The Business Librarian Blog joins Twitter

The time has finally come to create a work-related Twitter account to relentlessly publicise the Business Librarian blog and its content.  180+ posts and counting since its inception in 2011. As you know, I blog regularly throughout the working week and would like to (shamelessly some might say) generate more hits. Join me in my quest to promote the University Library to Business School students @LINCLibrarian.

In addition the great joy about setting up a work account is that I am able to link to subject-related journals, magazines, newspapers and organisations that I’ve been familiar with for several years in my role as subject librarian for Accountancy and Finance, Advertising and Marketing, Economics, Events Management, International Business, Modern Languages and Tourism.

Capture bus bklog tw

Financial Times access

We live in interesting times and the financial markets are the centrifugal force in making history as Greece’s IMF repayment crisis is proving today. One of the ways a student can keep up to date with the financial news is to buy the Financial Times from our subsidised Students’ Union shop in the Main Building.  Another is to follow @FT on Twitter.

Why not register on the FT.com website via our Library page (library.lincoln.ac.uk > resources > databases > F > Financial Times (FT.com) to access the latest news, graphs and analysis.

 

CaptureFT

 

After registering for the first time, FT.com will allow you full access to its content.

Capture FT,.com,

Euromonitor special: Trends in Online Tourism in the Caribbean

Fresh from some apposite Euromonitor training and a subsequent blog post I released last week,  the Euromonitor blog is a fertile source of business and marketing information and inspires a worthwhile addition to this blog . This video about Trends in Online Tourism in the Caribbean illustrates how social media and other digital tools are having a large impact on how Caribbean destinations are marketing themselves to tourists. Additionally, online travel retailers and aggregators are expanding services in the region.

Capture carib

Mobile phone sales in Vietnam? Check out the Euromonitor database

Often students struggle on how to start an assignment which asks them about entering a new market with a product of their choice. Which product and what country to invest in? How can they see what the market volume is and whether it is worth entering a country where the market has a healthy forecast? Help is at hand. Fortunately, Euromonitor has the answer to these questions and much more, particularly as I have been exploring the wizardry Dashboard feature (below) on the database which provides the researcher with useful market size and insightful forecast, meaning they can learn if a market has potential or has reached saturation point. The following six-step instructions is a method to easily answer an international business assignment within a few well-spent minutes.

Purely hypothetically if I am interested in selling smartphones in Vietnam via shopping outlets does this idea have any business potential. Simply, is it worth investing in?

Captureadash

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Firstly, go to library.lincoln.ac.uk > resources > E > Euromonitor.

2. On the homepage go to Choose Industry > Consumer Electronics > Dashboard > GO.

3. Table 1 below shows the market size of consumer electronics (dark blue showing the greatest)

Table 1: Consumer Electronics Dashboard (Market Size)

Capture con elec

4. This map can be changed to forecast (on the top left-hand side) to show forecast, to find out whether a growth area like India or far-eastern Asia is worth investing in, and immediately we can see the darker blue areas are worth investigating further.

Table 2: Consumer Electronics (Forecast Growth)

Capturecar fore

5. If we select Channel View from the tabs we can appreciate that some of far-eastern Asia sells a double-figure growth in consumer electronics using store-based retailing.

Table 3: Store-Based Retailing (Historic Growth)

Captureshops

6. Choose category > Portable Consumer Appliances > Mobile Phones. We can see that from Table 4 the paler blue areas might be worth investigating, like Vietnam. We can hover our mouse over an area and break the data into smaller chunks.

Table 4: Mobile Phones (market size)

 

Capturemobilephones

 

Table 5: Mobile Phones (forecast growth)

 

Capture mobile growth

From Table 5 we can see that consumer electronics are a boom area in Vietnam and selling mobile phones via store-based retailing is worth investing in. Indeed, by hovering the mouse over the country we can see that mobile phones sales are predicted to grow an amazing 13.7%. From these simple steps we can see that it is possible not only to find an idea for an assignment using Euromonitor but we are able to plan the structure too. We can also drill down further into whether we are selling Smartphones, or another mobile phone product. Market wizardry in a snapshot!

 

Subject split today!

From today Martin Osborne and myself will be supporting different subjects within the Business School meaning that I will be supporting:

Whilst Martin Osborne will support Business, Business & Management, Management, MBA, and Professional Development.

 

Euromonitor database video

At the University of Lincoln we have many relevant programmes where the database Euromonitor International is such a key resource such as Business and Marketing, International Business, International Tourism Business, Human Resources, Logistics, MBA and Social Research. In addition to these courses other departments such as Lincoln School of Film & Media, National Centre for Food Manufacturing (NCFM), Sport and Exercise Science are seeing the benefit of using this resource.

Euromonitor has access to 80 countries for both Industries and Countries and Consumers, and cross-comparable statistics as well as different types of analysis so why not take a look at the video outlining some of these features.

Euromonitor can be found via library.lincoln.ac.uk > resources > databases > E > Euromonitor.

Capture euro

 

Book of the Month: Harrison et al (2012) Improve Your Grammar

You may be wondering what the new Academic Writing team (Judith Elkin, Cheryl Cliffe and myself) are doing over the summer? One of our objectives is to dive into the Library’s vast collection of grammar books, which includes Harrison et al (2012) Improve your Grammar (found at 425 har on the 1st floor). Harrison et al (2012) naturally covers speech, sentence clauses, and everything you would expect from a grammar book but what I found most helpful was commonly misused words (pp. 112-113) and the appropriate selection of phrasal verbs in writing more academically (pp. 110-111), as well as Palgrave’s effective layout and subtle use of colours to highlight themes. This opening statement about practical accessibility does justice to our extensive range of Palgrave Study Skills books (49 titles!) held in the Library:

“‘Improve Your Grammar’ is a study and practice book for students attending or planning to attend a UK university.  It concentrates on the specific areas of grammar and coherence where students frequently make mistakes, and deal with these in a straightforward, accessible way” (Harrison et al, 2012, 1).

That said, French novelist and linguistic conjurer Gustav Flaubert sparked a revolutionary approach in grammatical use by writing sensuously about what he felt, what he imagined, rather than adhere to strict rules that he considered claustrophobic and detrimental to his art; an unorthodox approach praised by fellow great novelist Proust when he noted Flaubert’s grammar elicited a beauty in itself. Perhaps that is the answer? Once you feel comfortable with expressing yourself grammatically then you have attained the ultimate goal and have to voyage beyond conventions…

Capture grammar

Harrison, M., Jakeman, V. & Paterson, K. (2012). Improve Your Grammar. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Daren’s new subject guides

As Martin and I are splitting our subject responsibilities on 1st June this year I have published six new subject guides which cover my areas. These guides will shortly be added to the a-z list via http://guides.library.lincoln.ac.uk/ .

CaptureDarenPoster14

 

Daren Mansfield

(new) Academic Subject Librarian for  Accountancy & Finance, Advertising and Marketing, Economics, Events management, International Business, Tourism 

 

 

 

R4 Start the Week: Joseph Stiglitz & Steve Hilton on Inequality

Whilst looking forward to a new Economics course starting this September I found last night’s Radio 4 programme called Start the Week which discussed inequality worth listening to.  During the first half of the programme broadcaster and journalist Andrew Marr chairs an interesting debate with PM David Cameron’s former senior adviser, Steve Hilton, who believes our governments and institutions are too big, and argues for a more human-focused society. The US economist Joseph Stiglitz tackles rising inequality in the West and blames the unjust and misguided priorities of neoliberalism. Amongst the topics in the programme discussed includes whether ‘trickle down economics’ actually works, the opaque accountability of multinationals, the upcoming EU referendum and whether Scotland continues to be a member of the United Kingdom.  The programme is found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05v7tbr .

Capture start

 

Remember to update your Inter Library loan user details

Capture ILL

If you are registered for our free Inter Library Loan service it is always recommended that you update your personal details just to make sure the Library knows your existing address, current email address, etc.  Users can do this by logging into  Inter-library loans http://library.lincoln.ac.uk/home/resources/inter-library-loans/ choosing the ‘Edit Personal Details’ in the left hand menu, updating their address and clicking update.  This is especially important if a user is requesting a photocopy journal article.

Users can also  track and view recent/current requests by choosing  ‘View your Requests’ and using the drop down menus.

http://library.lincoln.ac.uk/home/resources/inter-library-loans/

Perhaps the most frequently asked question is how many requests you can submit per academic year:

Capture ILL 3