If you are researching a national organization, then you may want to look for articles published in magazines that clearly have a nationwide circulation, and a national focus. In order to do a thorough search, you can conduct a simultaneous search of various magazine & journal oriented databases through Hatfield Library’s subscription to the family of "EBSCO" databases.
To conduct a joint search, first you need to log into one of the databases from the EBSCO group, then move to top of the white section, and click on the blue text called "Searching : XYZ Database". Now you mark which databases you want, then click on the "Select" button at the bottom right of the database selection screen, in order to be able to work with that combination of databases with a unified search strategy.
4 of the most relevant databases from the EBSCO company:
- Business Source Complete – mixture of trade magazines, professional magazines & academic business publications. Also provides access to SWOT analyses, industry reports and company reports. Hatfield Library recommends that for most business oriented topics, that you start off by searching the Business Source Complete database.
- Academic Search Complete – academic oriented magazines, with some overlap of popular sources, but this database does NOT cover business, nor economics.
- Master File Premier – popular magazines typically found in public libraries, or magazines oriented towards hobbies, families & personal reading.
- EconLit – Since this database is not useful for finding company specific information, this link will open up a Library Guide to prepare you on the effective use of the EconLit database. This LibGuide explains the peculiar nature of EconLit's subject headings & subject codes that are heavily used by economists around the world. Its heavy focus on theoretical models that do not include useable graphs nor underlying datasets is very different from the more practical approach of many business journals. Typically, if you are looking for recent data about an industry you will probably be disappointed because there is significant reliance on historical time series info, rather than a quick source for recent data or events. This database is ideal when you are looking for specific economic models or economic theories. There is lot of attention given to macroeconomics and the dynamics of industries that either undergo rapid change or have been highly concentrated among few competitors. There also is a lot of coverage of financial & labor markets in terms of measuring & projecting data on wages; supply & demand curves; velocity of money supply; interest rates and general measurements of economic activity including both wealth & poverty. Even when articles are focusing on activity of stock markets or mutual funds, there is very little mention of specific company names! Secondary focus of this database includes theories and models of risks & insurance costs; analytical coverage of models and how countries as well as non-governmental organizations (such as IMF or World Bank) are involved with either offering or accepting international aid, as well as analyzing outcomes of the proverbial "strings" that are attached to many aid programs. On top of that, academic & scholarly journals that are indexed by the EconLit database tend to have a slower turnaround time of getting new articles into the hands of readers, compared to the turnaround times for business journals.
2 other business databases that broadly focus on a wide variety of businesses:
- Business Insights: Global – mixture of trade magazines, professional magazines & academic business publications. Also offers access to company reports, SWOT reports and industry reports compiled by Plunkett.
- Entrepreneurship / Gale Business – although this is primarily aimed at small sized for profit businesses, the vast majority of documents from this database are also very pertinent for non-profits.
List of other BUSINESS oriented databases available from Hatfield Library - over a dozen additional databases that are used by AGSM students.
List of ALL databases available from Hatfield Library - Over 190 databases organized either by Alphabetically by brand name, clustered by Document type (such as book reviews, journal articles, or videos) or organized by Subject focus of each database (academic majors)
