Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

MEL’s Database of the Week for 4/22/11

April 22nd, 2011

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.

If you have a suggestion for a database or research topic that should be covered, please let us know.

Database name: Factiva, from Dow Jones.

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: Factiva offers worldwide news, company, and market information.

Start with this hint: The MEL link for Factiva lands on the Search Builder page, which is an advanced search.  First, though, switch to the Simple Search and enter “earth day” for a list of news articles.  To see simple turn into complex, go back to Simple Search and enter “BP Halliburton.” Factiva will ask if you are looking for BP PLC and Halliburton Co., show today’s news about them, and include links to the company snapshot for each.  Now switch to Search Builder and use the optional Company find field on the bottom half of the page to search for the same 2 companies. (In this mode, it is necessary to put “and” between the two company codes.) See today’s business headlines when you browse the News Pages.

Other common tools available in this database:  fulltext news stories and company reports; filter results for source, company, executive, industry, subject.  For use of these tools in this database, contact Mary Dugan

Why you should know this database: Factiva is undoubtedly the premier source for news reports, and our subscription includes the Dow Jones company reports.  The Companies/Markets tab includes interactive pages for Quotes and Charting, and the Industry reports include a Discovery Pane to narrow by company, subjects, and sub-industries.

How this database can be integrated into the curriculum: Factiva is a powerful tool to help students find news reports on a topic.  There are options to browse or to search for a specific subject, and to search international sources.

Cost:  8 seats, paid annually by Purdue University Libraries and the Krannert School of Management..

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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.