Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

MEL’s Database of the Week for 11/6

November 6th, 2009

Welcome to Database of the Week — a feature from the Management & Economics Library (MEL).  These weekly database snapshots will give you basic information about our most relevant and beneficial online resources.

This Week’s Featured Database: LexisNexis Company Dossier, from LexisNexis, Inc.

Link: www.lib.purdue.edu/mel, in the pull down Quick Access to Business Databases alpha list right below our banner.

Description/focus: LexisNexis Company Dossier is business information segment in LexisNexis Academic. This is the first in a mini-series of snapshots of the LexisNexis products provided by the Libraries.

Start with this hint: If the company of interest is a private company, enter the company name and LexisNexis Company Dossier will give you a list of guesses.  As with any database offering company information, however, when searching for a publicly traded company, it is quicker to get results if you have the ticker for your company.  In the ticker field enter luv or the symbol for another publicly-traded company.  Each section on the resulting Snapshot page expands to the complete information in that field.  On the left are more links, including Legal Information and Intellectual Property Information.  Go back to the search page (hit Return to Company Searches at the top) and switch to Company Profiles on the left.  This will bring up a list of reports from the LexisNexis sources such as Disclosure, Standard & Poor’s, Hoover’s.   When you use the Dossier Compare Companies feature on the search page,  the ticker symbols are especially important.

Why you should know this database: The Financial Information link on the left on the Snapshot page brings up tables that can be expanded to include historical information, including ratio analysis.

How this database can be integrated into the curriculum: The breadth of information on the LexisNexis Company Dossier snapshot page, as well as the opportunity to expand for more, presents students with reliable and complete company information, including news reports.

Cost: LexisNexis Company Dossier is part of LexisNexis Academic, a subscription paid by the Libraries annually; for more information contact mdugan@purdue.edu.

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Database of the Week comes to you from the Management & Economics Library (MEL). Our intent is to give you a brief introduction to a database that you may not know.  If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact kranlib@purdue.edu.  Database of the Week is archived  at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/mgmt/database/.  For more Purdue Libraries news, follow us on Twitter (@PurdueLibraries).

If you would like us to promote your favorite database, send an email to mdugan@purdue.edu.