Find Information at Bowman
Information on Consumers - Best Resources
Company & Industry Information
- Business Insights: Essentials (formerly Business & Company Resource Center) This link opens in a new window
A fully integrated resource bringing together company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories and chronologies. You can also search industry descriptions and for topics in over 4,000 business, economics and technology journals. - Business Source Complete (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Leading scholarly business database with over 1,300 publications, including peer-reviewed journals. Covers all business disciplines, including marketing, management, accounting, finance, and economics. Also includes financial data, company profiles, industry reports, market research reports, SWOT analyses, and more.
- Mergent Online This link opens in a new windowProvides access to a wide range of financial and business information, including U.S. and international company data, industry reports, global company financials, executive profiles, equity research reports, records from private companies, annual reports, risk ratings and information, and global equity pricing data. Offers the ability to build custom financial reports.
- PrivCo This link opens in a new window
The PrivCo database presents business and financial data on major privately-held companies, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies. PrivCo covers over 500,000 companies, providing information on finances, M&A and funding activity, ownership structure, and more. PrivCo also has data on more than 18,000 investors.
Click the green "Direct Access" button to access PrivCo without making an account. - Statista This link opens in a new window
One of the world's largest statistics portals with data from over 18,000 sources. Provides access to 1 million statistics. Also contains information on industries, countries, digital markets, and other topics, as well as infographics.
How to find NAICS codes:
- NAICS: The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.
Tutorial:Finding NAICS Codes
Consumer Information
Find books & ebooks about marketing and consumers:
Books and ebooks are good for finding overviews and history of your topic. You don't need to read the whole book to get the information you need for your project; often one chapter of a scholarly book will cover the information you need.
In this updated e-book, experts and novices alike can see at a glance who spends the most and who controls the largest market share--often surprisingly different--on over 300 products and services that are organized into 21 chapters that focus on entertainment, groceries, transportation, etc.--everything a consumer might buy. Based on unpublished data--you can't find this on the Internet--from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' valuable Consumer Expenditure Survey, Best Customers brings you insight into household spending by householder age, income, type, race and Hispanic origin, region of residence, and education.
- Data.Census.Gov -- U.S. Census BureauThis site is a product of the U.S. Census Bureau. Through its search bar, you can locate information about consumers, places, industries, etc. From the main search bar, enter the city name, county name or zip code you wish to explore as you search to uncover needed demographic information about consumers in geographic regions across the U.S.
- Statista This link opens in a new windowOne of the world's largest statistics portals with data from over 18,000 sources. Provides access to 1 million statistics. Also contains information on industries, countries, digital markets, and other topics, as well as infographics.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - Consumer Expenditure SurveysThe Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) program provides data on expenditures, income, and demographic characteristics of consumers in the United States.
Newspaper & Magazine Articles
- Financial Times (via ABI/INFORM) This link opens in a new window
The Financial Times is read daily by businesses, politicians, and academics around the world. The FT covers a variety of topics, including management, business, the legal industry, politics, climate change, and economics, all from a global perspective.
While we no longer have a direct subscription to ft.com, we have access to content published from 05/31/1996 to present (with a 30 Day delay) through ABI/Inform. - Flipster This link opens in a new window
Flipster is a next-generation digital magazine reader.
Bowman Library has access to select past issues of the following magazines: .net, Film Comment, Fit & Well, Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine, Popular Science, ReNew, Web Designer, and World Soccer - New York Times (NYTimes.com) This link opens in a new windowActivate your subscription from one of the links below and make sure you use the off campus activation link if you are off campus and the on campus activation link if you are on campus. After creating your account, you can log on to the New York Times site directly using your Menlo e-mail and the password you have set up. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are available with your login. The Menlo Community has full-text access to the New York Times from 1851 to the present. For the years 1923-1980 there is a limit of 5 articles per day per user.
- New York Times One-Time Activation from Off Campus This link opens in a new windowTo activate your NYT subscription from off campus, click on the link and search for "Menlo College" and follow the instructions. After activating your subscription, log on to the New York Times site (https://www.nytimes.com) directly using your Menlo e-mail and the password you have set up. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are available with your login. The Menlo Community has full-text access to the New York Times from 1851 to the present. For the years 1923-1980 there is a limit of 5 articles per day per user.
- New York Times One-Time Activation from On Campus This link opens in a new windowAfter activating your subscription here, log on to the New York Times site (https://www.nytimes.com) directly using your Menlo e-mail and the password you have set up. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are available with your login. The Menlo Community has full-text access to the New York Times from 1851 to the present. For the years 1923-1980 there is a limit of 5 articles per day per user.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a great place to search for articles about your topic whether you are looking for company information or about the industry or market trends. Google Scholar includes scholarly article content, as well as chapters from authoritative books and reports. Google Scholar is a great place to search when you are not having luck in the databases. The search is more forgiving, and sometimes can help find relevant articles of use to your research. After finding some articles in Scholar, you can see how your subject matter is talked about, and revisit the databases armed with some good information and powerful search terms.
Keep in mind that full text may not always be available from Google Scholar; if you have enough time, articles that do not have accompanying full text may be requested through Interlibrary Loan.
Another place to search for needed information is simply to 'Google it.' Again, it is important to think about what results you are finding. Who is the author or sponsor, why is the information being published? Is there obvious bias? How authoritative is the source that you find?
Google gives you so many results it is difficult to know which ones are useful or reliable. Articles rise to the top of a search based on the number of times they are clicked on; this might not be the best way to choose what will be important for your research.
However, Google allows several ways for you to target your results. If you implement some of the following techniques, you will find that you can leverage the power of Google to help you find solid results for your project. Try out some of the tips below.
Get the most out of your Google search
Searching in Google can also help you uncover relevant articles for your research. The problem is, how to find results that will be helpful?
SITE Searching
One way to target results in Google is to employ the site search. This requires you use a specific phrase before adding search terms to tell Google you only want results from a specific website or domain. The search always begins with site + colon + URL or Domain all without any spaces; next, add a space and insert your search terms. See the examples below -
- site:nytimes.com mental health covid-19 This search phrase tells Google that you'd like results for mental health covid-19 found only on the New York Times website **This is one of the best ways to search for articles on a given topic in the New York Times**
- site:gov covid-19 mask policy businesses This search phrase tells Google you'd like to see articles, reports, etc., from government websites that include information or policies about mask wearing in businesses
- site:edu school reopening covid This search phrase tells Google to retrieve articles published by or in educational institutions about school reopenings during or after covid
Other search tips in Google
- Limit the date of your results by inserting the phrase after + colon + year or date without any spaces
- after:2016 vaping policies college campuses This phrase tells Google that you'd like all your results to have been published after 2016 (note: the after:2016 phrase can come before or after your search terms)
- You can also limit your results to a given date range by clicking on Tools under the search bar, and then Any Time under that.
- Search for an exact phrase by putting your terms in quotes when entering them in the search bar, e.g., "mental health" or "online shopping" -- placing two or three word terms in quotes will ensure you retrieve results with that exact phrase.
Finding Research Articles
- Academic Search Premier (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Provides searching of over 8,500 journals, including peer-reviewed, across a wide range of topics. coverage: 1975 to present - PsycARTICLES and PsycINFO (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
PsycARTICLES searches "over 50 top full-text psychology publications, while PsycINFO provides access to abstracts only of international literature in psychology and related disciplines..
