Published Friday September 13, 2013

BBL now serves the finance and business research needs of students and faculty better than ever before with vastly improved access to Bloomberg terminals. Not only do we now have four of these available at the library, a 300% increase from our former single terminal, but we’re offering you the swanky kind shown here. All four terminals feature dual-screen flat-panel monitors giving you huge flexibility to expand your view of Bloomberg’s myriad, and, frankly mind-boggling, data sources to suit your needs.

All York faculty and registered students can avail of the Bloomberg terminal for academic research needs. For your convenience we have an online booking system (Passport York Login requested) for the terminals which are bookable for up to two hours a day, seven or less days in advance.

And just when you thought the news possibly couldn’t get any better, think again! To assist you with Bloomberg’s many commands and functions, we’ve transitioned our print help manual online to an easy-to-navigate Libguide format. This guide created by June Hill, Reference Assistant, and this post’s co-author, Xuemei Li, the finance librarian, steps you through everything from navigating the Bloomberg keyboard, to doing research on a wide range of topics such as equities, bonds, industries, indices etc., to using Bloomberg’s Excel API, to enrolling for the Bloomberg Essentials qualification.

Go to guide

Published Thursday September 5, 2013

This summer I read Seymour Schulich’s book “Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons” and, it is just that, a series of personal anecdotes shared by a truly successful and generous man on the two things he knows best; life and business.  We have 7 copies at the Peter F. Bronfman Business Library.

Schulich begins this book by recalling a story that warms the heart of every librarian, his discovery of the public library and a love of reading.

 “ At eight years of age, I went to the closest public library and made a wonderful discovery: I could borrow three books for three weeks. I started to read a book a week. If you read a page a minute, then set aside an hour a day, it’s very easy to read a book a week….”

What is exceptional about his recollection, which at first has casual sense about it, is that Schulich figured out a system for reading consistently each day and that he continued to apply this system for the rest of his life.  Like many successful people he reads broadly on many topics to provide himself with different perspectives and to feed his curiosity.

He tells us this book is aimed at university students and his wish is to impart “lessons on choosing a career path and a mate.  In my experience, the years in age from twenty to thirty are, in many ways the most difficult because of the search for direction in these two areas.”  He does include chapters later in the book for people who are more established in business and in life.  The simple but underlying theme is that there is no separating business and life; they are inextricably bound.

“Get Smarter” would be a good reading choice while on the bus, as each chapter is short with a single defining nugget of wisdom directly and clearly stated.

Another read I would recommend would be Dr. James Gillies (founder of the Faculty of Administrative Studies at York which later became the Schulich School of Business ) “From Vision to Reality:The Founding of The Faculty of Administrative Studies at York University 1965-1972” that chronicles the history of development of a business school at York University but also provides an insider’s view on how business was done in the early days in Toronto.

Published on Tuesday August 27, 2013

If you are a first year student, chances are you are not thinking about a master’s degree yet. You may start thinking about pursuing graduate school sometimes during your third year of undergraduate degree. By then it may be too late to start improving your grades as your reaching graduation.  However, it is very important to do well in university from the beginning; you can always try to strive at any point in your academic studies.

In order to pursue a Graduate program at York, the Faculty of Graduate Studies requires students to graduate from a four-year degree from a recognized university with at least a B average GPA that is based on the last two years of study. However, successful applicants, particularly in the most competitive programs, usually have a B+ or A average. Another important factor to keep in mind is that for many of the graduate programs you require referees. Therefore, students need to start networking early on so professors can remember their work and provide outstanding letters of recommendation.

There are other requirements that are needed for admissions to specific programs; nevertheless you can always follow your dreams and set yourself apart from others as leaders in your particular field. Check out the graduate programs offered at York University and also this great flow chart with timelines.

Remember, York University Libraries can help you with any research projects or assignments throughout the year. We provide lots of great study space areas, computers/laptops, research & writing assistance, workshops and much more to help you on the right path to getting good grades and succeed at York University.

from UTSA

Glenda Lowndes, Reference Assistant, Bronfman Business Library

Published Wednesday June 26th, 2013

Text books can cost BIG Bucks, especially on top of tuition fees – which continue to rise! Some universities are trying to help students cut their costs by offering textbook rentals from there university book store. Average textbook costs about $100 which can put a dent on your bank account when you are taking about 5-10 courses a year. Concordia University was the first to implement this service offering students 60 per cent off the retail price, making a $100 book available to rent for only $40 a semester. Students must take care of the textbooks otherwise they will be charged for the total cost of the textbook. Many other universities have followed suit, but it varies from university to university.¹ York U has also adopted the textbook rental service, however prices and loan periods vary. If you cannot find your textbook from the York U bookstore textbook rental, you can also use other methods to locate used books to buy or to borrow for your courses. The libraries at York U may sometimes have your course kits and textbooks on reserve. To find course reserves, all you need to do is type the course code or instructor’s last name in the search box on our library website and pick Course Reserve from the drop-down menu, and see if your course is listed. Please keep in mind that these books are available for short term loans which can be for only 2 hours. At times, your course may not be listed; it doesn’t mean we don’t carry the textbook. You can also type the title of the textbook in the search box to see if you can borrow the book and all you need is your YUcard. You can also check out the York U bookstore website where students sell their books from previous semesters at a reasonable price.

¹ Seidman, K. (2012, Mar 10). Rental services help students turn the page on high cost of textbooks. The Gazette. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/docview/927663246?accountid=15182

Let me tell you what’s new or changed. 

Library Workstation Access  AcadLabs is gone and has been replaced by FAS (File Access Service).  You will need to activate your FAS account in order to use the library workstations.  Go to http://mms.yorku.ca to do this.  We have changed the resolution on our workstations so documents in MS Office will display better and you can view multiple screens more easily.

Group Study Rooms The walls in the group study rooms have been painted.  We got a third projector for use in the group study rooms.  We are now booking Bloomberg online via the group study room booking page.

New Databases Added  We have added Sustainalytics (aka Jantzi Social Index) a terrific resource if you are looking for corporate governance information.  This databases rates Canadian and US companies on their environmental, social and governance performance.  About 1500 companies are included in the database.  Issues included are aboriginal relations, community involvement, corporate governance, employee relations, environment and human rights.

The second database is SimplyMap.  Marketing students and some 601 project teams, will find this database of particular interest.  This is a web-based mapping database that lets users easily create professional looking thematic maps using  Canadian demographic (Statistics Canada), business and economic (Environics) data.

Some of the interfaces for existing websites have changed dramatically, e.g. Mergent, so don’t hesitate to ask our experienced librarians for help in using them.

And last but not least is the York University Libraries homepage  has been redesigned and our VuFind search engine is improved.  The relevancy ranking is much better now so you can input titles of books, periodicals and/or databases in the basic search box and retrieve the relevant item.  We have also introduced an advanced search function which allows you more scope in searching for items in our print and electronic collections.

Drop by our offices or reference and circulation desks to get help or just to say hello.  We practice an open door policy so feel free to come into any open office.  We are always happy to meet our students in person.  However, if you want to get help online you can use our IM chat service, available either from our Bronfman Business Library homepage or click here if you use an IM client

If you have any suggestions about article topics you would like to read on this blog please email me  watson@yorku.ca

“How do I know which databases are best suited for my search?”

While some questions are like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, the answers to many research questions are readily available in the wide selection of databases to which we subscribe.  We are fortunate in being able to have one of the best online business resources collections and we are grateful for the financial support we receive from the Schulich School of Business which allows us to acquire many more resources then would be the case if we were to rely solely on the Libraries budget.

But back to the question of how to identify the database that will best meet your research needs.  Since this question comes from our IM chat research service, obviously, using our research services is a first choice for getting the help you need. Here is a link that shows you how to contact us but I know that students don’t work on our timetable and unfortunately we don’t have research help available late in the evenings. For this reason we have created web-based guides that will help you.

Business Resources A-Z is a list of York University Libraries subscription databases, Government websites and links to free Internet resources.  There is a description of the contents of the database or website and tutorials on how to use them have been included, when available.  If you know of other free web sites you would like us to add please send me the information at watson@yorku.ca

However if you have more specific research interests try one of the following guides:

Company Research

Industry Research

Finding Business Articles

It seems to be that time again….   Once every few years students ask for a list of the 100 best business books ever written.  As you can imagine it is a formidable task to compile such a list and of course no one will agree with all of the choices.   Not to mention the fact that values change and what is considered a “best” book in one decade may not make the list in another time.   So I am taking the easy way out and letting others take the plunge in selecting the top one hundred.  Let me first share one of my all time favourite’s with you and it doesn’t appear on any of the two lists I am posting below.

My favourite is Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, by Wess Roberts.  It doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should we.   Happy reading!

Here are the links:

http://100bestbiz.com/more-on-the-100-best/

http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu/businessclassics

And here’s a short list of business classics:

http://www.personal.mbs.ac.uk/rsinkovics/lit/HBR-BusinessClassics.aspx ]]> http://www.library.yorku.ca/cms/bblnews/2009/02/10/100-best-business-books/feed/ 0 http://www.library.yorku.ca/cms/bblnews/2009/01/06/whats-new-in-the-collection/ http://www.library.yorku.ca/cms/bblnews/2009/01/06/whats-new-in-the-collection/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:26:10 +0000 Elizabeth Watson http://www.yorku.ca/yul/bbl/blog/?p=35 More »]]> We are always adding new books and electronic resources to the collection so I thought it was time to highlight some recent acquisitions.

Do you know that we have a “Bestsellers” collection? It is located on the wooden bookshelves in the fireplace lounge area of the library. This small collection reflects the latest bestsellers on business topics and includes titles such as: Business the Richard Branson Way; A Class with Drucker; The Global Brain: your roadmap for innovating faster and smarter in a networked world; Online Marketing Heroes: interviews with 25 successful marketing gurus; Grande Expectations: a year in the life of Starbucks stock; to name but a few.  You can find the complete list here.

International students may be interested in using the Oxford Language Dictionaries Online.  Choose from Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish dictionaries to translate to and from English.  Also included are useful phrases, a calendar of holidays and festivals, hints about the language and other useful information.  Sometimes sample sentences using the terminology you selected, are included.

And if you still haven’t tried out Books 24X7, what are you waiting for?  See the earlier post on Books 24X7.

Globe and Mail https://customer.globeandmail.ca/HD/Start.aspx?x_IsStudent=Y

Wall Street Journal  http://wsjstudent.com/

 Financial Times  http://www.ft.com/Education/Portal/welcome_students.html

To see a list of what’s available by business topic visit our web page:   http:/www.library.yorku.ca/ccm/BG/collections/dvd.htm  Each entry in this list includes a description of the DVD or video and the SMIL call number.

But the great news is that now many of these videos can be viewed online in the classroom or from a link on a course web page.

The streaming videos are only available to current York students, staff and faculty.  A current Passport York account or a library barcode and PIN is required to  access these videos online. The link to these videos is included in the abstract for the title.

For classroom use,  faculty may create ‘playlists’, i.e. select sections of the video to show in class or to include on their course website.  For information on how to create and save playlists, comprising selected videos or video clips, or to learn about other useful features in the FMG digital video collection, please see the FMG Guide at http://library.yorku.ca/binaries/BG/fmgstreamingvideo.pdf.

We welcome your feedback on our selection. Please send comments to watson@yorku.ca .