Week 6 Business Resources: A.K.A. The "B" Word

@#3%! AAAHHHHGGGGG!!!!  I feel like the MARVELous Maine Invitational has pushed me off a cliff and I landed in a very unfamiliar territory!!!  My husband and I owned a restaurant and rental property. After several nightmares associated with the landlord role, I am happy to say, I can cross that off my bucket list.  I loved the people interaction associated with owning a restaurant and am not ashamed to admit my husband has the business brains in the family.  I remember one morning he asked me how many waffles we had in the freezer.  I proceeded to say it depended whether he wanted blueberry or plain.  He simply smiled and stated, “I want a number, and you want to tell a story!”  It was perfect affirmation, I was in the right job as a children’s librarian.  Then, this week, the ugly “B” word (business) reared its ugly head.  I do want to state I have loved the journey the MARVELous Maine Invitation has taken me.  Up until this week, I have found the assignments interesting and very useful with my students.  Being in a Pre-K through 5^th-grade school, I have never, and probably will ever, have a patron inquire for any these resources but do appreciate there are fellow public librarians here that this may be very useful to them and their patrons.

 

It was a very rough start to complete this week’s exercises.  I spent hours struggling with what seemed a disconnect from the piece stating Academic Search Complete will be covered in Lesson 10 and how to get to the Business and Resource Center.  It wasn’t until mid-week when I sought out a colleague who asked me if I had received the email stating it had been deleted from the server.  Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t checked my email since the homework was posted and I had been using the initial guide.

 

When searching FM radio using Business Source Complete.  There were several source types of available for a search. I found the visual search not only much more appealing to the naked eye, but the display options a nice feature.  You were able to change the display to a Columns or Block; I found the Block Style more to my liking as the blocks contained time-saving short blurbs.  You could quickly and easily scroll across and down to locate articles of interest.  If something caught your eye, by clicking, more information would appear in the Summary box.  The Filter by Date or Sort by Relevance options two other helpful features.

 

After typing Small Business in EconLit, I quickly discovered numerous resources pertaining to analyses, taxes and tax code information, owner sacrifice, financing and financial policies, risks, and investments.  When typing in EPA I found one article titled, Land Recycling, Community Revitalization, and Distributive Policies.  Interestingly, though, when I typed out the entire name Environmental Protection Agency, I noticed an alert that my ‘initial search query did not yield any results.  However, using SmartText searching results were found based on my key words’ and discovered two different articles Climate Policies in the United States and Japan and The Politics of Market-Based Environmental Regulation.  The options to save in HTLM or PDF was a nice addition. When completing the advanced search that pertained to tax policy , I noticed information was categorized into 10 sections from Business Taxes and Subsidies, Fiscal Policies, Taxation Subsidies and Review-General, State and Local Taxation, Personal Income and Other Non-Business Taxes and Subsidies Including Inheritance Tax, to name a few.  The site offered a box rating system and a space to save, print or email. 

When exploring what Regional Business News had to offer, I chose McDonald’s as my nationally known company.  Not surprisingly, I discovered there were 5,252 results.  When I narrowed my search by typing in Maine, I quickly spied an article titled Fast Food Deal Gives Maine Potato a Lift but found myself a bit disappointed that only an abridged abstract was offered and I was unable to view it in its entirety.  For the Maine Company, I chose one of the companies my husband is the Chief Financial Officer (or something like that), ME Energy Systems.  They sell wood pellet boilers and deliver pellets as well.  I was a bit disappointed to discover they were not listed, but with added exploration did discover several resources pertaining to devices for renewable and alternative energy and an article about pellets taking aim at fuel costs!

 

The description of Value Line offered a nice overview of what was behind ‘door #5’!  The Ratings and Reports section showed 133 companies listed alphabetically and gave the option of changing the view by Industry too!  It showed their Ticker, which for lack of a better explanation, is the abbreviation know by stock marketers.  The gave stock market closing averages, Portfolio offered information of stocks with above average year ahead price potential, Portfolio II offer information on Stocks for Income and Potential Price Potential, Portfolio III Stocks with long-term Growth Potential, Portfolio IV listed companies by stock with above-average dividend yields.  There were other listings of Information of Growth Stocks with Low Risk, Timely Sticks with Low Risk, Income Stocks with Good Total Return Potential, Stocks For Dividend Growth with Low Risk.  Also, included were great graphs of Select Yields, Federal Reserve Data, Tracking the Economy, Major Inside Transaction, market Monitor and Stock Market Averages.  Under Summary and Index Support there were Investment Surveys.  The Std R&R Cover Page consisted of Ratings and Reports and the Std. R&R Supplementary offered the most current and detailed performance reports of stock investment surveys.  When using the Value Line Tabs, I found many resources available but was unable to figure out how to locate a full research report from there.

 

Wall Street Journal I discovered numerous articles with my keywords highlighted in the description that might be of interest to the small businessperson.  Much pertained to insurance and health care laws which would be good information to be aware of.  The alert was very cool.  You are able to personally design and define the content as well as how often you like to receive the alerts and when you’d like to terminate.

 

In closing, I would like to add ultimate frustration when I had nearly half of this typed and after hitting ENTER, lost my entire post.  I recall mentioning this early on to another member who told me she types in Word and cuts and pastes (guess I learn the hard way).  The time I have spent with this particular assignment has been well over 8 hours.  Not only am I left with memories of really believing I could actually feel my hair turning gray and experienced a mild form of rigor mortis as I found the need to pry myself from my chair from sitting too long, I found it necessary to complete this in segments to keep myself from brain overload.  I don't think I am completely alone here because after searching through 27 blogs, on Thursday, I only found 3 who had done their homework.  Calgone take me awayyyyyyyy!!!!