Reference at Newman Library

Year: 2010

Demographic Data for Place of Work

I’ve had a number of questions from students looking for demographics for the city based on where people work. Most demographic data that’s collected is based on the geography where people LIVE – finding information about where people WORK in a given place is difficult, especially for small places (below the state and county level).

Rather than fixating on finding a specific statistic, you may have to evaluate several different sources to serve as a proxies to indicate areas of interest (i.e. areas that have a higher density of people engaged in commercial activity during the day). Each source is a trade-off where you’ll sacrifice one element (currency, small geography, or compilation by industry or occupation) for another.

Many sources with industry data classify businesses using the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), a hierarchical system of codes. For definitions and a breakdown of codes visit the NAICS site. Federal and state sources will use county names (Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond) instead of borough names (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island).

Industry / Occupation data (in order of recommendation):

  1. County and ZIP Code Business Patterns – a census survey, use it to find a summary of the number of businesses and employees by industry for a county or zip code. Industries are classified using NAICS. An alternate source is the Economic Census, but the latest data for 2007 is not available yet for ZIP codes.
  2. Workforce Trends in the NYC Region – the CUNY center for Urban Research has produced county and zip code level maps of establishments and employees by NAICS sectors. Change the drop down box from NYC Metro to NYC and Nassau to see the zip code level maps. (The map doesn’t label the zip codes – for a basic zip code map go here).
  3. Reference USA – a library database that allows you to build lists of specific businesses by name based on geography (county, zip code), industrial classification (NAICS), and business name. For each business you’ll get data for the number of employees, sales, square footage of store, and more. Data can be summarized or downloaded into a spreadsheet.
  4. 2006-2008 American Community Survey – get detailed info about people based on where they LIVE (use the map under the Neighborhoods tab of the NYC data guide to access profiles for neighborhood-like areas called PUMAs), but place of work questions are far fewer and not available below the county / borough level. For county/borough place of work data via the American Factfinder look at the American Community Survey 3 year data tables for Journey to Work data by workplace geography – the data will be broken down by transit method to work, occupation, and industry.
  5. 2000 Census – definitive in that it provides work place population by all geographies (counties, ZIP Codes, census tracts) by occupation and industry, but it’s rather old for doing current research. Rather than going to the census directly, you can access compiled reports from the NYC Dept of City Planning.
  6. Exisiting Reports – New York City Labor Market Information Service has detailed reports on different industries within the city, which may provide some breakdown of the data. The NYC Department of Planning has several special projects and neighborhood studies, which may include special surveys or statistics on business, traffic, and land use conducted particularly for that study.
  7. Search for news – someone may have conducted their own research at some point and did a survey – search the library’s databases; Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, Factiva, and ABI Inform are good places to start.

Proxies for density (transit and land use)

Final note – many of these sources, and others, are available via the NYC data guide.

History of Vaccines online resource

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia created the History of Vaccines webiste. It contains timelines, articles (citations), and a gallery (videos & images; Pre-1700-Present). The bibliographies include many scholarly articles, as well as other sources, covering vaccine science, societal & cultural aspects (ethics, anti-vaccine movement, etc.), common questions, diseases and etc. This may be a good web source for students in the Comm courses, for their informational or persuasive speech projects (vaccination/immunization is a hot topic). Also, it is a timely site. Have you noticed all the vaccine related advertising in the subways?

Accounting assignment on “push down accounting”

I helped a student in Acc 4100 who is part of a team doing research and a presentation on “push down accounting.”  They are to include references to companies using push down accounting.  Here are some possible sources:

Books 24×7 -search FinancePro collection for phrase “push down accounting”.  There are some books with chapters explaining this phrase.

ABI Inform and Business Source Premier can be searched for articles in accounting journals.  These can help explain push down accounting, which results in a new basis (from what I read quickly–I really didn’t study it).

CCH Accounting Research Manager–offers the FASB Codification and interpretations and explanations.  The FASB Codification relating to push down accounting is 805-50-15-7 through 15-9.   Among the results I looked at were some AICPA issues papers including pushdown accounting in practice with examples from the 1970s and 1980s mentioned.

For current/recent examples, I suggested to the student to try Factiva as we found some earnings releases (from Business Wire and other wire services) and also earnings conference calls in which a specific company’s  officers explained  how push down accounting affected their earnings.

Doing phrase searches for push down accounting in SEC filings on Mergent and Edgar Online I-Metrix also provided some recent examples.

The student was pleased with these suggestions.  I neglected to ask if they were to consider non-US companies.  I hope these suggestions are helpful in case the question comes up again.

Bronx Community College Joins QuestionPoint

I am pleased to announce that the six schools in CUNY that current share a subscription to QuestionPoint are about to be joined by Bronx Community College. In early October, those of you monitoring chat may begin to see questions coming in from students at Bronx CC. You may also notice librarians at Bronx CC monitoring the CUNY queue in October. In November, the librarians at Bronx CC will also monitor the larger academic cooperative in QuestionPoint. If you have any questions, please contact me or the local admin at Bronx CC, Anne Larsen.

Research Worksheet – PDF and .docx versions available

I created a .docx (Word 2010) version of the Research Worksheet (aka reference worksheet) and uploaded it to LibGuides. With this version, one can launch Word 2010, type directly into the document and save/email it. This could be helpful during a consultation, during a hands-on presentation, or at the reference desk if we run out of the print versions. (It will also save paper to keep the worksheet in digital form.)

The .docx version has links to LibGuides, tutorials and to the library’s website. The fields where students type also have instructional text. I realize it is a bit “texty” for now, but I wanted to add some instructions for those that may come across it on their own. (The section for Keywords could lose a few bullets for example.) I’m sure I will trim it down. I welcome feddback.

If you want to add either the PDF or .docx versions to your LibGuide, you copy it from LibGuide–Reusable Media.  (It is available as a link or as a document.) When copying, the documents will appear as: Research Worksheet (PDF version) or as Research Worksheet (Word 2010 .docx version).

If you have Word 2010 on your office computer, you can view it here. The PDF version is here.

journal of econometrics for professor

I have placed an early volume of the Journal of Econometrics on the reference desk hold shelf (under the printer) for Prof. Robert Pawlewicz.  He will be in to copy the articles he needs.  (There seemed to be an error in the record for this journal in print so I checked to see if we had the volume that he needed and we did.)

Access to FASB Codification via 2 databases

Baruch  accountancy students and faculty have access to the FASB Accounting Standards Codification through two databases: the FASB Accounting Standards Codification and CCH Accounting Research Manager.   Access to the Codification on RIA Checkpoint was removed late this summer in a cost saving move.

Here are the details:

The FASB Accounting Standards Codification database is paid for by the accountancy department as access for Academic Users is available only to students and faculty in accountancy programs.  Access for academic users requires a password and log in, available only from accountancy faculty members. The Academic User version is the same as the Professional View (but without the cost to accounting students and faculty).

Anyone, including students can access the free Basic View of the Codification. First time users need to register.  After registration, access is by Registered User.  As a librarian, it might be good to establish your own free access to the basic view as the password and login information for Academic Users is, again only for Baruch accountancy students and faculty.

Here’s how to register for a free basic account:

At the FASB Codification

First time users need to go to New User—First Time Users-Order.  Then, select Basic View-Free Access  at https://www.fasb.org/store/subscriptions/fasb/new

Once they have established an account, they will log onto the codification as a Registered User. (Further down in the column on the homepage of the database.)

Once order is clicked, scroll down –Users are asked for an email address and to agree to terms.  They will then get an email confirmation to access the basic view.  (If they go for the professional view it costs about $850.  They should not do that.)

Once students or anyone has registered, they access the database as a Registered User.

The Basic View allows browsing the codification by topic and basic printing.  The basic view doesn’t allow keyword searches, or emailing of results.  These features are available in the Academic View that is available to accountancy students and faculty.

The Codification is also available on CCH Accounting Research Manager by clicking FASB under Standards.   CCH Accounting Research Manager offers interpretations and examples, which can be very helpful.  Books 24×7 offers full text of books explaining the Codification. CUNY+ can be searched for print versions of the Codification.

Please let me know if you have any questions.