Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Parrish Library’s Database of the Week for 8/19/11

August 19th, 2011

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

This Week’s Featured Database: USDA Economics, Statistics, and Market Information System (ESMIS),  from the United States Department of Agriculture.

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

Description/focus: USDA Economics, Statistics, and Market Information System provides reports and datasets from several USDA agencies.

Start with this hint: The ESMIS interface is simple and direct.  The panel on the left links to browsing by agency or subject but also allows a specific title search.  The Browse by Subject titles are not all intuitive, so, for example, Baseline actually links to Agricultural Baseline Projection Tables including the latest long-term projection table to the year 2020.  Navigation throughout the site is easy and the pages are quick to load. All tables and reports can be downloaded. See a demonstration here.

Why you should know this database: ESMIS content includes historical information, daily reports on some subjects, and world markets and trade.

How this database can be integrated into the curriculum: Students might not always think first of the USDA as a source of information (for example, Wine is included in Specialty Agriculture) but ESMIS should be seen as a portal to information that has been collected by the federal government for the past two centuries.  Besides gaining easy access to tables and reports, students can contact the USDA for help with finding information not readily available online.

Cost: This is a free service provided by the United States Department of Agriculture.

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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.