S.W.O.T. Analysis

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Business majors often need these reports for their assignments, but they have other uses as well.  Whether you are looking for a solid bank, planning to invest, or have an upcoming interview, you can quickly find a lot useful information about a company if there is a S.W.O.T. analysis available.

We now have two databases with these reports:

Business & Company Resource Center (All Campuses)
on campus  |  off campus 

TIP: Enter the name of your company as a company search. Select the best match after looking at the company location (headquarters) and revenue. After clicking on your company, look for a DOWNLOAD S.W.O.T. link above the company name.

Business Source Complete (All Campuses)
on campus  |  off campus

TIP:  Click on SWOT Analyses in the sidebar on the right. In the Browse for box, enter the name of your company. Click on the name of the company in the results (if there is one—there are SWOT reports for a lot of companies, but not every company has one). Under the All Issues column, choose the most recent report.

CountryWatch Database Features Haiti

The CountryWatch database is featuring Haiti during the post-earthquake crisis that that nation is coping with. As the featured country, a report statement concerning this current event and links to newswire stories about Haiti are highlighted on the database homepage. Other factual information reports focus on the political conditions, national security, foreign relations, government structure, foreign investment climate, biographies of national leaders, history, economic overview, people and culture, human rights, and other topics specific to Haiti.

CountryWatch is a reliable provider of data on almost 200 nations. A weekly political intelligence briefing is written by CountryWatch’s editor, and is intended to inform users of important political events developing throughout the world.  These articles are arranged chronologically from the most recent to the least recent entries.

Online Videos from the Harvard Business School

Business Source Complete has recently added videos from the HBS executive education programs.

To see the HBS videos (if you’re connected to the JWU network on campus), click on the following link (and then click on the button for “Videos”):

HBS Videos in Business Source Complete (All Campuses)
on campus 

You can sort the videos by date or by title.

Another way to access the videos is to click on “Business Videos” when you are looking at Business Source Complete main search page:

Business Source Complete (All Campuses)
on campus  |  off campus

…then type “harvard” to see all the videos, or enter a keyword to search for videos on a particular topic.

Happy viewing!

New Video – Job Search in the 21st Century

A new streamed video has just been added to our Films on Demand database called “Job Search in the 21st Century.”   The video is 25 minutes and details how to utilize the Web and social networks to enhance job prospects.   To access this video go to the library homepage, select databases from the menu and scroll down to “Films on Demand.”  Once you are in the database do a title search for “Job Search in the 21st Century.”

Creating Quality Presentations

Do you have a presentation due for a business class project (or any other project, for that matter)?  Are you having a tough time designing a PowerPoint presentation that looks professional?  Are you struggling to find a way to add pizzazz to your topic?

There’s help available in Academic Search Premier, a database that has hundreds of articles on presentations.  There are articles with advice on choosing the best colors and font sizes, finding professional-quality stock images, using the 90-second rule, appropriate use of video, etc.

One quick way to find these articles is to do a subject search for business presentations.  Use the link for Academic Search Premier (below) and enter business presentations as a subject (see the screenshot below…you can limit to full text articles by putting a check in that box):

 Academic Search Premier (All Campuses)
on campus  |  off campus

By the way, if you’d like to see articles about speaking in public, use public speaking as a subject search.

Good luck!

NEW DATABASE! Global Road Warrior

The library has purchased access to a fabulous new database: Global Road Warrior. Focused on countries and their cultures, this database is an excellent tool for looking up points of interest, travel essentials, business culture for women, and demographics. There are also maps and images!

Global Road Warrior (Charlotte, No. Miami, Providence Campuses)

on campus |  off campus

eBook – The American History Cookbook

The American History Cookbook by Mark Zanger covers a wide range of American history cookery from the pre-colonial to school lunches.  Many of the recipes were selected from historical cookbooks with the intention to illuminate techniques used by the people of the time, and thus history.  The book is arranged chronologically by time periods (50 Chapters in total) and each chapter opens with a brief historical background then gives a typical recipe of that period.   The recipes include detailed instructions on how to prepare the dish authentically with instructions for substitutes for hard to find ingredients and difficult techniques.

The American History Cookbook is available as an eBook through Greenwood Digital Collection database.  To access this resource go to the library homepage, select databases, then scroll down to Greenwood Digital Collection and choose your location (either on or off campus).  Once you are in the database, click on “American History” subject heading to expand your options, then expand “American History (General)” and you’ll see The American History Cookbook.

Employment Articles in Business Source Complete

Looking for a job?  Did you know that you can use the library databases to find articles that offer guidance in your job search?

Here are three recent articles that can be accessed though the Business Source Complete database:

Title:  How to Land a Job in an Economic Downturn
Author: Thompson, Kimberly
Source:  Phi Kappa Phi Forum; Spring2009, Vol. 89 Issue 1, p26-27, 2p

Title:  Writing a Recession-Proof Resume
Author:  Hosking, Rob
Source:  Office Pro; Apr2009, Vol. 69 Issue 3, p5-5

Title:  The Interview That’ll Bag a Job
Author:  Needleman, Sarah, E.
Source:  Wall Street Journal – Eastern Edition; 4/14/2009, Vol. 253 Issue 86, pD4

You can find these in Business Source Complete by searching the title and author from each article, or you can find them by using these related job hunting subjects:

EMPLOYMENT interviewing
ENTRY-level employment
JOB hunting
RESUMES (Employment)

To access the Business Source Complete database, go to the library’s website:
http://library.jwu.edu/

…then click on Databases
…then scroll down until you see Business Source Complete (Business Source Premier) in the alphabetical listing.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask…

– by using the instant message feature (meebo) in the upper-right pane of this blog.

– by phone:  305-892-7043

– or stop by, we’re happy to help.

Greenwood Digital Collection

This recent addition to our databases has over 100 e-book titles on topics that range from the arts to women’s studies.  The collection can be browsed by title, subject or author.  You can also search the collection by keyword (to search the full text within the books), title, author and other fields.

There’s a Quick Search feature at the top of every page in this resource, but most users will find that the Advanced Search offers more robust and accurate searching.  The resource also has the American Heritage College Dictionary built into it for looking up definitions without leaving the collection.

Here are a few Greenwood titles that relate to some of the majors here at JWU:

BUSINESS
Building High-Performance People and Organizations
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Successful Leadership
Global Business Etiquette Marketing in the 21st Century
Women in Business: The Changing Face of Leadership

CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Battleground: Criminal Justice
Crimes and Trials of the Century
The Crime Junkie’s Guide to Criminal Law
Eco-Terrorism: Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements
Offender Profiling in the Courtroom: The Use and Abuse of Expert Witness Testimony

CULINARY
The American History Cookbook
American Indian Food
The Business of Wine: An Encyclopedia
Controversies in Food and Nutrition
Food Culture in France (there are several other “Food Culture” titles featuring other countries)

FASHION
Fashion and Costume in American Popular Culture: A Reference Guide

HOSPITALITY
The Business of Entertainment
The Business of Sports
Encyclopedia of Sports in America
Entertaining from Ancient Rome to the Super Bowl

To access the Greenwood Digital Collection, go to the Databases section of our site, and scroll down to “G” in the alphabetical listings:

http://library.jwu.edu/research/databases/az.htm

Using the Content Specific Search form in LexisNexis

In my last post about LexisNexis, I talked about using the General Search forms and the Power Search forms.  You may also use the Content Specific Search forms which give you more control than the Easy search form and are simpler to use than the Power Search.  The Content Specific Search is designed to search a particular type of information such as News or Business.

Let’s go through an example.  When you enter the LexisNexis database, you will notice tabs at the top left of the screen.  Click on any of the tabs to utilize the Content Specific Search forms.  For instance, you need to search trade journals on the government regulation of the financial industry.  Select the News tab and enter the words in the search box just as you would on the other search forms.  You can either use the Natural Language setting, or Terms and Connectors setting.  If you are comfortable using Boolean search strategies such as “and”, “or”, and “not”, use the Terms and Connectors setting as you would when using the Power Search form.  In this case, our search phrase is “government regulation of the financial industry” and we are under the Natural Language setting.   Next we will add index terms, which are listed by category, by expanding the options under “Add index terms”.  You can select up to ten terms to add to your search.  Lets add to our search “Banking and Finance” under the Industry category; “Business Forecasts” and “Business Operations” under the Subject or Section category; and “United States” under the Region category.  Next, we will select a source for our search by choosing one from the Sources drop-down list.  In this search, we will choose “Business News Publications” from the drop-down list.   The last step is to choose a date range for our search.  A good range for our topic is the “previous 3 months”.  Finally, click on the search button located to the right of the search box to run our search.

This search yielded too many results, but we still have options to limit our results.  Since we need trade journals for our sources, we can select “Industry Trade Press” under the groups on the left hand side of the screen.  Now our results are all from industry trade journals and specifically address government regulation of the recent bailouts, executive compensation, legislation, etc.

I hope have you enjoyed this brief tutorial about using the Content Specific Search form in LexisNexis.  Please feel free to leave any comments or questions.