Chad’s Top 10 for BA 100

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Here are some links to some resources that I will be demonstrating to the Regional Business Cluster this evening.

American Factfinder
An excellent resource for population, housing, economic and demographic data.

Ohio County Profiles
Contains statistics for Ohio and its eighty-eight counties.

Economic Census
The Economic Census profiles American business every 5 years, from the national to the local level. The latest economic census was taken in 2002, and the data is still being released. The Economic Census will allow you to research the number of businesses in a particular industry
by state, county, city, or metro area.

Ohio Newspapers
Full text access to 27 newspapers from Ohio.

Encylopedia of American Industries
An electronic business reference encyclopedia providing detailed, comprehensive information on a wide range of broadly-defined industriesin every realm of American business.

Business Source Complete
Contains over 11,000 periodicals indexed and abstracted, with more than 10,000 full text, covering management, economics, finance, accounting and international business, among others.

Lexis Nexis
The Business News and Industry News sections of Lexis offer fairly broad industry coverage.

Hoovers Online
Contains company, industry, and market information.

Mergent Online
Mergent Online contains global company information, annual reports, EDGAR filings, current news stories, and some industry reports.

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I started working this evening at 6:00 P.M. and it is now 7:30.  This is what the last hour-and-a-half has looked like.  It’s been a whole lot of fun answering tons of business questions.  Keep the questions coming!!  I’m here until 10.

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BLS data for Specialty stores

This morning I got a question via IM.  The patron needed to know statistics or figures about the wages/salaries of workers in the retail industry.  The first place I thought of was the Bureau of Labor Statistcs.  As it turns out, they have data on a variety of retail sectors, but I knew that the patron was researching the book store retail industry, so I pointed the person to those specific statistics.  The tables for each industry contain occupational employment and wage estimates that are calculated with data collected from employers of all sizes.

While looking for the answer to the patron’s question, I stumbles upon a recent report comparing different sectors of the retail industry.  The report is called “Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Highlights: An Occupational Comparison of Selected Retail Trade Industries“, and it may be useful to those researching this topic.

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Book Stores Industry Guide

Since the business clusters here at Ohio University are researching the Book Stores industry this quarter, I’ve put together a guide to recommend some resources.   I’ve copied the text of the guide in the blog post below in order to help students and researchers find the content easier. However, only the Book Stores Industry Guide on the Biz Wiki will be updated.  Click the picture to the left to go to the guide, or click this link to the Book Stores Industry Guide.

Do you have suggestions for sources that I might add to the guide?  If so, leave a relevant comment on this post, or contact me with a suggestions.

About

The purpose of this guide is to point business researchers to some key resources when researching the Bookstores Industry. This guide will not cover every single resource in the Industry Research Basics guide, but will simply highlight some resources that you might definitely want to take a look at. For a more thorough industry analysis, I suggest you look at most of the resources discussed in the Industry Research Basics guide. This guide will be updated while the clusters are working on this industry during Winter Quarter 2010, so check back often for new information.

IBISWorld

IBISWorld offers several relevant reports on the topic. A search for books stores in the database yields reports such as “Bookstores in the U.S.”.

Plunkett Research Online

Plunkett Research Online has some useful statistics on the book industry. Once the database is open, browse to the “Entertainment & Media Industry Research Center” and then select either “Market Trends” or “Statistics”. Personally I found the “Statistics” section useful for historical numbers on the book retailing industry.

Market Insight

While Market Insight does not have a report specifically about the Book Stores Industry, I highly suggest that researchers look at the Specialty Stores (Retailing:Specialty) in the Industry section of Market Insight. The Specialty Retailing report will give you a good idea about trends affecting various types of retailers in this industry.

Encyclopedia of American Industries

The Encyclopedia of American Industries has a good amount of coverage on the Book Stores Industry. Take a look at the Using the Encyclopedia of American Industries video if you need help browsing the online encyclopedia. Note: You will find the 2005 version and the 2008 version in the search results inside the encyclopedia. It is probably a good idea to use the most recent version.

Mintel Reports

Mintel Reports contains market research reports on a variety of topics. A search on “books” in the database yields a nice report on Books from December 2009, but it is focused on the United Kingdom. However, you may find the report useful nevertheless. You’ll also find several lifestyle reports in the database, and many of these may talk about reading habits of various demographic groups. Take a look at the Industry Information in Mintel Reports video to learn how to use the database, or simply select the database in the list of industry resources in InfoTree. Note: Mintel requires a registration process before you can use it. Please use your OHIO email address when registering.

Factiva

Use Factiva to find the latest industry news. Factiva is quite huge and can be overwhelming, as users often get too many results in their searches. I suggest you find terms to search along with your industry, such as “same-store sales”, “total revenues”, “outlook”, “forecast”, “trends”, etc. Here’s a video on how to Find Industry News in Factiva (forthcoming).

Business Source Complete

Trade Publications

While Business Source Complete offers a lot of really good information on almost any business topic, it may help to limit your searches to specific trade publications. Trade Publications are written by people in a specific industry, for people in that specific industry, and as such are great resources to use when doing an industry analysis. I’d recommend looking at the following trade publications for the book store industry:

• Bookseller
  • “Provides daily news & comment about the book business, starting at 8am with the latest digest of press reports about the publishing sector & financial updates from the City.” (from the Business Source Complete description)
• Publisher’s Weekly
  • “News and analyses of book publishing for publishers, booksellers, agents, librarians, writers, educators and people involved in movies, radio and television.” (from the Business Source Complete description)

Trade Associations

• American Booksellers Association
  • “ABA is the national trade association for independent booksellers — since 1900. ABA offers education, services and products, advocacy, and relevant business information.”
  • Note that you may need to be a member of the association to access certain information on the website.

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