Reference for authorization and to determine the lending period. A copy of the signed authorization slip will be kept in a folder at the reference desk. Since the faculty must still take the item to Access Services for check out and return, a record of the due date will appear in the Baruch holdings record.

Finding Credit Ratings

I was helping a student yesterday find credit ratings for the Gap, Inc and found out some interesting things. All the major rating agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch, announce rating actions through press releases. Moody's ratings are released through their Moody's Investors Service Press Releases available through Factiva. Search with the subject term "corporate credit ratings." Both the Fitch Wire and S&P Credit Wire are available in the ThomsonONE Analytics database in the Subotnick Center. If you would like to see a sample of a credit announcement, Standard & Poor's posts today's releases at their website.

Internet Access for Accountancy Conferees

Baruch will be hosting "The Critical Perspectives on Accounting" conference from April 28 to May 2. All attendees will get guest accounts to use the wireless network and the computers in the library. These accounts will be distributed at the conference registration desk on the 14th floor of the VC. Attendees will have to purchase a vendor card to print from library computers.

Astrid Unterrede to see Rita

Astrid Unterrede is coming in for the CPA conference about 4 p.m. and she can leave her luggage in my office. She knows that I will be back about 5:30 p.m.

Thanks, Rita

I will let security know too.

Nice tutorial on how to set up a feed reader

Want to keep tabs on more than one blog or feed without having to hopscotch around the web to many different sites? Set up a Bloglines account. Here's a nice guide on how to do it.

Database of learning materials for higher ed

MERLOT is a free database of links to learning materials that colleges have posted on their web sites. There are links to handouts, tutorials, guides, etc., all to be found in abundance here. You can browse the collection or become a member so that you can submit links for your own material (as long as that material is already available on the web).