One way is to look in Mergent Online. It includes the last 15 years of financial statements for publicly-held U.S. companies in Excel format. Companies that are going through bankruptcy or have been acquired by other companies are not included.

Mergent is listed on the Rod Library home page under Databases A-Z. It's also listed on the Rod Library Business Portal under Company Information Search Tools. To the right of the link to Mergent is a short video that shows how to get the 15 year run of financial statements. To summarize: go to Mergent, click Enter Mergent Online in upper left corner of Mergent screen, enter company name, and pick Company Financials tab when you reach the company entry.

There's a limit on how many people can use Mergent at the same time, so it's possible you'll get a "busy signal" if others are using it.

For older years and companies that no longer exist, Rod Library has a print source called Moody's Handbook (title changed to Mergent Handbook around 2001) that can be helpful in finding company financial data. It's located in the stacks, third floor of the library, at HG4905.M815. The 1997/97 volume of this title has an entry for Kmart, for example, and includes a table with key income statement figures for 1986-1995. If you look at a later year of the handbook, such as winter 2002/2003, you'll get the income statement figures for 1993-2002. So, in two lookups you'd get 1986-2002 annual revenue figues.

Historical financial statements for publicly-held companies also are available through their U.S. Securities & Exchange filings at the SEC, back to about 1993, and via LexisNexis Academic, Business tab/SEC filings, back to about 1987.

Posted by Stanley Lyle at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As a followup to my meeting with Professor Power's Business Policy class, I'd like to make sure you know about rooms available for students working on team projects. There are 20 such rooms at Rod Library; six rooms have networked desktop computers with software such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. They have room for up to six students, with table, chairs, and chalkboard. Go to the Circulation Desk if you would like to "check out" a room.

Rod Library also checks out networked laptop computers at the Multiservice Center (bottom floor) for use in the library building. These laptops have Microsoft software such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

A student's own laptop can be used to access the UNI network in the Rod Library building, via wireless or hard wired connection, after registering at the ITS Consulting Center in the ITTC. See this page for more details.

Posted by Stanley Lyle at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are different ways to do this. Here are two:

1. Business journal databases like ABI/INFORM and Business Source Elite have a way to look for articles on a topic in specific journals. With Business Source Elite (access from Rod Library home page, Databases A-Z, or from Business Portal), enter the search like this on the form; the italicized words are what you would type:

"journal of marketing" or "journal of marketing research" in SO Publication Name
and pharmaceutical*

This says the search results must have Journal of Marketing or Journal of Marketing Research in the Publication Name field and they must also have the root word pharmaceutical. Puting the asterisk at the end of the word also gets pharmaceuticals.

If the database itself does not have the full text, look for the yellow Find It! button; it may be available in another database or in print at Rod Library.

The same type of search can be done in Advanced Search in ABI/INFORM and in Business & Company Resource Center. ABI/INFORM also has a Publications tab; there, you can pick a specific journal and then search for articles in it.

2. Using Panther Prowler, you can search several databases such as the above simultaneously, by picking Marketing or a related Field of Study.

Posted by Stanley Lyle at 8:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)