eReviews

Proquest. www.proquest.com

This extensive, centralized collection of multimedia resources is aimed both at academicians and at practitioners investigating start-ups and the growth of businesses. The file includes start-up toolkits (including templates and how-to books), data and market research, research articles and working papers, conference proceedings, dissertations, teaching resources (including business cases), and video clips of successful entrepreneurs.

The content comes from Biz Miner, the Direct Marketing Association, eClipsNet, Hoovers (as well as other company, market, and industry reports), the International Council for Small Business (ICSB), the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE), and articles in publications by Business Week, Emerald, Springer, Palgrave, John Wiley & Sons, and more. The journal article content is updated weekly, and the file is cross-searchable with other ProQuest databases.

HOW DOES IT WORK? The opening screen features a Basic Search box front and center, with a date limiter (key for this file) immediately beneath it and a check box for limiting results to full-text documents only beneath that. Below these features are More options: Advanced Search, Data & Reports Search, and Publication Search. The Basic Search section is followed by a Browse section that lets you browse by Topics (e.g., Business Start-Up, Funding Sources, Legal Issues, Management and Leadership), Start-Up Tools (e.g., Business Plan Samples, Guides, Templates & Tools, and Tips & Advice in a video format), and Other featured content (e.g., Business Cases, Company Profiles, and Market Research Reports). On the right-hand side of the screen are the Editor's Picks. The featured Top Pick is a current full-text article about the subject with a direct link to the text.

But that ain't all—at screen top are tabs for Basic Search, Advanced Search, Data and Reports Search, Publications (a full alphabetical listing of the 273 journals in the file, along with the dates of full-text coverage and a link to create an RSS feed to the journal), Browse, and My Research (for saving marked documents, displaying recent searches, and showing a list of publications you've visited). And tucked into the upper-right-hand corner is a drop-down menu that lets you change the interface language from English to any of 17 different other languages. ProQuest is covering a lot of bases here.

CAN YOU USE IT? My first Basic Search for "apple and apps" brought up five full-text articles, all of which were right on target (about Apple's App Store) and which came from three different journals and a blog. Cool. Next I went into the Data and Reports Search to look up more on Apple. On that search page there's a box for Company/Org, with a link to an alphabetized list of companies that can be added to the search.

I looked up Apple and chose "Apple Computer Inc.," "Apple Store," and "Apple Stores" and added them all to my Company/Org search—or at least I clicked on them. Nothing happened on-screen (at that point I was in the listing), but when I went back to the search screen there they all were, ANDed together. So I ORed them, did the search, and got 1,441 documents on Apple (of the first 30 results, there was only one that was not full text), the fifth of which was an August 1, 2008, Hoover's Company Record of Apple, Inc., offering the following information about the company: Overview, History, People, Products & Operations, Competitors, and Financials.

So I just had to go back into the Data and Reports Search and do a Basic Search for "apple inc's" annual report… and in about 12 seconds I had their November 15, 2007, 10K report to the SEC looking back at me from my desktop. Lovely! And so easy!

After that I had a field day: in Advanced Search I did a NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code search for "Internet Publishing and Broadcasting"—the system cordially allowed me to add the code directly to my search from within the codes' listing. I got 551 documents, and the first was for the full text of "The True Meaning of Twitter" by Adam Lashinsky in the August 18, 2008, issue of Fortune. BINGO!

Next, in Advanced Search, my search for "china and india" limited to full text only in Scholarly content (Journals, Working Papers, Dissertations) found 23 documents that were right on the money again. Then I went in and browsed the Sample Business Plans, pulled up one for BulldogMall.com, a "Sample business plan to support a request to finance a web community that serves California State University, Fresno (CSU Fresno) students and alumni," clicked the link to a PDF document, and—BINGO!—there was the 34-page business plan.

I browsed the Guides, Templates, and Tools and found Form 15-5: a Web Site Development Agreement; Form 6-6: Option Agreement to Purchase Assets (Pro-Buyer); a book chapter titled "Crafting Your Plans" that included directions for Drafting a mission statement, Recognizing the importance of business plans, Creating a business plan, and Updating your plan; Form 5-19: to create an Irrevocable Proxy; and much more.

The videos will appeal to those who seek inspiration, and the business cases are detailed and numerous. It would take this entire issue of LJ for me to describe all the content here adequately.

WHAT'S THE COST? The price for an annual subscription varies by type of library and size, according to FTE or population served. For a four-year academic institution with an FTE of 10,000, the subscription price would be approximately $13,230 as a stand-alone subscription. Discounts are available for customers with selected ProQuest products, and consortia pricing is available.

HOW GOOD IS IT? For those engaged in doing business and researching business, this file is a perfect ten. The content makes it worth the cost, especially when combined with the canny way that ProQuest has organized the file.

BOTTOM LINE An essential purchase for business schools supporting MBA programs, research libraries supporting business and industry-related studies, large public libraries, and corporate libraries. This will probably be one of your most-used, practical research tools. From me, it also gets a "wow!"