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.

Employers find undergraduates, MBAs and recently graduated students for financial jobs and internships, based on their Bloomberg Assessment Test (BAT) scores. The BAT is a 3-hour exam designed to uncover knowledge and skills relevant for a financial career.  Employers can filter by student performance on subjects such as math skills, valuation, financial statement analysis, and more.

• All student data is anonymous and not shared with others.
• When employers wish to make a connection and contact the student, the student will get a notice that: “Company X” wishes to talk to you. Will you allow them to make a connection and share your profile? You will not be anonymous to Company X if you agree.”
• Students receive their individual scores within a week of taking test. University receives assessment report for how their students scored in the different subject areas, contrasted against students globally.
• The test is open to current SSB graduate, undergraduate and PhD students.

Last November, for the first time, we offered Schulich School of Business students the opportunity to take the BAT and the response was terrific.  Not everyone who wanted to could take it at that time so we are offering it again.

The test is free and connects students who do well with employers. Due to lab size, we only have 20 seats available for each session so we ask that only students who have a serious interest in gaining employment in careers in finance register. Below are the event details:

Date: February 24, 2012
Time: 9 am and 1 pm
Building: SSB
Room: S236
To confirm your seat: www.takethebat.com <http://www.takethebat.com/>.

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 to interpret the course evaluation summary forms

N = number of responses

Scale of 1 to 7 with 1 being the lowest rating and 7 being the highest. Numbers expressed in %

Section mean = rating for this section only. Section and instructor are listed at the top of the page. Look at other instructors’ summary forms to compare across sections.

Area mean = if the course is an accounting course the area mean signifies all accounting courses

Level mean – course level, i.e. BBA ist, 2^nd,3^rd or 4^th year level and MBA ist or 2^nd year level

Elec/Core mean = if the course summary is for an elective this indicates all electives offered in the program and if the course summary is for a core course than the mean is for all core course offered.

• MBA tests
• BBA tests

Not all past exams are there, but that’s the place to go to find whatever old exams are available.