The
Business Library -- Any Time, Anywhere
Not so long ago, when a
student needed to research a company she had to make a trek to
Library West, wander around until she found the Reference Desk,
then ask someone what to do. Chances are she would be shown the
file cabinets where the annual reports were kept, taken to the Business
Periodicals Index to locate articles about the company, endure
a lengthy explanation of how you look up a citation, copy it down,
search the catalog to see if the Library subscribes, copy down the
call numbers and then hunt for the journals on the third floor,
hope the issues she needs are on the shelf, find a copier and
finally – maybe – make legible copies.
Today’s student can simply
click into the Business Library. She can do it from
anyplace on
campus, at home, or from anywhere in the world at anytime. It’s
always open. She then has a choice of subscription databases to
search for company information.
If she doesn’t know where to begin she can use the Company
Tutor to guide her step-by-step in finding complete company
profiles, current news and articles, in-depth research reports
from leading brokerage-houses, SEC filings, downloadable financial
statements, lists of key competitors with the same detailed
information, industry surveys, even an explanation of how to
analyze the company. Everything
is up-to-date, online and full-text. Faculty report that the
quality of the research papers they assign has improved because
the students spend less time looking for information and more time
analyzing the high-quality, in-depth information easily available.
Instant access to online
company information is only the beginning of the story.
The Business Library contains full-text, electronic access
to an integrated tax research
library, country intelligence from EIU,
U.S. and international market research
reports, thousands of
electronic books, journals and reports, a suite of Standard
& Poor's investment publications as well as
business-related legal research tools from Lexis-Nexis
and Commerce
Clearinghouse. There are more than 50 World Wide Web databases.
Online tutorials
teach users how to make the most effective use of the databases
for company and industry
research, tax research and international
business intelligence. A Tour
instructs the novice user in how the Website is organized, how to
navigate it, and how to get the most out of the articles,
books, databases,
journals, subject
guides, case studies and tutorials.
The Business
Library is not just for business faculty and students. Last
year (2002) the Business Library received more than
148,000 visits
with more than 276,000 pages viewed. Frequent visitors include
faculty, staff and students from the College of
Journalism and Communications, the
Law School, the Health
Sciences, Engineering, the
UF Foundation,
The Office of Technology Licensing and many others across the
campus as well as distance learners. All UF students can benefit
from using the resources to identify potential employers and
research companies and industries when preparing for job
interviews.
Smathers
Libraries and the Warrington
College of Business are actively seeking a major donor to
establish an endowment to enhance the electronic business
collections to make them among the best in the nation.
