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.

Published Wednesday, July 10, 2013.

Google Scholar at scholar.google.com is an important search engine to have in your suite of research tools when carrying out business research. We’ve even tweeted about it before; but here’s the nitty gritty. It can help you uncover useful academic sources for business research assignments and projects when used in tandem with the Bronfman Business Library’s wide-ranging suite of subscription sources available from our Business Databases A-Z web page.

Google Scholar facilitates broad searching of scholarly literature across many disciplines and types of information sources including articles, theses, books and more.

Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of Google Scholar:

Tip #1: You can access many York University library resources using the Google Scholar search engine, especially the full-text of scholarly articles, but to make sure this works access Google Scholar through the main search box of the library home page at http://www.library.yorku.ca like this:

If you access Google Scholar this way then links to York library holdings will appear if available, i.e. you’ll get links labeled “Find it @ York” which allow you to click through and get the full-text of articles and other publications.

Tip #2: Google Scholar, when accessed as described above, is a very quick and easy way to find a specific scholarly article you are looking for. This is a handy time saver when professors list scholarly articles on reading lists.

Let’s say you want to find this article:

Arend, R. J. (2013). A Heart-Mind-Opportunity Nexus: Distinguishing Social Entrepreneurship for Entrepreneurs. Academy Of Management Review, 38(2), 313-315.

Use the advanced search option in Google Scholar to find this article (just click on the arrow in the search box to get the advanced search option).

Just paste the title of the article in to the search box which facilitates searching “using the exact phrase” and put the last name of the author in the relevant box as shown below:

The article title and abstract appears and the “Find it @ York” link will allow you to retrieve the PDF of the article via the library’s e-resources.

Tip # 3: Google Scholar can be used to search the scholarly literature for business topics (by using keyword searching as shown below) but we recommend that you think of it as a way of supplementing what is available in our top recommended sources. This includes Proquest Business and Business Source Premier– specialized business article databases that the library subscribes to.

Google Scholar allows you to search more broadly than business alone so that can be useful if your topic is interdisciplinary in nature, for example IT governance or health management. It may also help you retrieve conference proceedings or scholarly papers etc. that nicely complement the articles retrieved through searching of Proquest Business and Business Source Premier.

Tip #4: Be a savvy Google searcher and familiarize yourself with search strategies that work best to ensure you get results that are relevant.

For a handy illustrated summary of key search tips check out this really great infographic titled “Get More Out of Google: Tips and Tricks for Students Conducting Online Research”

Published Wednesday, May 1, 2013.

Having a hard time finding information about a niche or emerging industry? In the past year we’ve had business students ask our librarians to help them find information about everything from the elevator industry, to the smoothies industry, to the sleep clinics industry.

Now thanks to the recent addition of IBISWorld U.S. Specialized Industry Reports, we offer detailed reports about all three of these industries, in addition to many other niche and emerging industries. In fact, this database contains over 400 industry reports.  Moreover, at any given point in time, some 70-80% of the current report titles will have been published within the past 12 months.

The main industry sectors covered by IBISWorld U.S. Specialized Industry Reports are as follows: advisory and financial services, business franchises, consumer goods and services, industrial machinery, gas and chemicals, life sciences, online retail, retail markets, specialist engineering infrastructure and contractors, and technology.

Once again, enjoy! And remember, if you’ve got questions about using IBISWorld, ask us for help.

You may have discovered the value of Simply Map already for market research in Canada. It allows you to generate both maps and tables displaying demographic or spending patterns data for one or more specific geographic locations in Canada, e.g. cities, towns, municipalities, neighbourhoods and so on. It also allows you to plot on a map the location of businesses operating in a specific industry in a geographic location of your choosing within Canada. Tables and lists generated can be exported to Excel and maps can be inserted in to power point presentations and other file formats.

Have we piqued your interest? If so, we recommend you take a look at our recently created, handy guide to using Simply Map prepared by business and map information experts at York University Libraries, which features three scenarios illustrating common marketing and business planning tasks.

And the value of using Simply Map just got even stronger with our recent addition of a new module called the PRIZM C2 Marketer’s Handbook from Environics Analytics. This module, integrated within the existing Simply Map product as shown here, is a consumer segmentation system for Canada which classifies Canadians in to one of 66 lifestyle types with names like Electric Avenues, Pets & PCs and Les Chics. Detailed profiles of these consumer segments are available including psychographics providing insights in to the behaviour and mindsets of consumers.

Enjoy! And if you’ve got questions about using Simply Map, ask us for help.

Published Thursday Mar. 14, 2013

As assignment deadlines approach, remember the BBL (Bronfman Business Library) reference team is available to help you out!

Need help finding more articles on your assignment topic? Could you do with a hand identifying more sources of information on the industry you are researching for an assignment? Need help with gathering financial data on a company you need to investigate for a project you are working on? Need guidance on citing the information you’ve found correctly?

These are the types of queries that our qualified business information experts at the Bronfman Business Library can help you with. We are very happy to point you to a rich range of e-resources or print information available at the Bronfman Business Library (BBL) that can play a crucial role in notching your assignment up to a higher level! So if getting your hands on relevant information for an assignment is a source of stress, stress no more, our BBL reference team are at hand to help you out! We look forward to helping you!

Our reference team is here to guide and advise you in-person, by phone and virtually nearly the whole time the Bronfman Business Library (BBL) is open. That is: Monday to Thursday: 9 a.m.-7.30 p.m., Friday: 9 a.m.-6.00 p.m., Saturday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday: 12 p.m.-8 p.m. If you prefer to connect with us by chat you’ll see the option to chat with us on every web page of the BBL web site. Also you can e-mail us at bgref@yorku.ca and expect a response from us within 24 hours and finally you are welcome to contact us by phone at 416 736 5139.

Our team comprises seven people. We are:  Sophie Bury, Colin Deinhart, June Hill, Xuemei Li, Amy Menary, Kim Stymest, and Rebecca Segal. You can find more information about all of us at our BBL staff information page and we encourage you to feel comfortable approaching any of us at our reference desk at any time.

Rebecca Segal is the newest member of our team and we were delighted to welcome her aboard in February of this year. Carey Toane who posted to this blog in Fall Term 2012 has now left us for a full-time term position as a Business Librarian at the Bud Johnston Library at the University of Western Ontario. We wish her every success and were lucky to have her with us in the earlier half of this year. We also extend our thanks to Bill Denton who also worked as a member of our reference team part-time during this academic year but now works full-time at the Steacie Science & Engineering Library.