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Professor
Gil Becker
Library Liaison
Jeff Waller
Contents
Introduction
Background Information
Industry and Company Reports
Find Books
Find Journal Articles
Find Newspaper Articles
Selected Websites
How to Cite Your Sources
Subject Guide
Economics & Business
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This guide ties in with the class assignment to analyze a particular industry in detail. Start your research by reviewing the chapter on your industry from one of the books on reserve at the library, which can also point you to other books and articles worth investigating. Then examine industry reports on your sector, as they provide in-depth overviews of the current market structure and key players, along with analysis of recent performance and forecasts of future trends. Finally, search for books and journal articles that discuss industry dynamics and public policy, and learn the latest developments by searching for articles in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers. If you need further assistance, please stop by the Reference Desk in person or pose your question online at Ask a Librarian.
These books (on reserve at the Circulation Desk) contain chapters describing recent developments in various industries, including the ones being investigated for this project. Reading these chapters should give you a foundational understanding of the history and structure of the industry, including public policy toward it. Check the footnotes and suggested readings to find additional books and articles worth exploring. For books, search their titles in the Geisel Library catalog or in WorldCat; for articles, search for the journal titles in the Journal Finder.
Industry and Firm Studies (4th ed.)
Reserves HD31 .I55
Nine industry studies, including one on the soft drink industry.
Industry Studies (3rd ed.)
Reserves HC106.8 .I53 2002
Studies of 14 industries, including casino gambling.
Structure of American Industry (11th ed.)
Reserves HC106 .S78 2005
Overviews of 12 industries, including automobiles, banking, and music recording.
Encyclopedia of American Industries
Although it is a for-profit website with advertising, this site contains the complete text of Gale's encyclopedia on US industries. Search on the name of your industry and use its SIC code to select the correct profile from the results list. These profiles include some information on industry structure and recent conditions, but their focus is on the industry's historical development.
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The following resources provide detailed insight into industry dynamics, including both analytical and quantitative perspectives. You can also obtain up-to-date company profiles for the major players in your industry, to learn about their recent performance and strategies for future growth.
Standard and Poor's Industry Surveys [found in NetAdvantage]
Ref HG4910 .S756
These detailed profiles characterize the dynamics of a particular industry at the time they were written, including the major players, trends, financial statistics, and the regulatory framework. This online database contains the last ten years of the Industry Surveys. To find the survey on your industry, click the Industry tab and use the Industry Surveys and Sub-Industry Reviews pull-down menus to select the appropriate report. Within the Industry Survey itself, use the links at top (such as "Industry Trends" and "How the Industry Operates") to navigate to different sections of the report. To download an Excel spreadsheet of financial data on the major players in the industry, click "Comparative Co. Analysis" in the left-side menu.
Industry Profiles and Company Profiles [found in Business Source Premier]
This database includes industry reports from several well-respected sources, particularly Datamonitor's Industry Profiles and Global Insight's Industry Yearbooks. You can also read Datamonitor reports on individual companies within your sector, which include histories, SWOT analyses, and revenue analyses. To access the industry reports, click Industry Profiles and type a keyword representing your industry into the "Browse for" box. To access company reports, click Company Profiles and type the company's name into the "Browse for" box.
Standard and Poor's Stock Reports [found in NetAdvantage]
To learn more about the recent performance and future outlook of companies in your industry, search for their S&P Stock Reports. Click on the Companies tab, select "Stock Reports" as the Publication, and search for the company either by name or ticker symbol. Within the report, look for the Corporate Overview and the Sub-Industry Outlook to read about S&P's expectations for the company and industry.
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For this project, books will be primarily useful for background information on government regulatory policy and the recent history of your industry. To find general books about public policy and antitrust issues, try doing a Subject search in the Geisel library catalog for any of the following. This will give you a list of potentially useful subject headings, along with the number of books that the library owns for each subject. Click on relevant headings to see a list of available books.
Antitrust law
Competition
Industrial policy
Trade regulation
For books specific to your industry, you may wish to conduct keyword searching in WorldCat (an online catalog encompassing the holdings of thousands of libraries worldwide) to identify relevant books owned by other colleges. Limit the Material Type to "Books" and the Year to recent years (e.g. "2000-2007") to find recently-published books only. Sample keyword searches for this project include the following (remember that the asterisk * enables you to search for alternative word forms):
(automobiles OR autos) AND future
casino* AND gambling
banking AND industry AND regulat*
soft drink* OR Coca-Cola OR soda
music AND recording AND industry
Inside most of the individual book records is a link enabling you to request the book via Interlibrary Loan; all you need to do is input your name and contact information, and submit the request. The book will be available at our circulation desk within 1–2 weeks. You will be emailed when it arrives, and you can check it out for a specified borrowing period. If the book is owned by Geisel Library, you will see a green Saint Anselm College label below the title, meaning that you can search for it in our online catalog.
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There are a number of business and economic journals that provide scholarly analysis of industry dynamics and regulatory issues. Some articles will focus more on theoretical aspects while others may be empirical studies of company performance or industry trends.
If there is no link to the full text of the article, click on the  icon to determine whether the journal is available in the Geisel Library or in full-text via another electronic database. If the article isn't available, consider clicking on the Interlibrary Loan link to request a PDF copy of the article from another library. Articles requested via ILL will be delivered to your email inbox within about a week.
Business Source Premier
This database provides the most comprehensive indexing of articles from business journals and the trade press, with many of them available in full-text. Try basic keyword searching using the Boolean operator "AND" to link together terms representing different concepts. For example, search recording AND industry AND (online OR download*). Make use of the limiters across the top of the search results screen to narrow your focus to Academic Journals (to get scholarly treatments), Magazines (for popular magazine articles), or Trade Publications (for industry and company news).
To find a higher percentage of relevant results, try doing Subject searching on relevant subject terms such as "Antitrust Law," "Trade Regulation," and "Competition." These can be combined with keywords for your specific industry or company. In the course of searching, you will also encounter subject terms for individual industries, such as "Automobile Industry and Trade" or "Banks and Banking." Search these terms as Subjects (in conjunction with other keywords) to find articles that focus on your particular sector. Be sure to read the bibliographies of articles to identify additional sources worth tracking down. Note that this database includes the full-text of the Antitrust Bulletin, Journal of Industrial Economics, and other useful titles.
ABI INFORM
This database provides citations and abstracts (but no full text) from over 2,000 business and management periodicals, including academic journals and trade publications that cover industry trends.
EconLit
This database consists of citations for journal articles, books, and working papers on economics. This is the most complete resource for searching academic journals in the field of economics.
LexisNexis Academic - News
Offers full-text articles from selected economics journals and trade press publications, with an emphasis on sources of industry and company news. Next to the Select Sources label, choose "Business News Publications" from the drop-down box. Adjust the Date Range as desired to focus on particular time periods.
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There is typically a 1–2 year period between when a book or journal article is written and when it is actually published. This means that the information in such publications may not reflect the most recent developments in public policy or the marketplace. As a result, newspaper articles (along with the trade press) are often the best source for information on the latest industry dynamics. The following databases offer full text of recent newspaper articles. Try the same keyword searches that succeeded in the journal databases.
LexisNexis Academic - News
Find full-text newspaper articles from local, national, and international papers. Choose the Terms and Connectors option to conduct Boolean searching, applying limiters to narrow the search. Next to Select Sources, choose either "US Newspapers and Wires" or "Major World Newspapers". In the results screen, change the Sort to "Relevance" to move the best results to the top, and use the drill-down menus on the left to choose the type of publication you're interested in. If you have too many results, consider adding more keywords to narrow your focus.
Newspaper Source
Get full-text articles from several national and international newspapers (including USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Times-London, etc.) and selected full-text access to more than 200 regional (U.S.) newspapers.
Wall Street Journal
This database offers full-text access to the Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition) from 1984 through the present. You can do keyword searching within the citations, abstracts or full text of articles.
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The following websites will supplement your research by providing government documents on US trade regulation, along with legal documents from antitrust court cases.
Antitrust Case Browser
This site offers summaries of US antitrust cases and their outcomes, organized helpfully both by legal area and by product. This is a convenient way to learn about antitrust cases in the industry you're examining, from the early 1900s through the present. This website also links to a FindLaw search tool that provides access to the full-text of Supreme Court decisions since 1893.
Department of Justice, Antitrust Division
This agency enforces the antitrust laws by filing criminal suits or initiating civil action against businesses allegedly engaging in anti-competitive practices. Click on Public Documents to access appellate briefs filed by the Dept. of Justice, or go to Antitrust Case Filings for an alphabetical listing of cases, with links to the associated DOJ documents. You may also try using the Search Tools to locate documents relevant to your industry.
Federal Trade Commission
This is the federal agency charged with preventing anticompetitive business practices and reviewing mergers for their potential adverse impacts on consumers. Their website includes several useful pages: click on Advocacy Filings (under the Competition tab) for trade regulation rules and amicus briefs filed by the FTC, click the Actions tab for the FTC's recent antitrust activities (including legal action), and click on Reports (under the Policy tab) for analyses of competition within individual industries. Or, try keyword searching on a company or industry in the Search box.
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See the library's How To Cite Your Sources guide for resources on how to properly cite research materials. Always confirm the style required by your instructor.
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