Database of the month: Business Source Complete

This month we’re featuring Business Source Complete, as our database of the month. It’s a key database for students in the School of Management because it covers a broad range of subject areas, related to business and economics.

As part of the comprehensive coverage offered by this database, indexing and abstracts for the most important scholarly business journals back as far as 1886 are included. In addition, searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,300 journals.

Business Source Complete includes the following:

• Academic journal articles
• Trade publications
• News
• Market research reports
• Company information
• Industry profiles
• Country profiles

You can access Business Source Complete via iFind or the Management library guide. The library guide also provides advice on finding different types of information and guides to using our databases including Business Source Complete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Library Detox: 2018

Happy New Year and Happy New Semester and welcome to the Library Detox.  This is a series of blog posts to promote good information literacy.

Each day for two weeks, starting from the 15th January, there will be a new blog with a simple tip to help you improve your information literacy and make managing your information cleaner and easier for your studies and research in 2018 and beyond.

Over the last few months, Swansea University Information, Services and Systems have been working towards creating an Information Literacy framework. The framework is built on seven skillsets: Identify, Scope, Plan, Gather, Evaluate, Synthesise and Present and it is these skills that the Library Detox will address. Further information on the framework can be found here.

Further information is available from your subject specialist support.

Business Library Team: buslib@swansea.ac.uk
The Bay Library
Swansea University
T +44 (0)1792 505500
Find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SwanseaUniLib

If you haven’t already, please sign up to our blog.

Academic Misconduct Workshop

The university takes academic misconduct very seriously and it can have a serious and detrimental effect on your results.

On Wednesday 8^th February a workshop, to help you avoid academic misconduct, is being held in the Bay Library from 14.00-15.00 in PC room 2.

During the workshop we’ll look at:

• What constitutes academic misconduct.
• The definition of plagiarism, collusion and the commissioning of work.
• Why it’s so important to reference.
• How to reference and common mistakes.
• Where to find help with referencing.
• Tools that can help you reference.

There’s no need to sign up, you can come along on the day.

Trial access to HS Talks:Business & Management collection.

We currently have trial access to a new resource until 30^th June – HS Talks: the Business & Management Collection.

The Business & Management Collection contains 900 online video lectures and case studies by  leading world experts.

Categories

• Finance, Accounting and Economics
• Global Business Management
• Management, Leadership & Organization
• Marketing & Sales
• Strategy
• Technology & Operations

To access on campus go to www.hstalks.com/business  – no username necessary.

To access off campus – please email buslib@swansea.ac.uk  from your university email to request access.

Academic staff – you can embed any of these videos in your Blackboard  modules until end of trial in June.

1. Find a suitable video in HS Talks
2. Click on video title.
3. Click on “Embed in course”
4. Copy link to clipboard, then paste into a BB module , website, blog or email.

Send any queries or comments about this trial to buslib@swansea.ac.uk

 

Password security

Hi Bay Library users, I’m Grant and I work here as a Service Adviser on the Library desk at the Bay.  Previously I worked for IT Support at Aberystwyth University.  Here are some top tips regarding the security of your university password:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Go to https://mypassword.swan.ac.uk  to change your password from the default password you were given at the beginning of your SU studies.
• Make your password more than 10 characters long. The longer the better.
• Use higher and lower case letters.
• Use at least, 2 numbers and 1 special character ($%*&) in your password.
• Use different passwords for different systems.
• Change your passwords every now and again.
• Never share your password with anyone – not even a member of Library and IT staff.

Keep secure. Stay safe.

 

Making Subject Headings work for you – targeting your search using the Thesaurus in ProQuest and Ebsco

Are you having trouble finding relevant articles in your database search results? Are you struggling to identify the right keywords to define your topic? The Thesaurus could help!

It might sound like something out of Jurassic World, but a database thesaurus is actually a searchable list of the ‘controlled’ subject headings used by that database. These standardised headings are used ‘tag’ articles to help you find what you want. Since terminology can change from country to country and over time, these standardised subject headings can pick up articles which you might miss when you think of your own keywords. The Thesaurus will also show you broader, narrower and related terms which can help to guide your search.

So, for example, if you look up ‘Strategic Management’ in the ProQuest Thesaurus, you’ll find ‘Corporate management’ as a broader term and ‘Balanced scorecard’ as a narrower term. You’ll also find related terms such as ‘Enterprise risk management’, ‘Market strategy’ and ‘Strategic planning’. You could add some or all of those terms to your search to find articles you need.

ProQuest has made a short video to help you find and use the Thesaurus. It’s well worth a look!

The Thesaurus in Ebsco’s Business Source Complete works in a similar way. There’s a guide available with more help and information.

If you have any questions or would like to find out more, please get in touch with us at buslib@swansea.ac.uk.

Looking for business-related information from and about Europe?

• Need to read Jonathan Hill’s (EU Commissioner for Financial Services)  latest speech on Capital Markets Union?
• Looking for the recent report on “A Digital Single market Strategy for Europe” or the European Investment Bank’s “Investment Plan for Europe”?
• Or the latest info on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership?
• Need detailed comparative data of inflation rates across EU countries (Harmonised Indices of Consumer prices)?

 

The European Union has many divisions and websites for the Parliament, Councils, Commissions, Bank, Courts – it can difficult to navigate.  However there are two key resources which could help you:

EUROPEAN SOURCES ONLINE
http://www.europeansources.info/search.jsp
European Sources Online (ESO) is an online database which provides access to information on the institutions and activities of the European Union, the countries, regions and other international organisations of Europe, and on the issues of importance to European citizens and stakeholders. ESO provides access to thousands of expertly selected websites, documents and publications from the EU and other international organisations, national governments, think tanks, stakeholder organisations, working papers etc., full text articles from Financial Times and European Voice, plus bibliographic records to key academic textbooks and periodical articles, and a series of Information Guides compiled by the ESO Editorial Team. Updated daily. Link to our Guide.

EUROSTAT

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/
Eurostat is the Statistical Office of the European Communities in Luxembourg. Eurostat gathers data from the official statistical agencies in EU member countries. It then has to ensure that the data is harmonized so that meaningful comparisons can be made across several countries.  Eurostat covers all subjects especially business, economics, finance.

156 new ebooks!

Good news! We have recently bought two ebook collections for our School of Management students. These titles come to us via Elgar Online, which is a database of research books, handbooks, companions, encyclopaedia, dictionaries and other academic material.  Swansea University students can now access the 2014 Economics & Finance collection of ebooks (99 titles) and the 2014 Business & Management collection (57 titles) from Elgar Online.

The available ebooks have all been added to our iFind Discover library catalogue, so you’ll see them cropping up in your results as you search for library resources as normal. If you’d like to view a list of all these new titles, just search for Elgar Online on iFind Discover and follow the links to the database homepage. From there, you’ll be able to choose Browse from the options along the top. Once the titles are listed, remember to choose the option for All accessible content under Refine by access to ensure you’re viewing the ebooks from the collections we’ve subscribed to.

We think these extra resources are going to be really useful, so do please have a look at them when you get a chance. If you have any questions or need any help, please contact the School of Management subject support team at buslib@swansea.ac.uk.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mintel name change: meet the new “Mintel Market Sizes”

Mintel Global Markets Navigator has changed its name to “Mintel Market Sizes”. This is one of a pair of Mintel resources we have for market research. As the name suggests, Market Sizes has data on global markets so if you are curious on exploring the growth of the Brazilian beer market or Dishwashing Products in Poland or Debit and Credit Cards in China, then this is the database for you. You can also use the “Search” dashboard to build a query and compare markets between countries and regions.

Access it here: https://ifind.swan.ac.uk/discover/Record/616042#.VCRAWpRdWSo

Our guide to Mintel: https://blackboard.swan.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/institution/LibraryISSResources/Database%20Guides/Mintel.pdf (PDF)

Advice on Tackling a Literature Review

If you have to do a literature review for a dissertation or PhD, it’s a good idea to get some expert advice on how to approach it before you get started. We have picked out some of the best guidance both in the library and on the web:

1. If you prefer to have a print book to browse, we have lots of books in the library on doing a literature review that can give you a detailed overview of the whole process. Some of these are specific to undergraduate, postgraduate or business research.

2. For expert advice from an academic, the excellent Patter blog (which discusses research and academic writing) has discussed many aspects of doing a literature review: for example this post on scoping or trying out a questions approach. You can see a full range of posts here.

3. If you like interactive web resource, “The Final Chapter” is a learning object from Leeds University. See the “Doing a Literature Review” and click through the sections on the bottom of the screen.

4. Some universities have a wealth of detailed advice on their websites: try the pages from RMIT Australia or more detailed advice from Deluth (“Guidelines for writing a literature review“) or the University of Southern California.

5. This presentation by Professor Hazel Hall looks at Critical Reading skills for a literature review. The advice is aimed at PhD students but there are many useful issues covered for students at all levels.

6. The publisher Emerald also has pages on “how to carry out a literature review for a research paper or dissertation“. See the menu on the right for the different sections.