Out-of-Office

The Business Librarian (me) will continue to be on leave, possibly through the summer. Any business-related questions can be sent to Susan Metcalf at metcalf@email.wcu.edu or 828-227-3416. Have a great summer!

Dana

Best Business Plan Tools (According to Business Week)

Business Week regularly posts wonderful little slide shows on specific topics. Today they had one on business planning tools that were considered essential by successful entrepreneurs. The list includes books (most of which are in our library network), blogs, and websites. Be sure to read the text that accompanies each slide as it explains not only why the resource is worthwhile, but what the limitations are.

Click here to read.

Click on the comments link to add any favorite resources that Business Week left out!

How to Drive People Nuts!

NPR ran a funny but thoughtful piece on how business jargon raises the blood pressure of Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway. As she sees it, phrases like "going forward" and "at the end of the day" are mere fillers and therefore meaningless. Listen to the program here--it's just under four minutes.

Kellaway isn't the only person crusading against jargon. Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, and Jon Warshawsky have written an entire book on the topic entitled Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighters Guide which we have in Hunter Library. Click on the link to check for location and availability.

Great Website Alert!

The World Bank and Google Maps have created a mash-up site called geo.worldbank.org. Anyone who has ever tried to navigate the regular World Bank site knows what a pain it can be. Geo.worldbank is a map with "push pins" on each country. Click on a pin and a box pops up with some basic information about the country and tabs for more details on statistics, projects, news and more. This site could be useful for economics and international business projects.

Related library databases:

STAT-USA for trade data

LexisNexis Academic for international news

Student Presentation Practice Room

Do you require your students to do presentations for your class? Do they turn just a tad green at the idea? Hunter Library and Information Technology have a solution that will help calm jittery nerves and create better presentations: the Student Presentation Practice Room.

This room provides a place where WCU students, individually or in groups, can create, practice, and view presentations, and work together on projects requiring access to presentation and multimedia equipment and software. Groups of up to 11 students can use this room, which is equipped with a laptop with PowerPoint software and internet access, as well as a combination DVD/VHS player and a wireless keyboard and mouse.

The room is located in study room 46, behind the main stairwell on the ground floor of the library. Space may be reserved up to one day ahead of time by stopping by the Circulation Desk in person or calling the library at 227-7485. Up to two hours of time may be reserved.

This room is not to be used for classes, meetings, tutoring sessions, screenings – it is only for presentation practice by students!

If you have any questions, call the Circulation Desk at ex. 7485. Please share this with your students and encourage them to use the room.

The Student Presentation Practice Room is a joint venture of Hunter Library and the Division of Information Technology.

New Research Guides

I am in the midst of revising old and creating new research guides for each department in the College of Business. When the library website was redesigned, we decided to post only new or updated guides rather than transferring all of the old ones. Here is a list of what is available so far:

Accounting

Business Law (courtesy of Becky Kornegay)

Entrepreneurship

Project Management

Sales & Marketing (Note the "mini-guides" to specialized areas)

Finding Company Information (Useful for all departments)

Coming next: an update to Writing Business Plans and a brand new guide for CIS.

Oxford Scholarship Online

Oxford Scholarship Online is a searchable library of over 1350 books from Oxford University Press. A significant number are in economics and finance but philosophy, political science, and religion are also included.

The database can be searched by title, author, subject, or keyword. Books are organized by chapters and each chapter has its own abstract for quick review. Searches can be done within a major subject area, e.g. economics & finance, or across the full database.

All books in this database are in the Library Catalog with direct links included. Here is an example: The Globalizing Learning Economy.