Follow-up on Private Equity

Students (or librarians) wanting to know more about the key sources for research in private equity and venture capital should consult the guide to the Venture Capital and Private Equity Industry from the Baker Library at Harvard Business School.

Directories of private equity firms

I thought I'd share two sources for a question I hadn't gotten before. A patron asked for a directory of private equity firms and angel investors. With Louise's help, we identified two print sources that would work for this:

• Galante's Venture Capital and Private Equity Directory (not at Baruch, but at SIBL)
• Pratt's Guide to Venture Capital Sources (Baruch has 2007, SIBL has 2008)

I tried D&B $Million Database, but found that the relevant SIC and NAICS codes weren't finely grained enough to search for just private equity companies.

Laptops for Faculty

I've updated the wiki page on laptops to reflect the fact that faculty can now borrow laptops from us. Details of the policy can also be found on that page.

Using the Reuters Terminal at Reference

This is a reminder that any use of the Reuters terminal at the reference desk is subject to the same rules that apply in the Subotnick Center. Most importantly, students may not save data to a USB device or print from the terminal. Data should be saved to the desktop and e-mailed to their address.

These rules are clearly stated on the two notice boards posted next to our terminal. The current group of students with the class assignment is one of the BUS1000 classes that uses the Subotnick Center as their classroom and they should be aware of the rules.

The Information Commons at the U of Kentucky

The undergraduate library at the University of Kentucky has posted a promotional video about their information commons. I heard Stacey Greenwell speak about designing what they call The Hub at SLA.

The video uses students to tell the story. Some things you might note are the reference desk signs that say "Help Help Help," the reference station on wheels, and the movable white boards.

The United Airlines Story and Information Literacy

Amy Fry posted a great piece on the ACRLog this morning about the implications of the UAL incident for information literacy(See my post from yesterday for details). She calls it "Information is Power - Even When It's Wrong."

She makes four points:

Proper metadata is important

There is no substitute for critical thinking about sources

Sometimes aggregators are misleading

Google is more powerful than even we realized.

Westlaw Campus Research back on

It's working again.

Various Gale databases not working

Currently Gale Virtual Reference, Literature Resource Center, and MLA are giving error messages. This is a problem on Gale's end that their engineers are trying to fix.

Check Your Sources

An article in yesterday’s New York Times, “A Mistaken News Report Hurts United,” makes the case for always checking your sources and would be a perfect story to use when teaching business students. The stock of United Airlines fell from $12 to $3 dollars in less than an hour and trading in the stock had to be halted. How did it happen? An analyst in a research firm found an article about United saying they would file for bankruptcy and put it in his investment advisory where it was linked to by Bloomberg News. He found the article in a search on Google for bankruptcy filings in 2008. What he did not note was that the article was six years old. A follow-up story in today’s Wall Street Journal, “UAL Story Blame is Placed on Computer,” puts the blame on search robots. First the Sun-Sentinel featured the story as one of its most popular for the day and then Google’s bot picked it up and featured it on Google News, and finally, automated trading programs picked up the headline and started selling.

AP Images

Our subscription to AP Images has been canceled and I am removing it from the list of databases.

Gale Virtual Reference unavailable

Gale is looking into the problem.

Problems with CUNY Plus

This is the latest update from systems:

CUNY+ has come back, but browse is not working properly in the local catalogs - it is investigated and you'll be updated when it's restored.

Browse works OK in the Union Catalog (all CUNY libraries), and keyword works OK in the local catalogs.

CUNY Network Problems

CUNY CIS sent this notice out at 8:25 AM this morning:

CUNY CIS is currently experiencing some networking problems. Some application such us the CUNY Portal Login, Sharepoint, Stellent, Track-It, etc. may be inaccessible. Our administrators are working diligently to resolve the problem.

Westlaw Campus Research

We cannot connect at the moment. West is investigating.

Now that's advertising!

The statewide chat reference service QandANJ aired a 30-second spot in NJ markets last night during the MTV Video Music Awards. Here's the ad:

(link to video)

This is actually the 2nd year that QandANJ has done this. Here's last year's ad:

(link to previous year's video)

FYI: QandANJ is part of the QuestionPoint chat reference cooperative.

Gale Virtual Reference unavailable

Gale Virtual Reference is not working. Gale is aware of this and working to solve the problem.

Additional alternatives to Investext investment reports

Other sources of analyst reports are:

IS Emerging Markets has analyst reports, including some Thomson Investext reports. Because this database focuses on the "emerging markets" this might be most helpful for those doing international research. A few years ago, a professor was impressed with the reports available from India on Indian companies.

Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage..The Interactive Stock reports offer independent research by S&P analysts. The interactive choice lets you study the stock "like an analyst." The Stock Picks and Pans provides very short reactions by analysts to the news/events of the day.

Morningstar and ValueLine also have analyst reports. These may provide some help for students, although they are not the same caliber as investment reports from investment banks. Probably most helpful to beginning researchers.

Alternatives to Investext

We have access to two databases with investement reports that can be used instead of Investext. The best option is Thomson One Analytics since it has the most complete coverage including fixed income, equities,economic and country reports. It covers U.S. and international securities. All the "bulge bracket" banks are contributors including Goldman, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. And since Thomson One is a "real time" platform, reports are added daily without a long embargo. The drawback for our students is that Thomson One is not available from off campus. Students can use the database in the Subotnick Center or at the Reuters terminal at the reference desk. Students can not print from these terminals but must e-mail the reports to themselves.

Another alternative to Investext is the investement reports in Business and Company Resource Center. They come from Reuters Research on Demand. But none of the "name" banks are contributors; rather the reports are from boutique firms that focus on earnings forecasts, technical analysis and various investment strategies. (For more detail on the contributors, see my blog post of July 29th). Reports in BCRC are only available on companies, not on industries.

Investext

In the breakup between Gale and Thomson, Gale lost Investext. At this point our subscription has run out and I have removed it from our database list. It would be great if people could post here alternative sources for that information so we all can get a refresher.

Naxos: New interface coming

Naxos will be upgrading to a the new Naxos Music Library 2.0 between Tuesday, September 9th through Friday, September 12th, from 10:00 P.M. to 12:00 AM, each evening. The database might be unavailable at that time.