Search for Materials:
Databases:
- Business and Company ASAP Information on companies, markets and industries. From market trends, mergers, and acquisitions to current management theory and company overviews. Access business and trade journals, newspapers, and company directory profiles with full text and images.
- Business and Company Resource Center Fully integrated resource bringing together company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies, and periodicals. Search this database to find detailed company and industry news and information.
- General Business File ASAP Analyze company performance and activity, industry events and trends as well as the latest in management, economics and politics. Access to a combination of broker research reports, trade publications, newspapers, journals and company directory listings with full text and images available.
- Reference USA Business Database A large directory containing detailed information on more than 12 million U.S. businesses. Can be searched and limited by many different criteria, such as, company name, geographic area, yellow pages heading, SIC, size of business, phone number, and more. Updated annually.
- Small Business Resource Center Learn how to start, finance or manage your small business. Resources include sample business plans, how to guides, articles and websites.
- Value Line (Standard Edition)
NEW Features; we expanded our online subscription to include the Small- and Midcap company reports, and the Selection and Opinion updates. Published weekly, Value Line tracks approximately 1,700 stocks in over 90 industries. Its Timeliness Ranking System ranks stocks on a scale of 1 to 5 for probable market performance over the next 6 to 12 months. Includes Ratings and Reports, Selection and Opinion, and Summary and Index.
Free Websites:
For Small Business:
- Michigan Small Business and Technology Center - Counseling and training for business owners and entrepreneurs, with regional centers throughout the state.
- Encyclopedia of Small Business - Defines and describes issues faced by small businesses, such as accounting, competitive bidding, outsourcing, and more.
- SCORE - As part of a national nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education, SCORE counselors come to Brighton District Library on the second Tuesday evening of the month to work one-on-one with small business owners. One-hour appointments can be made by calling the Information Desk at 810-229-6571 x227.
- Starting a Business in Michigan - Resources from the State of Michigan.
- Business Statistics and Financial Ratios - Provides industry ratios on some small businesses.
Business Plans:
- Business Plans Handbook - From Thomson/Gale.
- Business Plans and Profiles Index - From the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, an online index to two of the main print reference sources for business plans: the Business Plan Handbook and Small Business Profiles. Includes pointers to individual books on starting various kinds of businesses and links to online business plans.
Small Business Funding:
- Venture Capital & Private Equity - From Harvard Business School's Baker Library.
Business Statistics and Economic Indicators
- Economic Indicators - Regularly released national statistics such as gross domestic product, new residential construction, personal income and much more!
- NAICS Business Patterns - Data on the total number of establishments, employment and payroll for 1998-2001 by zip code, county, state, or metropolitan area.
- Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) - creates statistics such as community profiles, monthly population estimates, employment estimates, number of approved building permits, regional forecasts, nonresidential development, land use, manufactured housing, and traffic counts.
Business Startup
- How to Learn About an Industry or a Specific Company -Steps and resources to research an industry or company for starting a company.
- Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center - Provides quality counseling, training and market research at low-or no-cost. Great resource!
- Michigan Chambers of Commerce - Find Chamber of Commerce in your area.
- Michigan Retailer's Association - "A monthly gauge of key retail activity in Michigan." Also provides services such as merchant credit card services.
- Michigan Service Corps Of Retired Executives (SCORE) - provides free business counseling.
Company Information
- Annual Reports - find current annual reports of thousands of publicly-traded companies. Annual reports typically include: letter from the chairman (or CEO) to the shareholders; financial highlights; balance sheets; profit and loss statements; new business; year in review; projections; outstanding shares of stock and list of board members.
- Thomas Register - main purpose is to find manufacturing companies. Can also be used to find privately held manufacturing companies.
International Trade
- International Trade Administration - Export trade information, assistance, forms and trade statistics
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection - NAFTA info.
- World Chambers of Commerce - Find Chamber of Commerce in other countries. Many have information about starting a business in that country/city.
Investment Info
- BigCharts.com - get current and historical stock quotes with interacting charts. Good for finding the original value of a stock on a certain date.
- Value Line (Standard Edition) - get stock reports and detailed information on particular stocks. Available at the reference desk and online (with a limited number of concurrent logins).
Personal Finance
- Money 101 - an interactive course on CNN's site to lean how to manage money and investments.
- Motley Fool - Entertaining and informative site.
- Learn That Online Courses - courses with exercise an worksheets on topics such as making ends meet, avoiding an audit, how to shop online.
- Yahoo Finance can look up current stocks and company news. Create a portfolio to track your own stocks.
Miscellaneous
- Annual Credit Reports - Information about how to receive your annual free personal credit reports from the three major services.
- County Business Patterns - From U.S. Census Bureau.
- EDGAR - Company SEC filings.
- GlobalEDGE - International business resources.
- Historical Stock Quotes - Silicon Investor site was able to pull up historic prices for defunct/subsumed companies' stock.
- Stock Quotes - On the Nasdaq website, but feature searches NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX & OTCBB stocks, funds, and options, current to the minute.
