This page is designed to highlight specific library services of interest to PhD students, in addition to a few of the electronic resources that are of interest to PhDs at York University. It is not meant to duplicate resources found in other research guides such as Company Research or Industry Research or Finding Business Articles .

Powerpoint slides for session.

Library Web Sites

The library web sites are the gateways to the resources and services at the five York University Libraries: Peter F. Bronfman Business Library, Frost Library (bilingual, mainly undergraduate collection located at Glendon Campus), Law Library, Scott Library (Social Sciences and Humanities), Steacie Science and Engineering Library.

The main York University Libraries Web Site provides you with information about the libraries services, resources and collections as well as links to online tutorials, the libraries catalogue, quick access to online databases and journals, etc. The Peter F. Bronfman Business Library Web site provides you with information about this branch library specifically.

The Graduate Student Library Guide provides an overview of York University Libraries resources and services.

Business Library Collection

The Peter F. Bronfman Business Library is the primary location for York University Libraries business collection.  In addition to the circulating books and non-circulating reference materials and print periodicals and newspapers, we maintain a reserve collection of required course readings. Books or individual journal titles may be found using the library catalogue Vufind, as well as many other materials in the Libraries’ collection.

E-Resources/Databases
The Libraries also subscribe to a wide variety of full-text and numeric electronic resources as well and most of these are available by remote access. The York University Libraries subscribe to over 12,000 electronic databases and journals which are selected for their quality and their relevance to teaching and research. The Schulich School of Business and the Libraries are partners in funding these subscriptions and the electronic collection is one of the finest business resources available anywhere in the GTA. However, there are some important databases which are either available on stand alone workstations in the Bronfman Business Library or by requesting an account. Please read the description of the databases listed on the Business Databases A-Z web page  to learn how to access these eResources.

Interlibrary Loan and Borrowing from non-York libraries.

Members of the York University community may borrow materials from other libraries via the York University Libraries Resource Sharing Dept using the RACER online interlibrary loan request service or via our Direct Borrowing at Other Universities Program. The exception is the University of Toronto which charges $20 for stack access and $225 for borrowing privileges (subsidized by York University).

Business: Subject Specialist Librarians

A list of subject areas and assigned business librarians can be viewed on the Business Library web site. Contact the appropriate librarian to request specific materials, or to make general recommendations for the library collection in a specific subject area, to book a research appointment or with any other subject related queries.

Selected Electronic Resources

Citation Databases
The guide to cited reference searching provides a list of key databases available with tips on how to search and use them.

Journal Citation Reports
Provides journal impact metrics which measure the importance of a journal in a particular field relative to other journals in the same field. These metrics are controversial and do not necessarily give an accurate picture of the impact or usefulness of a particular journal.

Dissertation Databases
Finding doctoral dissertations and master’s theses published in your field is an important part of your basic research methodology. Proquest Dissertations and Theses comes especially recommended.

Subject Specific Guides
The Bronfman Business Library provides a number of online guides to e-resources available in different subject areas including finance, corporate governance, and other areas.

Specialized Financial Datasets for PhD students

WRDS Wharton Research Data Service. This guide provides a list of all WRDS databases available at York, as well as instructions on how to request a WRDS account and tips on using the WRDS datasets.Contact finance librarian, Xuemei Li for more information

Thomson SDC Platinum databases are also available including Global New Issues and Mergers & Acquisitions.  Note that VentureXpert is no longer supported on the SDC platform but has migrated to Thomson and is web-based via Thomson One Private Equity. A getting started guide is available. Available on a stand-alone workstation in the Bronfman Business Library, with Passport York signon. To request access contact finance librarian, Xuemei Li

Datastream – this guide provides help with using Datastream which is available via a stand-alone workstation in the Bronfman Business Library. Contact finance librarian, Xuemei Li for more information

Citation Management Tools

RefWorks is a web-based bibliographic management tool (citation manager) that allows you to create a database of citations or references to resources (books, journal articles, web sites, etc.). It facilitates the insertion of citations within a research paper as in-text references, footnotes, or endnotes, and the creation of a formatted bibliography using a citation style of choice. All major citation styles are supported (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). To learn more about using Refworks please see the tutorial.

Zotero is a free and open source program that allows researchers to save references from library catalogues, research databases and web sites with a single click. It means your time is freed up from the tedious task of formatting citations, allowing you to focus on the research itself. Our guide explains all about it, and includes a recording of a one-hour webinar that will get you started with all you need to know.

York Space (York’s institutional repository) & Open Access Publishing Toolkit

YorkSpace is an open access repository of digital objects. Each submission must be accompanied by a digital object that can be made available to the York and global scholarly community permanently without access restrictions .

The Scholarly Communications Initiative is a web site created by York University Libraries which features information for graduate students including open access resources, author rights resources and copyright management guidelines.

The opening access publishing toolkit has been compiled by York librarians and provides information about open access publishing options, scholarly publishing and repositories.

Revised September 2013