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Several new books have arrived in the Library to support Lincoln International Business School students. My favourite from this list is Vaughan Evans (2016) Financial Times Essential Guides Writing a Business Plan: How to win backing to start up or grow your business because it will be of such practical use to students. It is a skill every business student ought to acquire.
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As part of our subscription we have full access to the FT ePaper – an exact digital replica of the FT Newspaper. The FT ePaper is now even easier to use on your computer, tablet and phone. The FT have upgraded it with great new features and functionality, including:
When you access the ePaper the on-screen tool tips will guide you through what’s new, or just click on the ? icon in the top menu. Why does this matter? Just check out this video ‘Punk FT – EU models for a post-Brexit UK‘ as a real gem available online about the options for the UK post-Brexit. This question ultimately revolves around the free movement of labour versus goods, as the UK considers a journey without trade agreements with the remaining EU members.
//There’s never been a better day than today to watch events unfold than by reading the Financial Times online. At the University we have unlimited access to FT.com whose sections like Alphaville (it will ask for your university username and password) tracks the markets and an invaluable online forum. For instance, nougats like Jan Hilbebrand’s article on a secret Brexit plan (yes, one really does exists) is worth seeking out, saying that Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has already made preparations for a Brexit. Also the fastFT (“a global team working across timezones to give you market-moving news and views twenty-four hours a day, five days a week”) is an excellent tool to follow today’s news as it appears ‘live’. The housing market, the Pound, stocks and shares, investment, the FTSE and spread betting are news stories just from the past hour as Brexit hits the financial markets.
//Lucy Kellaway from FT Comment advises on whether CEOs need Twitter. She’s been studying the CEOs with the most Twitter followers and examining their popularity. Some great advice here. Any CEO not using Twitter is not engaged. If you want to be engaging be Elon Musk (‘boy wonder stuff’) the only one she recommends. But boring bland tweets from famous CEOs get thousands of retweets, sometimes a bizarre and inexplicable phenomenon. You’ll find the video halfway down the FT.com page (there’s no embed code for all those blog aficionados out there) then you’ll need to log on using your username and password if you’re off campus.
//Arguably, there’s no genuine alternative to using FT.com for studying business. Crucial to any business student is access to the best up to date resources at a fingertip using a desktop, tablet or mobile, and our unlimited access to FT.com provides articles, graphs and analysis from over 600 journalists worldwide certainly provides that promise in bucket-loads. If you’re a business student, keeping up to date with news and analysis gives you the edge when it comes to writing any financial assignment; such as knowing where and what to invest in is essential insight. I’ve often wondered about the curious similarities between the skills of a research librarian and a stockbroker as both need to track the news and be fully informed about their subject area as an ongoing pursuit. Indeed, there’s really no alternative to fine tuning these skills. For instance, there’s an absorbing article ‘How long would it take to leave?’ about the possibility of Brexit, post 23rd June.
You can set up alerts based on search terms via email, change your preferences, time the delivery so you have complete control over the information you receive , as well as having the option of receiving a weekly ‘letter from the editor’ with as a‘s personal views on the current news agenda and the fabulously named ‘Best of Lex‘ email featuring a compilation of the week’s best commentary. RSS feeds are another way of getting alerted to relevant news, if you want, to your desktop or mobile.
To gain access to FT.com you’ll need to go to the Library webpage at library.lincoln.ac.uk then to resources > databases > F > FT.com and register if you haven’t already done so. Plus you’ll impress the academics by regularly visiting this site (and thoroughly analysing what you find, of course!).
//As part of a series about how Business schools operate in the modern economy, The Financial Times site (library.lincoln.ac.uk > resources > databases > FT) publishes many interesting interviews. In this video, Pro-Vice Chancellor Maury Peiperl from the Cranfield School of Management talks about the need to create entrepreneurial space, with business schools working with owners of small businesses, how work meshes with the curriculum. He discusses his experience of executives and their ongoing ‘need to learn’, how blended learning supports those in business still able to study. It’s also worth checking out the MBA blog too for further insight.
//Whilst researching for a couple of Financial Times workshops to be held in the Library this November, I stumbled across the Financial Times Business School which publishes several videos presented by Della Bradshaw, the Business Education Editor at the Financial Times. In this video, Della interviews Hamid Boucihki, Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at Essec Ventures on the key challenges of business schools, such as fierce competition, accelerating technology, the threat of MOOCs, just-in-time education, for-profit colleges, online MBAs and the need for universities to re-invent the model such as workplace placements and providing first-class opportunities to enhance employability. This interview is one of a series discussing business education, and something which I found to be particularly interesting. After listening to the video series, the key question facing a prospective student is what will the return on their investment is going to be should they enrol on a business course, while companies are looking for global leadership.
//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.
From the blogs – Leaving Greece to its own devices is not an option http://t.co/jPKQXaJND4 pic.twitter.com/SN7Ge9nd8h
— Financial Times (@FT) June 16, 2015
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.
After registering for the first time, FT.com will allow you full access to its content.
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We are delighted to announce that we have access to the Financial Times online via FT.com across the University, set up in conjunction with the Business School. This means that the invaluable graphics supplied by FT.com are available across the University for the first time. The FT.com site access is in addition to our existing access to full-text articles from the Financial Times via the ABI Inform and Factiva databases.
Users can either log in to FT.com via the Library’s website (library.lincoln.ac.uk) and locate it under the ‘databases’ section or create their personal account directly from a University of Lincoln computer.
//The economist of the moment, Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the 21st century, is interviewed by Foreign Affairs. The interview reveals Piketty’s challenge to the logic of capitalism of increasing inequality, and an insight into his radical alternatives to escape cataclysmic financial and ideological downfall. Pikertty’s weighty 577 page book has already sold over 200,000 copies and is clearly unnerving the economic world order. Happily, it is on order and will arrive in the University of Lincoln’s Library very soon for those eager to read more.
Piketty continues to ignite the world, and has recently received criticism from no less than the Financial Times, to which gives several ripostes in a detailed letter published online.
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For those trying to comprehend the 2008 Credit Crunch (labelled ‘a Minsky moment’), and perhaps capitalism itself, a radio programme broadcast last night about the late American economist Hyman Minsky is certainly worth listening to. Minsky’s revealing slogan “Stability is destabilising” argued that “the seeds of the next crisis are sown as the financial sector engages in riskier and riskier lending in pursuit of profit”. Therefore, capitalism is inherently unstable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yn83s
Search Find it at Lincoln (library.lincoln.ac.uk) for ‘The Financial Instability Hypothesis and Hyman Minsky’ to find out more…
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The database for predominantly used to research international news sources, Factiva, has recently improved its log in access.
This means no more “network\” for this database; it also means that the A-to-Z/Find it at Lincoln will link directly to a specific journal title rather than just to the database homepage.
Example: the Lincolnshire Echo – http://lncn.eu/cky6
You can still find the database listed under http://www.library.lincoln.ac.uk > more resources > databases > F > Factiva…
And, if you didn’t already know, Factiva contains a Financial Times archive, alongside the ABI Inform database .
//Finding Information for Business 12-13
This updated Business guide includes all the major resources at The University of Lincoln, referring in particular to the new Library website found at http://library.lincoln.ac.uk. We are currently upgrading all our help guides for the Business School to incorporate the changes listed in an earlier blog post called ‘What’s new in the Library‘.
//Originally based on the Financial Times website, the annual report service is free, easy to use, and (potentially) hundreds of reports can be posted to your home address on a CD. This site will prove useful for anyone conducting primary research into company information. By way of recommendation, the London Stock Exchanges refers to this website on its homepage.
//If you’re wondering how to compare currencies then Factiva (Portal > Library > E-Library > Factiva) will provide you with some answers:
Go to Companies / Markets and choose currencies. Then choose from the drop-down menus the currencies you want to compare. You can obtain the current quote or the historical quote, daily, weekly or monthly price, and choose the date range (anything up to 2 yrs) then ‘get quote’.
Results are shown in a spreadsheet or (scroll to the bottom of the screen) in an interactive chart. I compared daily prices between the US dollar with the Belize Dollarper for the past three months:
