One of my goals for the year (and every year for that matter) is to become better educated with finance terms in order to better understand what my patrons need.  It’s easier to find the data they’re looking for when you know what type of information it is, where it comes from, and how it will be used once it’s collected.

For a quick primer on investing, financial analysis, and company help, there are two resources that have helped me better understand some key concept.  The Morningstar 101 tutorial at MSN Money is a really good source for getting a basic understanding of topics in a short amount of time.  I found the Introduction to Financial Statements tutorial particularly useful and would recommend it to others to help you understand what you’re looking at in Mergent Online.

The tutorials at Investopedia are another great place to look for basic understanding of finance and investing.  I appreciate how the tutorials are organized by topic.  The tutorials are also a little more in-depth,  so plan on spending a little more time getting acquainted with the concept. Both sites assume that the reader is a novice investor, so the language is easy to understand and the concepts are easy to pick up.

I got a question today from someone doing research on the basics of urban planning.  Here are some resources that I would recommend for researching the topic of urban planning, city planning, or urban renewal.

Encyclopedia articles

Gale Virtual Reference Library  (http://www.library.ohiou.edu/find/dictencyc.html , first link at the top of that page) When the Database opens, just search for urban planning, and you get some good encyclopedia articles from multiple sources.

Journals, magazines, and trade publications

The links below will take you to the record in Alice, our online catalog, where you will need to open the individual journals and search for topics, or simply browse issues.  You might also search in the publications for things like “trends”.

• Journal of Urban Planning and Development
• Landscape and Urban Planning
• Journal of Urban Design
• City
• Cities
• Environment and Planning
• International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
• International Planning Studies

Associations and other websites

American Planning Association

Photo Courtesy of Sebastian Nieldlich on Flickr.

Economic Census Briefing Room

Do you need some quick statistics about the United States Economy?  Then try the Economic Indicators Briefing Room.  The site, courtesy of the United States Census Bureau,  provides regularly updated statistics concerning the United States economy, including home sales, construction spending, manufacturing and food sales, international trade, and more.

Most files are in PDF or Excel format.  The site contains a good deal of historical information as well as current statistics.  Each category has a release date and a date for upcoming releases.

Format:  Government Website

Connect to:  Economic Indicators Briefing Room

This morning, when I opened my instant messaging client, this is what I received:

Very, very cool.  To the alum, thanks so much for stopping by and making my morning.

“The number of unique viewers of online video increased 5.2% year-over-year according to The Nielsen Company, from 137.4 million unique viewers in January 2009 to 142.7 million in January 2010.”  I’d like to think that a few of my videos that I created in the last year have contributed to a growth in that number.

Yesterday I did a count of my videos,and discovered that I  created 27 business research videos and 21 library-related videos in 2009. My business research videos were viewed over 2600 times, and the more general library videos have been viewed over 4200 times.  Most of my videos took less than an hour to produce, from start to finish, so the return on investment is quite huge.  It’s good to know that something that takes so little effort to put together is getting used so frequently.  For me, web video offers a great way to reach my users.

The Forest Footprint Disclosure Project (FFD Project) is a new UK government-supported initiative, created to help investors identify how an organisation’s activities and supply chains contribute to deforestation, and link this ‘forest footprint‘ to their value.

Modelled on the successful Carbon Disclosure Project, it aims to create transparency and shed light on a key challenge within investor portfolios, where currently there is little quality information.

The report details the impact of various industries on deforestation, including the cattle, palm oil, timber, bio fuel, and soy industries. The full  60 page PDF report is definitely worth checking out if you’re researching green business or sustainable business.   I’ve also added this report as a link on my Corporate Responsibility, Citizenship, & Green Business Guide  in the Biz Wiki.

Chad’s Top 10 for BA 100