United Nations Statistical Yearbook

At $160 per year, this is not a real big ticket item, yet when I replaced the old edition this year with the new one, it looked like it had never been opened, let alone used. Why don't we use it? Do we not remember it's there? Do we not get asked for this information? Is it readily available on the internet?

It is in both English and French (on the same page) and has a total of 69 tables divided into four parts:

World and region summary includes population, production, trade and finance statistics for the world as a whole and regions of the world such as Europe and Asia, but not specific countries.

Population and social statistics includes statistics on population, education, nutrition and childbearing, and communications for individual countries.

Economic activity, at 465 pages and by far the largest section, includes statistics on wages and prices, labor force, industrial production, manufacturing, energy and the environment, etc. for individual countries.

International economic relations includes tables on international tourism, development assistance, balance of payments, etc.

Appendixes or annexes trace country or area name changes, which countries are included in specific regions and conversion tables.

This can be frustrating to use because of the difficulty in collecting similar statistics for all countries, but, of course, that is no fault of this resource. For example, it is impossible to find out the female population of Chad, because only the total population is counted, and the latest for that is 1993. The difficulty and obstacles encountered in collecting these statistics is illustrated by the four pages of fine print foot notes following the country population table, and it is helpful to know why needed information does not exist.

All things considered, it is good and reliable resource. But, should be continue to get it?

Ref 000 Shelf Clearing

I have just finished going through the entire Ref 000 collection. On the cart are items that are up for discard. Some individual explanations:

Whitakers Almanac and Time Almanac--we stopped this as a standing order. Probably not a good idea to keep these old issues there?

Farmers Almanac we are keeping, but do we really need all these back issues there? I kept 2007, 2008, 2009.

Magazines for Libraries is nearly 10 years old. A few things have changed in the magazine world during that time.

International Organizations we cancelled as a standing order in 2003. The 39th ed, which is 2002 seems a little old to be useful. The same is true for World of Learning, Official Museum Directory, American Book Trade Directory and ILMP.

Although I have actually used American Book Prices Current several times, the volumes we have are becoming increasingly outdated.

Is there anything on this cart that you would like to save? Also, is there anything there that you think we should resubscribe to? Also, take a look at what I have left on the shelf to see if you think there are anymore items that should be discarded.

Printed Stock Information Products

This week we're going to take a look at three printed stock information products.

The first is Trendline: Current Market Perspectives, a monthly publication that we have in our magazine section. The cost is $655 per year. It includes quick 1/6 page snapshot summaries of about 2400 stocks, plus charts such as the 70 best and worst performing and fastest growing stocks for the month, top yielding stocks, best industry performers, etc. It also includes a stock and industry comparator which shows price changes in companies' stock by industry.

The second is another S & P stock publication--Stock Reports which gives more information (a full page of tiny print) on approximately 3000 stocks, but it is only updated quarterly, and does not have the ranking and comparison charts. The cost is a whopping $4,185 per year.

The third is Value Line (not an S & P product) which has information similar to S & P Stock Reports on about 3500 stocks. The regular and small and mid-cap together cost $1,047.

So, I guess the question is, what do we need in the way of printed stock information? I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

NewsBank Trial

This week we're going to take a look at the NewsBank database to which we have a free trial until 10/15/08.

As you know, the Newark Star Ledger is no longer supporting the interface through which we received the Trenton Times archives (along with a number of other New Jersey newspapers). These have been sold to NewsBank.

Go to http://www.infoweb.newsbank.com/ The user name and password are both prinpl (although I didn't have to log in). Click on "America's Newspapers," then check New Jersey. The available newspapers for New Jersey will come up. We can get just the Trenton Times or any combination of the newspapers listed here.

They can be searched all together, or you can choose to search several or just one, by checking the desired titles. Clicking on the individual titles will give you the metadata for each, most importantly the dates of coverage.

NewsBank has entered into a partnership with EBSCO which provides two very desirable features. First, the user can search by issue just as in EBSCO. The most recent issues come up when you click on a title, and clicking on any one of these will give you all the articles. There is a drop down box beside this that allows the user to choose another month. The second is the fact that any of the newspapers we choose here can be searched along with any or all of our EBSCO products.

The scope of the coverage mimics Factiva coverage--full text of all articles, but no images, charts, tables, advertising or score columns.

The rep has not given me a price as yet, but I do know that is will be considerably more than the $420 we were paying for the interface we received through the Star Ledger. As soon as I know prices, I will let you know.

In the meantime, play around with it, and let me know which of these titles, in addition to the Trenton Times you would like to have (in the best possible world). I really want to hear from you on this one!

Europa World Year Book

The Europa World Year Book has long been one of my favorite reference sources both for the quality and depth of the information provided and its ease of use. It is updated yearly in two volumes and costs $1320 per year. So, of course, the questions are, do we use it enough to justify the price, and how much of this information is easily available on the internet or within our databases.

The entries are arranged alphabetically by country, and each follows the same format: for each country there is an introductory survey, followed by a statistical survey, and then a directory. There is also a 475 page section on international organizations (which I didn't know was there, and have never used).

Within our databases, Facts on File World Atlas has a nice summary for each country and Britannica Online also has good country information, but neither has the depth of information included in Europa's statistical survey and directory sections. Online, the best and most complete information I could find was the US Department of State's Background Notes (and, of course, Wikipedia).

Let me know what you think.

Rethinking Some Subscriptions

This is the time of year Jenny and I go through the Cox subscription list to add or subtract titles. This year, I want us to reconsider some big ticket items.

The first is the Official Airline Guide. This is one that you are going to have a hard time convincing me to keep. The cost is $669 per year. It is a monthly guide to flight schedules worldwide. However with the availability of online travel services like Expedia, Orbitz and Priceline, I doubt if it is being used much, if at all.


The next item is USA Today Newsview, a small newsmagazine of approximately 16 pages and no advertising published by the Society for the Advancement of Education. The price is a whopping $240 per year (probably because of the lack of advertising). According to OCLC, it is a very widely held publication, particularly in school libraries. But how much do you think it is being used here? Is it worth the price?



Weatherwise is $111 per year for 6 issues. It's a neat magazine and I will have a hard time giving this up. Nevertheless, that comes out to $18.50 per issue. What do you think?



Accra Cost of Living Index is a catalogued subscription (REF 338.528 Ame) which comes out twice per year. The cost is $137 per year. It gives the relative price levels for consumer goods, housing, health care, etc., for participating areas. This information is very interesting, however the operative word here is "participating areas" because not all areas are covered. For example, Princeton/Mercer County, which in my experience has been what most people have asked for, is not covered.

Jenny needs to get the updated subscription list to Cox by 9/8, so give me your opinions before then.

ABC CLIO Social Studies Database Trial

Instead of reviewing a book this week, I want you to take a look at the ABC CLIO Social Studies Database, to which we have a free trial from EBSCO. Here's how you can log on: Go to

http://www.socialstudies.abc-clio.com/ and use janebrown as both the username and password. To me, it looks very much likes our Facts on File database, so you may want to compare the two.

This is a free trial given to us by our EBSCO representative when she found out that we would not have to pay the $5000 extra for Academic Search Premier. The price would be approximately $6300 and this includes remote access. Facts on File and Facts.com combined are $2623. So it would have to be a whole lot better for that price. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Standard and Poor's Dividend Record

This is another big ticket item that really needs some scrutinizing. The yearly tab for the subscription is $1025. Unlike the S & P Statistical Record (cancelled--see previous blog entry in May) which I actually used years ago, I have never used this, but thought it was necessary information to make available at a public library. However, noting the pristine condition of the material, I realize that it certainly isn't being used heavily, if at all.

It provides a comprehensive record of dividend payments for virtually all publicly owned American and Canadian preferred and common stock shares. It also provides such information as issued stockholders rights, stock splits and dividend per share for S & P indexes. Components of the subscription include annual and quarterly dividend records with weekly updates.

So, the question is, do we need this depth of information on dividends, and at this price? I'll be interested to hear what you think.

Consumer Health Complete

This week we are again going to look at a database instead of a book. Consumer Health Complete is an Ebsco database with a special, more colorful, user friendly interface. The cost of the database is $2500. It is not included in the regular Ebsco suite of databases which are provided to us free of cost, so we must bear the entire cost ourselves. Previous to last year we used Bristol Myers Squibb funds for this. We no longer have this grant.

I had chosen this database as the one to be axed to make funds available for Academic Search Premier ($5000 per year) because of it's low usage statistics. In the first six months of this year it was accessed 34 times. At that rate it's nearly $37 per access.

Then I decided to use Serialssolutions' (our journal management system) new overlap analysis tool. I discovered that Consumer Health Complete has only 28 unique titles! All the rest are included in other health related Ebsco products already in the suite we get free, such as Health Source Consumer Edition, Biological Reference Collection and Nursing and Allied Health Collection! So basically we are paying for the special interface, which I actually don't like as much as something like the Mayo Clinic site and WebMD freely available on the web.

So, low user stats, few unique titles, funds needed for another more highly used database--that spells three strikes to me. You'll have a hard time convincing me otherwise (but you can try).

Plus YA has gotten a new Teen Health and Wellness database with grant funds, which we will also put on our database pages.

Directory of Obsolete Securities

This 2082 page tome is exactly what the title says--it is completely devoted to listings of all known obsolete securities. We had actually cancelled this as a standing order several years ago, but then got requests for it, and also questions through Statewide Reference asking for this type of information.

The price for the 2008 edition is $695. However, last year I got a 2006 edition (one year old at the time) for $495. This year I discovered that I could get a 2007 edition through Amazon used books for $365.

The entries are arranged alphabetically by the security name and include the name and such informtion as mergers, acquisitions, name changes, reorganization, liquidation, recapitalization, etc. (where appropriate), all with dates.

Several companies such as Orbis and Bloomberg offer this information online, but, of course, not for free. Newark Public does not have this directory, so we cannot call them for answers to these questions.

So, here are the options: new 2008, used 2007 for a little over half the price, or skip it entirely. Do we get enough call for this type of information to warrant either price?

African American Biographical Database

This week we are looking at a database rather than a reference book. African American Biographical Database is up for renewal at $1120 for a year. It's main purpose is to provide biographical information on lesser known African Americans from lesser known sources. There is little comparison or overlap with African American History Online section of Facts on File, which has far fewer entries from much more widely available sources (but which is much easier to use).

The database can be searched for profiles of specific persons (a nice feature here is to use the occupation limiter to generate a list of, say, all African American artists or athletes). The full text of each (or all) publications can be searched as well. It can be tricky, and it is best to do a broader search (for example, using only last name) when there are no results for a particular search.

So far in 2008 (Jan-June) it has been accessed 32 times or an average of 5.3 times per month. That means each search costs $35.

That is low for our databases. For example, in the same time period JSTOR was accessed an average of 177 times per month and Academic Search Premier 111. However, looking at it from another angle, if a reference book was used 32 times in six months, we would probably consider it heavily used. Hmmm... Check it out and let me know what you think.

Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media

This 5 volume set comes out yearly and costs approximately $1100 per year.

Volumes 1 and 2 are what I have always used the most. They contain all publications alphabetically by state, and within state, by city (including Canada). Each entry contains contact information, description of content, circulation figures (when known), and price.

Volume 3 is the index volume. I have always used the Master Index the most. This is very helpful in tracking down publications by name when the place of publication is not known, for example The Record, which we all know is a relatively large newspaper in northern New Jersey, but where? There are other indexes here as well, such as 350+ page newspaper and magazine publishers index. There is also an index of daily and and community newspapers, which is good to have, but in checking daily newspapers for New Jersey, both the Star Ledger and Home News are omitted. In fact, they are not included in the New Jersey section and in the master index are listed as "unable to locate." (Yikes!?) Subject indexes to magazines and radio station formats are very incomplete and have little use.

Volume 4 is a Regional Market Index which lists newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations by general area of the country, such as Great Lakes States, Middle Atlantic States, etc. The newspaper and magazine sections of this volume list in descending order the major publications for these areas, and would be very helpful if there weren't so many errors, for example, in the Great Plains States section the St. Louis Post Dispatch is omitted, and the Philadelphia Inquirer is listed with Northeastern States, rather than Mid Atlantic States where all other Pennsylvania publications are. The radio and TV sections are sketchy and totally useless.

Volume 5 is the international volume. It is arranged just like Volumes 1 and 2 (alphabetical by country, then alphabetical by city), and includes the same kind of information. For some countries, such as the UK, the information appears fairly complete. But a quick look at Buenos Aires showed that none of their major newspapers were listed.

What's your opinion? I'd be interested to know if others have found as many errors as I have.

Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook

This compendium of information from ProQuest/Bowker on the broadcast industry comes yearly and costs about $245 per year.

The Industry Overview section consists of statistics, charts and tables of all kinds of information such as top 25 cable/satellite operators and cable networks, top TV programs for the previous year, top TV advertisers and advertising categories, a history of broadcasting and a chronology of electronic media from 1666 (?!) to the present.

The bulk of the volume is devoted to broadcast and cable TV stations, and radio stations. Each section gives information on group ownership of stations, plus a list of stations by state and town giving call letters, contact information, personnel, network affiliation, frequency and programming content.

The TV section also has a Nielsen DMA Market Atlas which shows TV stations for each geographical market, plus counties covered, population served and a small map.

The rest of the volume provides information about programming, technical and professional services for the broadcasting industry.

I have been able to find some of this information on the web but not all. For example, I found in Wikipedia a list of TV stations by call letters. I was also able to find TV advertising information on the website of the TV Bureau of Advertising http://www.tvb.org/. (Curiously, the information given does not always agree with what is given in this volume.) Radio station information can be found at http://www.ontheradio.net/ .

Does anyone know of any other good sites that would have this information? Like Industry Surveys its nice to have this info all in one place and easily findable, but how much of it is unique, and is it worth the price?

Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys

Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys is a 3 volume set arranged alphabetically by 52 broad industry groups. Each industry is updated twice annually. The cost per year of this subscription is $2462.

Each industry entry, averaging about 40 pages, starts with a discussion of the current environment of the industry, followed by an industry profile, a glossary of industry terms, trade journals and associations, and a 3-4 page comparative analysis of companies within the industry. The charts within each industry are interesting. For example, in Environmental & Waste Management, charts include U.S.recycling rates for common materials, percent of various materials in municipal solid waste, landfill capacity, etc.

The first 125 pages are repeated in each volume and include an alphabetical index to all companies mentioned within the industry surveys, industry subsector valuations and summaries, and S&P GICS Composite 1500 Component Statistics.

OneSource also has a great deal of industry information, but it's strength is the depth of information on various aspects of industries, for example analysts reports and market share information. There is no place within OneSource to get a summary of the industry (at least that I could find). The strength of this set, then, is having all of this information in one place, readable and understandable in a logical, linear fashion.

So, what's the verdict?

Annual Register of Grant Support and The Grants Register

This time we're doing two titles since they are closely related.

Annual Register of Grant Support was $252 for the 2008edition. Basically, it gives information on grant support programs of public and private foundations, corporations, community trusts, unions, educational and professional associations, special interest organizations and government agencies. The information included for each organization includes among other things, areas of interest, names of special programs, eligibility requirements, representative awards, and more. The scope of the entries is US and Canadian.

The entries are arranged by 11 broad subject areas with subheadings under most. There are separate subject, geographical, personnel, organization and program indexes. There is a useful explanation of types of grant sources, and a 10 page guide to program planning and proposal writing. This edition has a binding error--it skips from page 1264 to 1337. These missing pages are at the end of the volume after a number of empty pages for notes.

The Grants Register is international in scope and is now edited in the UK. The cost for the 2008 ed was $303. Entries are arranged alphabetically by name of organization. There is also a subject/eligibility guide which is arranged by 19 broad subject areas, each of which have narrower subheadings. Each subject area is subdivided into elegibility by nationality. There is also an alphabetical index of award names.

The information given for each entry is similar to Grant Support but tends to be more brief. A spot check revealed a great deal of overlap in the US entries (approximately half), but at least half of the entries are not US, but are rather from the other 61 countries included.

The question is, do we need both of these sources, in addition to the Foundation Directory? The obvious advantage to The Grants Register is its international scope, but is there enough demand for this coverage in this community. Do we need them every year? None of this information is readily available on the web (at least that I could find).

Also, they have two entirely different call numbers. Grant Support is 001.44 and Grants Register 378.3. Foundation Directory is in yet another--361.7632. Any ideas on whether these sources should be together or remain as they are?

Corfacts New Jersey Business Directories

These two directories, New Jersey Business to Business Directory and New Jersey Directory of Small Businesses, are published by Corfacts, a local competitor of InfoUSA. Check out their website here http://www.corfactsonline.com/ You can see that their online product aims to do the same things as RefUSA. This is their printed product. Each directory costs approximately $250.

Each directory has two volumes, and the format is the same for both. Volume 1 has an alphabetical index which lists only the name of the business, the county and the city. This is followed by a geographical index listed by county and then by town. Information given is brief and includes, in addition to contact information, number of employees by range (e.g., 1-5; 6-10, etc) and revenue also by range, plus a very brief description of what the company does. Volume 2 has the companies arranged by SIC code.

Previously in this blog, I have tried not to influence you with my opinion on a particular title. However, for this one it will be hard to do that, because, for the life of me, I cannot see that it has any advantages over RefUSA, which does everything better, and is much more extensive. For example, when looking for companies in Pennington with under 10 employees, RefUSA had 627 and this directory had less than 100.

Another problem is the sloppiness of the data. For example, in each set there is a handy zip code directory by county before the geographical section. Handy, that is, if the zip codes were correct. The first two I checked, Pennington and Camden, were both incorrect. Also this past year we had a great deal of difficulty in getting a good set. The first shipment had a whole section of incorrect data, as did the second shipment. The third was finally correct.

So, what I want to hear from you are any reasons you may have for keeping this that I may have overlooked.

Standard and Poor's Statistical Service

This is a subscription service costing $1480 per year (for 2008) with three components:

Current Statistics: This contains a complete 12 month record of the daily high, low and close of S&P stock price indices, plus a 12 month record of weekly indices of several Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) industry groups such as banking and finance, production and labor, building, electric power and fuels, etc. These should come out once per month, but they are behind--the latest is 10/07, which we received in mid-February (a call to customer service confirmed that this is indeed the latest and they are indeed behind). Of concern is the fact that some of the stats are not up-to-date, for example, the Prime Rate charged by banks (p. 4 of the yellow) is only listed through 1/31/05, and I was able to find later data on the Federal Reserve web page. Also of concern is the fact that the index on page 2 does not always show the correct page numbers.

Basic Statistics: These give historical statistics for the same GICS categories as the Current Statistics section. This is the weakest part of the subscription. These are updated rarely, and some are as old as 1994. A call to customer service indicated that no updates are forthcoming in the near future. This makes for gaps in data. For example "Gross Domestic Product, National Income, and Personal Income" on page 7 of Current Statistics covers data for 2005 and 2006. It refers the user to pages 97-101 of the Basic Statistics which gives data for 1946-1994. There is no way to get the intervening years (the call to customer service also confirmed this).

Security Price Index Record: This comes out biennially and traces the movement of stock and bond prices by GICS industry group. The data goes back to 1941. I was not able to find this data on the web, however, a spot check of a number of the tables included in Current Statistics revealed that a fair amount of this data is available on the web.

If you have not used this in a while (as I hadn't), take some time to reacquaint yourself with it, and let me know if you think it is worth the price. How much of this can we get on the web? Do we have enough demand for the data that isn't? It might be possible to get it every other year (the year Security Price Index Record comes out).

Corporate Affiliations

This massive set (8 volumes) is also published by LexisNexis, publisher of last week's Advertising Red Book. It comes out yearly and the cost this year will be approximately $2000.

Included are four sections, each consisting of two volumes: U.S. Public Companies, U.S. Private Companies, International, and the Master Index.

U.S. Public Companies lists 5563 ultimate parent companies with their U.S. and non U.S. sub companies. Information given for each company includes contact information, business description, year founded, stock symbol and where traded, financial and employee figures, business description, personnel, and any subsidiaries. Entries are arranged alphabetically.

U.S. Private Companies is virtually the same as the public company volumes in arrangement and information included minus the sales and financial figures. 49,357 companies with their U.S. and non U.S. sub companies are listed.

International is the same as the private company volumes with 10,066 companies and their U.S. and non U.S. sub companies listed.

The Master Index is the set's strength. The indexes include:
-a complete alphabetical company index for all volumes
-a corporate responsibilities index which lists personnel by areas of responsibility such as chief financial officer, general counsel, etc.
-a U.S. geographic company index arranged by state, and within state by town
-a non U.S. geographic company index arranged by country and within country by city
-an SIC code company index, preceeded by a handy SIC code list
-a NAICS code company index, also preceeded by a NAICS code list.

The big question for this set is: How much of this information can we get from OneSource? Also, when was the last time you used it, and for what purpose?

LexisNexis Advertising Red Books

Before the proliferation of business information on the internet, this used to be one of my favorite go-to sources for company information, and particularly, brand name information. But how much are we using it today? Is it worth the $1946 per year cost?

The purpose of the set is to provide informtion on advertising agencies, the companies that use them, and the advertising industry. The set includes three main volumes:

Advertisers Business Classifications - this is good for finding groups of companies that produce particular products. Arranged by 55 business classifications, it includes contact information, number of employees, year founded, what the company does, SIC and NAICS numbers, advertising media used, brand names, top company personnel, and advertising agencies used. It includes an index to product categories and an alphabetical index.

Agencies - this is good for information about the advertising industry such as the top 200 US agencies ranked by size, top multicultural agencies, award winners, advertising associations, etc. The individual entries for agencies include similar information to the advertisers, but also include a breakdown of gross billings by media used and major accounts.

Advertisers Indexes - this is great for brand and product names, and this particular index takes up most of the volume. It also includes product categories by state, and a handy SIC index.

There is an Advertisers & Agencies Supplement which comes out in April, July and October.

So, what's the verdict--keep every year, cancel, or every two or three years?

Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources

The 23rd edition of theEncyclopedia of Business Sources is now out at a cost of $485. It comes out every year, but the most recent one we have is the 21st from 2006. The cover and format for the new edition is exactly the same as the old. The review copy that is on the reference counter is the new one. It is not cataloged yet, but can be returned if appropriate.

Take a careful look at this source if you are not already familiar with it. It gives sources of business information on a wide variety (over 1000) topics. The types of sources include books, abstracts and indexes, CD-ROM databases, directories, handbooks and manuals, databases and statistical sources.

The books are generally disappointingly dated. For example, under the topic "Selling a Business," the two books cited are dated 1999 and 1991. These same titles were listed in the 21st ed two years ago. Our own catalog reveals two titles on the subject dated 2004 and 2007.

However, it is quite handy for tracking down ongoing sources of information on a specific business topic such as internet and online databases, and, especially statistical sources. For example, under the topic "Business Failures" we find that D&B publishes Business Failure Record annually and it is free upon request.

Take a careful look at this and give me your recommendations.

Public Library Catalog

When was the last time you used Public Library Catalog? How many of you even knew it was still being published? Recent LIS grads--is this still mentioned in your reference resources class?

Basically, its the standard Wilson guide to recommended reference books and adult nonfiction arranged by Dewey number.

The 12th edition came out in 2004. A paperback supplement updates it every year. The 13th will be coming out shortly and the price will be about $400. What's your recommendation--renew or cancel?