News and tips by and for staff providing reference services at the Newman Library, Baruch College (New York, NY).
Message from CUNY’s Office of Library Services:
The Aleph system is once again experiencing performance problems. Recently added records will likely not be available and keyword indexing will be
very slow throughout the day. We are aware of these problems and are
continuing to work with CIS and ExLibris to resolve them. We apologize
for the continued inconvenience that this causes.
Here are a few visually-rich web applications that allow access to world data that students often ask for. The data comes from CIA Factbook, the World Bank and OECD.
IBM has built an information dashboard based on of some of the data in the CIA World Factbook. Users can display data on a global scale or by individual country. Variables are limited to Population, Population Growth, Infant Mortality, Agricultural GDP, Industry GDP, Services GDP, Total GDP, GDP by Inhabitants and Inflation.
The display of the data is pretty neat. The dashboard allows users three primary ways to view the data via World Map, Treemap or OLAP (bar charts). It features a customizable legend and displays a 3D bar and radar charts on the left-hand side to display neighboring country data. There is also a global ranking scale on the left side.
This is the 2nd edition of the World Factbook Dashboard. For more information, check out IBM’s ILOG Blogger.
World Bank Data Dashboard
Compare the World Factbook Dashboard with the World Bank Data Dashboard. It’s not as flashy but the World Bank provides the bulk of their indicators and also allows users to download the data they’re viewing, display information in different languages and enables more traditional browsing for data items.
OECD eXplorer
The OECD eXplorer does a good job of marrying a flashy interface with comprehensive offerings of their data. There is a lot to play around with on OECD eXplorer and thus a bit of a learning curve; but, once you get the hang of it, customizing the data/visuals, selecting and downloading becomes pretty easy.
Note: I first read about these dashboards at the Information Aesthetics blog.
From the university systems librarian:
Aleph is experiencing a couple of problems that are affecting its use.
– keyword search in CUNY+ will likely be VERY slow today and will NOT retrieve newly added records.
– Use direct indexes (author, title, etc) instead.
ICPSR announced that the Data Sharing for Demographic Research has a new easier to navigate look.
As you know, ebrary became a CUNY-wide resource earlier this year and records were loaded for all schools (these records’ holdings says CUNY). But because we already subscribed to ebrary, we already had our own records in.
The Central Office will begin removing our records in batches starting next week. We are not losing any records – you will find all the titles under the holdings indicating CUNY.
The only ebrary titles that will keep saying Baruch are those 100 or so titles that we have purchased on our own, separately from the subscription.
Because there are over 40,000 records to be removed, this will take time, so you will find some titles that have a duplicate record in the catalog and some that have not.
I will let you know when this process if finished.
The AASL (American Assoc. for School Librarians) has published this list.
One of the pieces that has to go into the Business Policy (BPL5100) team presentations is an analysis of the company’s strategy. Students have to address the strategy issue at four levels: corporate, business, functional and global. There is clear guidance on how to define these in the textbook, Strategic Management, A Primer, so you can ask the students to start there. Multiple copies are on reserve. You can also direct them to a guide for BPL5100 that gives more specific guidance. Look at the tab “Answers to Your Questions.”
Today’s NYT has an article about the rapid response of 27 states, including New York, to approve national common standards for what students should learn in English and math each year from kindergarten through high school. The story mentions that the timetable for actual implementation is uncertain. There may be questions in the future about these standards. As the article notes, states have a long tradition of retaining local control over curriculum. States that adopt the standards by Aug. 2 win points toward the Race to the Top funding to be awarded in Sept.
Recently, through a grant from the Institute of Internal Auditors, the library received a number of books to update the internal auditing materials. A series of five books to help students review for the Certified Internal Auditor exam was part of materials received. These are the only review materials we have for this exam.
The five book set is the print equivalent of their online CIA Learning System, which is fee based.
However, the print books do not have the review quizzes that the online system contains. A student would need to pay for individual access for this material. More details are available at the IIA’s website. Individual student memberships are available for $50, which provides for discounts on purchases and registration for parts of the exam. An application must be made to sit for the exam, much like many other exams these days.
There is not a password that can be used with the print resources.
One may download for free on the IIA homepage the Certification Candidate Handbook and complete the My CIA Review Plan for free, which suggests a study schedule. Accessing the online quizzes requires individual access which must be purchased. This is explained on the inside pages of each book.
The books are in reserve. The overall title of the series is the IIA’s CIA Learning System
Part I: The Internal Audit Activity’s Role in Governance, Risk and Control
HF 5668.25 .I53 2009, part 1,
Part 2: Conducting the Internal Audit Engagement HF 5668.25 .I53 2009, part 2.
Part 3a: Business Analysis and Information Technology HF 5668.25 .I53 2009, part 3a. (covers Business Processes, Financial Accounting and Finance and Managerial Accounting)
Part 3b: Business Analysis and Information Technology HF.5668.25 .I53 2009 part 3b. (covers regulatory, legal and economics, and information technology)
Part 4: Business Management Skills HF 5668.25 .I53 2009 part 4.
While these books are designed to help candidates prepare for the internal auditor exam, they can be helpful in other ways, such as summarizing key points and references to materials such as Sawyer’s Internal Auditing,(a book available in reference) or an exhibit such as Audit Cycle Red Flags (Part 2-155).
Please let me know if you have any questions. The accounting professors who teach internal auditing and Mike Waldman and his staff helped in getting the materials from the IIA.
As agreed with the business librarians.
We still have access to the information via Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw Campus (News).