Off The Shelf

We’ve recently added some subject specific encyclopedias to our Gale Virtual Reference Library database.  Subject encyclopedias are a great place to go for an overview of a topic and learn the fundamentals and basics.  They’re an excellent place to start your research, as they provide a wealth of background information that will help guide your search.

Did you know that you can find Company Profiles (including Data Monitor reports, Company History, Revenue analyses, and SWOT analyses) in Business Source Complete?

When you access the Business Source Complete database (via the library’s Articles, Books, and More  link), look for the More link on the dark blue bar along the top of the screen. 

Hover over this link and you will see a drop-down menu appear. Click on Company Profiles.

From here, simply search for your company’s name in the search box.  Voila!

For more help finding Company Information in LexisNexis and on the web, check out these fantastic guides:

Company Information in Lexis Nexis

Finding Company Information

And as always, if you need assistance – don’t hesitate to give us a call in the library!

~Jennie

As with every new quarter, the library’s been getting a lot of questions about accessing textbooks and course readings. Exactly one year ago today we posted to the blog a FAQ about these common questions.

The answers are still the same, so if you have a question about what to do about your required readings, take a quick look at our post:

Course Readings & Textbooks

- Erin

Many of you have noticed that IEEE is no longer available in the library. We were unable to renew the database for this year, so our IEEE subscription had to end in December of 2008.

So, what are your search options post-IEEE?

• ACM Digital Library
• Science Direct
• Interlibrary Loan
• ABI/INFORM

I’ll go into each of these with a little more depth.

The ACM Digital Library is from the Association for Computing Machinery. It contains journal articles, transactions, and conference proceedings from the ACM and affiliated organizations. It is a great resource for all types of IT research, and should be most learners’ first stop.

This winter we were able to increase the number of IT journals available through Science Direct. Often overlooked by Technology learners, there are some great resources in Science Direct.

Interlibrary Loan allows learners to access articles we don’t have in the Capella Library. The IEEE Xplore database may be gone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ever access IEEE materials. If you find useful IEEE articles or conference proceedings by searching Google Scholar or when perusing a bibliography, you can request the full text using the Interlibrary Loan form.

ABI/INFORM is mostly a business database, but it does contain some helpful IT journals, especially if you are looking for articles in IT project management. When your topic starts to cross over to another discipline, it’s a good time to use databases designed for both.

For more help picking the right database, or finding the right articles, you can always Ask a Librarian.

- Erin

Looking for a new job?  Wondering how you can stand out in an interview?  One thing you can easily do to impress an interviewer is to show what you know about a company.  And the library can help you do that.

The Capella Library has several databases designed for researching specific companies, including LexisNexis and Hoover’s.  You can learn about a company’s size, markets, or recent history.  They can help you identify companies you want to work for or give you the information you’ll use in an interview to prove that you’re interested and engaged.

For help doing company research, check out our guide: Finding Company Information.   It covers both library and internet resources that provide information about individual companies.

Company research isn’t just for courseroom assignments.  It can help your professional life as well.

- Erin