Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

MEL’s Database of the Week for 9/3/10

September 3rd, 2010

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

This Week’s Featured Database: Forrester Research from Forrester.

Link: www.lib.purdue.edu/mel, in the pull down Quick Access to Business Databases alpha list right below the Libraries’ search box.

Description/focus: Forrester Research is the source for IT-related market research.

Start with this hint: Forrester Research requires an extra layer of security with an additional login and registration, but navigation  in the database through the menus and submenus is simple.  The tabbed options that are probably most useful for academic research are Research, Consumer Data, Business Data, and the search box.  If you enter the name of a company, such as Apple, the reports can be refined through tools on the left side of the web page by geographical region, industry, or other parameters.  If you enter a concept such as security, the list of hits is headed by categories for browsing, such as Client Security & Management.

Why you should know this database: Forrester Research covers IT issues as they affect other industries.  Airlines, for example, nets 1108 results.  Enter pharmaceuticals for reports on issues such as vaccine delivery, direct to consumer marketing, social tools in the industry, and others. Under the tab Consumer Data, Technographics Research includes reports on online consumer behavior and the future of market research.  Under Business Data, you can find reports that can be filtered by industry, topic, or region.

How this database can be integrated into the curriculum: Forrester Research sub-categories can be explored by using the tool on the left column of the home page, Browse Topics – View all topics.  The list ranges from Application Development, through IT Management, to Retail, and more.  This list can help with the selection of a project topic or provide information on IT aspects of a topic.

Compared to Google: The first page of a search for in Google for internet access on airplanes  includes magazine and newspaper articles.  Forrester Research includes 2 relevant reports.

Cost: For information on the cost of this database, 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/.  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.