Collection Development "Business Reference": Mind Your Own Business

by Judith M. Nixon & Hal P. Kirkwood Jr. -- Library Journal, 11/1/2004

Like any well-run company deciding on what products and services to offer, a good library should pay attention to customer demand when it is building its business reference collection. What kind of information do business patrons want? Most are looking for company and industry details: a corporate address or name of an officer, financial data for a stock or mutual fund investment, a list of competitors or the key companies in a particular industry, or news articles on the trends in an industry or who has the biggest market share. Because of the nature of these "tell me everything about this company or industry" questions, business reference does not follow traditional research patterns. We don't start with a typical dictionary or encyclopedia entry and then move to books and periodical and newspaper articles. The primary research tools are company directories, investment/financial reports and loose-leaf services, industry surveys, and business periodical index/abstract/full-text databases, published by such major business reference publishers as Thomson Gale, Standard & Poor's, Dun & Bradstreet, Hoover's, and Mergent.

The business and financial markets are in a constant state of flux. Companies acquire one another, change their names. Stock and mutual fund prices adjust almost daily. To keep up, business patrons demand the most current information possible. This is why many of the print resources available follow publication schedules similar to periodicals: weekly, biweekly, monthly, as well as annually. Therefore, constant weeding of dated materials is essential.

Nothing could be more up to the minute than online access. The last five years have seen an explosion of web-based business information sources, and many libraries are dropping their print references in favor of these cybertools when they become relatively affordable. At the same time, business patrons are increasingly requesting desktop access; they want to be able to approach a library's e-subscriptions directly from their own home or office computer.

Business reference materials have always been expensive. With the new online products, pricing becomes even steeper and more complicated, especially if libraries are negotiating with vendors for patron desktop access. To help smaller public and college libraries with limited budgets, this article lists cheaper alternatives to starred favorites. In some cases, the difference among products is not great, so compare and listen to your users. (As a few publishers do not list prices on their web sites or in their advertising brochures, librarians will sometimes have to ask for quotes.) In addition, we are including some "one-stop" online databases that integrate several reference sources at one site. If you subscribe to these, you will have a virtual business reference collection instantly!

Business is a vast field, encompassing many subcategories (management, banking, labor, etc.). Owing to space considerations, the scope of this article has been limited to print and e-resources that answer the most common types of business questions. (Many of the print titles have online versions as well.) Small business and international business are reserved for future articles. For collection development tips on business statistics, see Megan S. Farrell's "By the Numbers: Finding Business Stats," LJ 11/1/00, p. 49-51.

Finally, there is a section on ready-reference print sources for quick lookups, i.e., handbooks that guide librarians to the guides and encyclopedias that define or explain business topics.

Starred [*] items are essential for most public and academic business reference collections.

D&B Million Dollar Directory: America's Leading Public & Private Companies. 5 vols. a. $1898.50. Dun & Bradstreet. ISSN 0742-9649. This annual directory lists over 160,000 companies, providing address, telephone, names of top officials, annual sales figures, number of employees, exchange, and year founded. Volume 4 lists the companies by industry, Volume 5 by state and city. A second choice after Ward's only because D&B "rents" the volumes, which must be returned at the end of a year. Online access: mddi.dnb.com/mddi. North American and international database versions are updated every 30 days, and single-user, multiuser, LAN, and WAN configurations are available. Call 800-526-0651 for pricing.

*Hoover's Handbook of American Business 2004. 2 vols. Hoover's Business. 2003. 1232p. ISBN 1-57311-088-4. $205. This annual profiles 750 U.S. public and private companies, with easy-to-read narratives that cover history, officers, locations, stock exchange and ticker symbol, products, competitors, and some historic financials. The 2005 edition will be available in December. Because patrons want more information than general directories provide, libraries may want to consider adding Hoover's more specialized directories: Hoover's Handbook of Emerging Companies, Hoover's Handbook of Private Companies, and Hoover's Handbook of World Business. The entire set is available for $495. A good affordable choice for smaller public and college libraries. Online access: Hoover's Online (see below).

*ReferenceUSA. $5897.50. infoUSA, Inc.; 800-808-1113; reference@infoUSA.com. Recommended because of its huge size and scope; ReferenceUSA's Internet-based subscription business database lists 12 million U.S. businesses. Search criteria are organized into six categories: Company, Yellow Pages, Geography Selects, Phone Selects, Business Size, and Special Selects. Online access: www.referenceUSA. com

Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations, Directors and Executives. 3 vols.a. $1140. Standard & Poor's: McGraw-Hill. ISSN 0361-3623. Listing over 75,000 companies, this directory is not as comprehensive as Ward's, but it presents much the same information (address, telephone, URL, officers, and description of business). One advantage: it includes over 70,000 biographical sketches of executives. Online access: S&P's NetAdvantage (see below).

*Ward's Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies. 47th ed. 8 vol. set and supplement. Thomson Gale. 2004. ISBN 0-7876-7073-1. $2925; CD-ROM $4190. Every business collection needs a directory of company information, and this one is invaluable. The first three volumes list over 100,000 companies (90 percent are private) in an A-Z arrangement. Volume 4 is a geographic listing. Volumes 5-8 provide rankings by sales within Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes, and for each state by sales within SIC codes. You can buy selected volumes if your budget is limited. Volumes 1-4 cost $2,195. However, either Volume 5 or Volume 8 is highly recommended as a source of information about competitive companies. Adding Volume 5 to the set brings the price to $2,475. The next edition will be published July 2005. Online access: Business & Company Resource Center (see below).

Mergent Manuals and News Reports. a. (with w. & m. updates); call for pricing on the different library packages. Mergent, Inc., 5250 77 Center Dr., Suite 150, Charlotte, NC 28217; 800-342-5647; customerservice@mergent.com. ISSN 0545-0217. These top-level, well-respected, comprehensive business and financial resources provide financial data on 25,000 American and foreign companies. The most important volume is Mergent's Industrial Manual, which lists 2000 top industrial corporations. Other titles are OTC Industrial, OTC Unlisted Transportation, Public Utility, Bank and Finance, International Municipal and Government, and International Company Manuals. Subscriptions include weekly online and monthly print updates. Online access: www. mergent.com.

*Mergent's Handbook of Common Stocks. q. $385. Mergent, Inc., dist. by Wiley Subs. Svcs., 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030. 800-825-7550. ISSN 1547-8343. Updated quarterly, the handbook profiles about 1000 New York Stock Exchange companies. Each one-page company report includes recent price, chart of long-term prices, dividends, and ten years of comparative data and ratios. As a reasonably priced source of stock advisory information, this is strongly recommended for even the smallest business reference collection.

*Morningstar Mutual Funds. bi-w. loose-leaf service (24 issues), $549. Morningstar, Inc., 225 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago, IL 60606; 866-608-9570; for special library pricing: 866-442-1121. This is the most-respected mutual fund information service. The biweekly report features commentary, benchmark data, and performance data on 1600 funds. Also included is a one-page analysis of 160 specific funds. Subscription includes binder. There are now also online updates and advance electronic delivery (in PDF format). Online access: www.morningstar.com. There is a Morningstar Library Edition database with both mutual fund and public company profiles, data, and analysis.

Standard & Poor's Standard Corporation Descriptions. m. $2396. Standard & Poor's: McGraw-Hill. ISSN 0277-500X. The monthly service provides financial information on the New York and American Stock Exchanges as well as larger unlisted and regional exchange companies. Data is extracted from the required governmental filings and includes line of business, list of plants and property, officers, and financial and operating data. Online access: S&P's NetAdvantage (see below).

*Value Line Investment Survey. w. loose-leaf service. $598; $538 for online access. Value Line Pub., Inc.; for multiuser pricing: 800-531-1425. ISSN 0042-2401. This is the most-well-known, and probably the best, stock evaluation tool, covering nearly 70 industry reports and about 2000 stocks. Charts show ten-year performance, recommendations on timeliness and safety of investing, and future prospects of the stock. Complementing the survey is the Small and Mid-Cap Edition, which includes an additional 1800 mostly small capitalization issues. Also available is Value Line Mutual Fund Survey, which offers a mutual fund rating service very similar to the stock service. Online access: On CD-ROM or at www.valueline.com.

Encyclopedia of American Industries. 4th ed.2 vols. Thomson Gale. Nov. 2004. ed. by Rebecca Marlow-Ferguson. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 0-7876-9061-9. $650. A good tool for patrons researching smaller industries not covered by Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys (see below). Every SIC code (over 1000 industries) is covered; each entry includes background, current conditions, industry leaders, work force, and global marketplace. Online access: Business & Company Resource Center (see below).

*Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys. q. $1880. Standard & Poor's: McGraw-Hill. ISSN 0196-4666. The most-well-known and useful resource for industry details. If you can afford it, definitely buy for the analysis it provides on 52 major U.S. industries. Each narrative report is written by a professional analyst. In addition, reports have charts, lists of top companies, and financials for the major companies. Online access: S&P's Net-Advantage (see below).

Business librarians debate which product is the best; the EBSCO product includes more journals, but ProQuest may have the quality edge. Many states and library consortia provide statewide access to one or the other, so the choice may already be made for you. [For more information on this topic, see Gail Golderman and Bruce Connolly's "Getting Down to Business, Winter 2003 netConnect, LJ 1/03, p. 38-43.]

ABI/Inform Global. ProQuest Information & Learning Co., 300 N. Zeeb Rd., PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106; 734-761-4700; sales queries: 800-369-0166. The 30-year-old ABI/Inform is one of the earliest electronic databases. It indexes 2000 general and academic business periodicals, with coverage running back to 1971. A significant number of its available articles are full text and full image. ProQuest also contains company profiles. Online access: proquest.com/products/pt.product-ABI.shtml; prices range from $8000-$20,000 for small academic libraries and from $4500-$18,000 for small public libraries.

*Business Source® Premier/Elite. EBSCO Pub.; information@epnet.com. This database indexes and abstracts 350 scholarly journals running back to 1965 (or the first issue published for some journals). It also covers 2300 general and academic business periodicals and provides access to an extremely large number of full-text and full-image articles. BSP Elite is a smaller database providing access to over 1500 journals dating back to 1985. Online access: www.epnet.com/academic/bussourceprem.asp. Pricing depends on several factors; call 800-653-2726 for estimate.

*Business & Company Resource Center. Thomson Gale; for pricing info, call 800-877-4253. This integrated, all-encompassing database collects company financial information, investment reports, industry statistics and reports, products and brands, and association data. Journal coverage runs from 1977 to the present, with a large portion of full-text articles. A condensed version, Business & Company ProFile ASAP, gives access to company profile information, press releases, and business journal articles (LJ 10/15/00). Online access: www.gale.com/BusinessRC.Pricing starts at $10,000 but varies.

Factiva. Dow Jones & Reuters Business Interactive., dist. by ProQuest Information & Learning Co., 300 N. Zeeb Rd., PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106; 734-761-4700; sales queries: 800-369-0166. A major source of business information, with keyword indexing of full-text articles from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and almost 9000 other newspapers, periodicals, newswires, media programs, web sites, and other sources. The Company/Markets tab provides directory information, SEC filings, and financial analysis reports. The Quotes section provides past years of stock prices. Online access: www.factiva.com. Price is based on user population and number of simultaneous users and ranges from $8500-$11,500 for two simultaneous users

*Hoover's Online. Hoover's Inc.; for pricing info, call 866-720-9412; salesteam@hoovers.com. Our favorite first-stop database for basic company and industry information, especially useful for beginning business researchers. The essays are written by journalists, not financial analysts, and so are very readable, sometimes even entertaining. The basic service is free, including brief company descriptions, some financial data (sales, sales growth percentage, income, number of employees, and one-year employee growth percentage). A list of key people and main competitors and links to industry reports are also available. Online access: www.hoovers.com. Subscription pricing for fuller services is based on factors such as the class of service purchased (Pro, Pro Plus, or Pro Premium), the number of users, type of access, and the type of organization (not-for-profit, academic, etc.).

Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage. Standard & Poor's: McGraw-Hill; netadvantage@standardandpoors.com. Aimed specifically at academic, public, and corporate libraries, this electronic database presents company directory and finance/investment information from nine S&P publications, including Register, Stock Reports, Standard Corporation Descriptions, and Industry Surveys. It does not provide news or periodical articles. Online access: www.netadvantage.standardandpoors.com.Subscription prices range from $6000-$10,500 for small academic libraries and from $6000-$10,250 for small public libraries

*The Basic Business Library: Core Resources. 4th ed. Greenwood. 2002. 288p. ed. by Rashelle S. Karp & Bernard S. Schlessinger. index. ISBN 1-57356-512-1. $64.95. A terrific collection development tool for small and medium-sized libraries. The first part is an updated and annotated list of 210 core print titles; if a library were to purchase all of them, the cost would be about $65,000; also suggested are "budget-conscious resources" that total $35,000. Part 2 features revised and new essays on online access, the best investment sources, and marketing the business library, among other topics. (Professional Media, LJ 6/1/03)

Directory of Business Information Resources, 2005. 12th ed. Grey House Pub. 2004. 2300p. index. ISBN 1-59237-050-0. pap. $195; online database subs: $495. Lists over 19,000 information sources--associations, periodicals, trade shows, directories, databases, web sites, international trade contacts--arranged in 98 industry chapters from advertising to wholesalers. A subscription to the online database (which can be customized) includes a free copy of the print directory. Useful for collection development as well as ready-reference.

*Encyclopedia of American Business. Facts On File. 2004. 516p. ed. by W. Davis Folsom & Rick Boulware. bibliog. index. ISBN 0-8160-4643-3. $95. For nonspecialists and students, this is an easy-to-use guide to the nuts and bolts of business jargon and business concepts. The five major areas of business--accounting, economics, finance, management, and marketing--are covered; topics addressed include annual reports, capital, exchange rate, mutual funds, profit-sharing, and zero-sum game. Each entry includes a very short reading list. An inexpensive alternative to the International Encyclopedia of Business & Management (see below) for small public and college libraries with limited budgets.

Encyclopedia of Business. 2d ed.2 vols. Thomson Gale. 2000. 2009p. ed. by Jane A. Malonis. index. ISBN 0-7876-2438-1. $450. A good resource for current and historical information on business theories and concepts, such as ethics, valuation, global marketing, and cross-cultural communication. International in scope, the 700 signed articles range in length from one column to several pages, with lists of further readings.

Encyclopedia of Business and Finance. 2 vols. Macmillan Reference USA: Thomson Gale. 2001. 900p. ed. by Burton Kaliski. illus. index. ISBN 0-02-865065-4. $295. Practical and designed for the nonspecialist, this encyclopedia covers finance and banking, accounting, marketing, management, and information systems, with a special emphasis on careers and ethics. The 300 articles are signed by scholars and include bibliographies. (LJ 9/1/01)

Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources. 19th ed. 2 vols. Macmillan Reference USA: Thomson Gale. 2004. 1215p. ed. by James Woy. ISBN 0-7876-6891-5. $415. This useful bibliography identifies print and e-sources, arranged alphabetically by subject, then by type of resource (directory, database, newsletter, research center, etc.). Many of the entries also provide email and web addresses.

Encyclopedia of Management. 4th ed. Thomson Gale. 2000. 1020p. ed. by Marilyn Helms. ISBN 0-7876-3065-9. $275. Updated from the 1982 edition, this includes signed articles authored by academics and business professionals that address 350 topics in management theory and application, including benchmarking, nontraditional work arrangements, performance measures, productivity measures, and supply chain management. A list of further readings is included with each article; occasional charts summarize ideas. For college students and businesspeople.

*International Encyclopedia of Business & Management. 2d ed. 8 vols. Thomson Learning, dist. by Thomson Gale. 2002. 7425p. ed. by Malcolm Warner. index. ISBN 1-86152-161-8. $1899. Now expanded to eight volumes, this is truly a comprehensive and valuable reference. Over 5000 articles written by an international array of scholars offer cross-cultural perspectives on accounting, finance, labor relations, operations management, strategy, and more. There are also biographical entries for historical and living business figures (e.g., Henry Ford, Peter Drucker). A good starting place for in-depth research, it is also valuable for the nonbusiness librarian or student needing a clear overview of a business topic. Although expensive, it is a core purchase for academic and larger public libraries. Those with limited budgets may consider some of the other business encyclopedias here (i.e., Encyclopedia of American Business).

*Moss, Rita W. Strauss's Handbook of Business Information: A Guide for Librarians, Students, and Researchers. 2d ed. Libraries Unlimited: Greenwood. 2004. 455p. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 1-56308-520-8. $85. This long-awaited update of Diana W. Strauss's 1988 original edition first covers "formats": directories, periodicals, loose-leaf services, government information services, and electronic sources. References are then organized by "fields": banking, marketing, accounting, stocks and bonds, etc. Graphics include screen shots of e-sources.