Google has updated its April Transparency Report to an interactive map. News from the BBC describes it as a new cencorship tool where anyone can “click an individual country to see how many removal requests were fully or partially complied with, as well as which Google services were affected.” Earlier this week, the Official Google Blog posted the announcement about “Tools to visualize access to information.” You can find the map here.
Year: 2010
New Name for Opposing Viewpoints
In early August, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center was re-launched with a new interface and a new name: Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Here’s a video from Gale about the new interface. There is also this guide: Oppposing Viewpoints in Context: Search Tips (pdf).
If you see the database listed by its old name somewhere on the library website or on a LibGuide, mention it here in the comments to this post so it can get updated.
Sources of historic gold prices for assignment
Last night a student came to the reference desk looking for data giving the prices of several commodities (gold, any oil) and the CPI for five years for a class assignment due Monday.
She wanted them in downloaded Excel files. I was able to locate what she needed except for Gold. Although I initially missed “Gold” in the currencies available in Factiva (one can download two years from Factiva), Ryan reminded me it was there. (He was walking by and I asked him.)
I also found, after the student left, that the World Gold Council offers historic gold prices from 2000 (daily, monthly, but not annually) downloadable into Excel. Bloomberg, Reuters and Datastream were also mentioned as sources to the student.
WRDS access changes
WRDS has made it easier to access their data.
It is NOT necessary for library-based users to apply for individual accounts.
The new process is as follows:
The user connects to WRDS via the Databases page.
There, s/he will be asked for their Baruch email address; the WRDS system will then immediately send an email to that address, containing a one-day access ticket (actually a customized URL). (Both “Baruchmail” and “Baruch” are working).
Faculty and those working continuously with data will still probably want to create their own account so they don’t have to ask for a one-day pass, but for others this might be enough.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Lehman bankrupcty and reference to Dickens
Today’s Crain’s New York has a story about Lehman defying bankruptcy to become a company again. In the article there’s a reference to Jarndyce & Jarndyce, a bankruptcy case in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. I like these references as they help show students, who may not be interested in literature, that it does matter.
Replacements for Hoover’s
Now that we no longer subscribe to Hoover’s, we’re seeing a number of students asking where it is and how to access it. Many of those students looking for Hoover’s are in BUS 1000 and have been using the Beginner’s Guide to Business Research tutorial, which points them to that database as a way to get basic company info.
Louise says that we’ll get that tutorial updated so it no longer mentions Hoover’s. In the meanwhile, she recommended to me that we steer students to Mergent Online, which will give them the basic info they need (including the ability to generate a stock price chart for a company to which you can add data for up to four other companies). She also suggested we send students to Business & Company Resource Center.
I’d also like to note that with the redesign of the EBSCOhost interface, there is a slightly less circuitous route to get to the thorough company profiles in Business Source Complete that are published by Datamonitor. Here’s the fastest way to find a Datamonitor company profile in BSC:
- From the main search screen, click “More” in the top navigation bar (up where it says “New Search | Publications | Thesaurus | Author Profiles”
- When you click “More,” select “Company Profiles” from the drop down list of options
- On the Company Profiles page that opens, search by company name and then click the corresponding PDF icon for the company in the search results list.
Bernanke’s guide to understanding the financial crisis
Fed Chief Ben Bernanke was asked at last week’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission what readings he would suggest for those wanting to understand the financial crisis. The Wall Street Journal reported his recommendations in an article titled “Ben Bernanke’s Labor Day Reading List.” The only book on the list was The Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed. We have a copy at HG172 .A2 A43 2009. The rest of Bernanke’s testimony can be found in the September 2nd hearings on “Too Big to Fail.”
EBSCO not working in Bearcat
Per Serials Solutions:
“searches conducted against EBSCO databases using 360 Search are not returning results. It appears that EBSCO made changes to how federated search queries are handled against their databases, which in turn broke 360 Search connections. Unfortunately, we learned of this earlier today.
We are working as quickly as possible to resolve this issue, and will provide you with an update by the end of today. ”
Please let me know if you run into anything else.
Finding Recent Demographic Data on NYC Neighborhoods
Thanks to Frank’s great LibGuide on NYC data, I learned that if you want to get demographic data about a NYC neighborhood from the Census that is reasonably up-to-date, your best bet is to find a PUMA that matches your neighborhood and then search the American Community Survey (ACS) data for numbers. I just taught a JRN 3060 class today for Prof. Roslyn Bernstein in which I walked them step-by-step in going from the PUMA number to the Census pages for the ACS. Recognizing that they may not be able to recreate that search for data when they are really ready to do it, I created a quick video in one-take about the steps and posted it to my YouTube page. I then emailed Prof. Bernstein with the URL for the video so the students can return to it if needed.
Here is the video I made, “Neighborhood Demographic Data for New York City.”
Community District Needs: Freely Online Now!
A key resource for getting background info on a NYC neighborhood and the issues that the community is confronting is an annual publication from the City of New York called Community District Needs. While looking for the latest volumes in our print reference collection, I discovered that the latest we have is from 2008. Today, I discovered that the books are now available in full text as PDFs from the City of New York on this page of the City’s bookstore site.