Key starting points
AlacraSearch www.alacra.com/alacrasearch/
AlacraSearch is a search tool for industry and market sector information. It uses the Google Custom Search Engines and has approximately 12,000 Alacra chosen sites in eight categories:
- Business & Trade Publications
- Law Firms
- Commercial & Investment Banks
- Consulting and Accounting Firms
- Educational Institutions
- Market Research Firms
- Trade Associations
- Venture Capital & Private Equity Firms
On the main search screen you type in your key words and select a category. On the results page you can easily switch categories. Depending on which category you choose to search, you can further refine your results by industry or geography.
Alacrawiki www.alacrawiki.com
A guide to business information companies, publishers and databases. The
Alacra Industry Spotlights in particular are extremely useful in providing
reviews and commentary on industry specific web sites. The Types of Content
section lists resources under headings such as mergers and acquisitions,
news, people and corporate governance. There is also information on content
aggregators, databases and the best business information blogs. Anyone
can contribute and edit the pages, apart from the Industry Spotlights
which are locked. If you want to keep up with what's new at Alacra, they also have a blog
and news feed.
Biz/ed www.bized.co.uk
Described as a tool "for students and educators in business studies, economics, accounting, leisure, sport & recreation and travel & tourism." There
are links to some free papers, written by established experts, on a whole
range of business activities.
BUBL bubl.ac.uk
An excellent starting point for new and experienced Net users alike. Provides access to sites via subject trees and keyword searching. Although the home page emphasises the higher education aspect of the site, it is a valuable resource for anyone trying to find quality information on any subject.
Business Essentials on the Web bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com
Set up by the British Library's Business and IP Centre this wiki aims to provide business information aimed at entrepreneurs and SMEs. Topics covered currently include business planning, grants and finance, marketing and PR as well as industry specific pages. An excellent starting point for relevant information on setting up and running a business, and highly recommended for SMEs and startups. FITA - Federation of International Trade
Associations www.fita.org
Founded in 1984, FITA "fosters international trade by strengthening
the role of local, regional, and national associations throughout the
United States, Mexico and Canada that have an international mission." In addition to services for members, there is a very useful collection
of Web resources for International trade. There are over 4000 annotated
links. Categories include country or region, legal resources, language
and translation, International market research and business directories.
The business directories are subdivided into industry specific, global
and country directories.
Intute Social Sciences - Business www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/business
"Each resource has been evaluated and categorised by subject specialists based at UK universities. We aim to match resources to the business curriculum and the needs of researchers". Although the target audience are students, staff and researchers in higher and further education, this collection of resources is of value to anyone who uses business information.
Pinakes www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html
Good collection of links to evaluated subject guides.
Yahoo www.yahoo.co.uk
As well as a good general starting point for locating company and business
Web sites, Yahoo's Finance section provides access to information such as share prices and
news for companies quoted on the major stock exchanges.
Legal starting points
AboutCookies - a guide to controlling
cookies on your computer www.aboutcookies.org
AboutCookies.org is a service provided by Masons and provides up-to-date
information on the law surrounding cookies as well as how to manage cookies
with most of the popular browsers. The free service encourages Web site
owners to direct their visitors to www.aboutcookies.org to find out more
about managing cookies.
British Employment Law www.emplaw.co.uk
An on-line A-Z guide to British employment law on the Internet from
DiscLaw Publishing. There is an annual subscription for the professional
area, which is regularly updated, but you can purchase a 3 day or 30 day
pass.
InfoLaw www.infolaw.co.uk
Legal Portal to UK legal resources.
LAWLINKS - Legal
Information on the Internet library.ukc.ac.uk/library/lawlinks/
An annotated list of Web sites maintained at the University of Kent.
Out-law.com - legal news and business
advice www.out-law.com
A free service set up by UK law firm Masons. Provides guides, articles
and news stories relating to everything from the drawing up of on-line
contracts and agreements to issues of taxation and defamation. Out-Law
explains IT, e-commerce, privacy, software, tax, employment and other
issues that businesses need to know about and is updated daily.
Patently Absurd - Weird
& Wacky Patents www.patent.freeserve.co.uk
As well as "weird and wacky patents", there are links to
"serious information about patents" and how to access patent
information. Last updated in 2003 but still has some interesting stuff on it.
Scottish Law Online www.scottishlaw.org.uk
A listing of legal sites and sources of information in the Scotland,
the UK and world-wide. Includes links to an A-Z of the Law of Scotland,
Scottish Law Firm Directory, European sites, Scots Law Student Zone and
an option to Search the Legal Web.
Solicitors and Legal Resources in
the UK and Ireland www.venables.co.uk
Links to a wide range of legal resources, compiled by Delia Venables
Priced services
Alacra www.alacra.com
Alacra has a database of more than 45,000 Web sites, selected and indexed
by business information professionals and includes abstracts for each
site. The service also offers the option of subscribing to premium databases
such as ICC, Business and Industry, MarkIntel, DataMonitor and Investext.
Access to this site is by annual subscription. Alacra also has
a pay-per-view site at http://www.alacrastore.com/.
Not all the subscription databases are available via this route, but they
are steadily adding to the list.
Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publising www.bvdep.com
The full BvDEP collection of priced services covers information on approaching 60 million companies around the globe. BvDEP's products include ORBIS, AMADEUS, FAME, BANKSCOPE and the MINT range of products designed for end users. They also produce the mergers and acquisitions database ZEPHYR. There is a free company search function on their MINT portal - www.mintbusinessinfo.com Priced service
with free directory search.
Dialog www.dialog.com
Part of Thomson, the Dialog Corporation provides access to hundreds
of business, scientific, technical and medical subscription databases
via Dialog, DataStar and Profound (market research sources). Only Dialog
offers a no subscription, pay-as-you-go access through its Open Access
service at www.dialog.com/products/openaccess/.
The number of databases covered is far less, though, than that offered
through the full subscription service.
Factiva www.factiva.com
Provides news and company information. The news service is available
on a pay-as-you-go basis as well as by annual subscription. There is an
annual subscription of US$ 69 for the pay as you go option.
LexisNexis www.lexisnexis.com
Subscription service offering access to regional and national newspapers,
trade journals and magazines, company information, market research, government
documents, legislation and legal journals.
Skyminder www.skyminder.com
Skyminder pulls together information from a variety of business sources
from across the world to offer company information, credit and financial
information, industry reports, market research and news. The pay-as-you-go
option - Skyminder BIT - only covers basic company information and the
news and tables section. For access to the full Skyminder service you
must take out a "Deposit Account" (minimum deposit is USD 500).
OneSource www.onesource.com
OneSource pulls together company information from a variety of sources
world-wide. Information Partners include Graham & Whiteside, Dun &
Bradstreet, Jordans and Investext. Market research, general and industry
news are also available. Priced, subscription service
Discussion lists
BUSLIB-L
BUSLIB-L is an electronic forum that addresses all issues relating to
the collection, storage, and dissemination of Business Information within
a library setting regardless of format. To join the list, go to http://list1.ucc.nau.edu/archives/buslib-l.html where there are also searchable archives.
LIS-LINK
A discussion list exchanging information on general library and information
issues. To join lis-link, send the following message:
join lis-link your firstname your lastname
to: jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk
or use the form at www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/lis-link.html
Archives for lis-link can be found at www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/lis-link.html
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