SXSW Interactive - The Virtual Experience

Inc. Magazine has highlighted the must-see tech companies this year at South by Southwest Interactive.So if you are here in Austin be sure to check out their demos. If you can't make it to South By this year be sure to check them out online. Remember to visit one of our favorite resources to get the lowdown on their funding - Crunchbase. Leap Motion: These guys have developed a device that lets you control your computer with hand gestures. Here's the You Tube introduction so you can what the magic looks like

Memoto: A "life-logging" camera that you wear all day to document your life's adventures. This might be pretty cool for my next Cycling for Libraries experience, but most Wednesdays are pretty uneventful.

OUYA: An open source gaming console that will cost just $99 and has free games. It has already earned $8 million on Kickstarter so it seems like an idea people are behind.

EEVZDROP: Inc. calls this social media app "the Instagram for audio". You can use it record and share soundbites. This should be really popular with the SXSW music crowd.

And, speaking of SXSW Music you can catch the big Spotify concert streaming live on March 13. The show features hip-hop from Kendrick Lamar, indie pop from Youngblood Hawke, DJ duo Cazzette, and the house DJ Hesta Prynn.

Investing for the Long Run

Morningstar’s Library Services team is excited to announce a new book that they've created especially for the library community. Investing for the Long Run is a guide for new and experienced investors to help shape up personal finances. From creating a budget, merging finances with a significant other, to planning for retirement, they have information for individuals at every life stage. Good for both you and your customers. It's 119 pages of practical investment advice with worksheets and links to online tools:

• How to get started investing
• When and how to pick an investment adviser
• Mistakes to avoid when buying a house
• Ways to cut expenses
• Roth IRA or 401(k) -  which do you fund first
• How to create an investment strategy for college saving

Enjoy the online book compliments of bizologie and Morningstar!

PitchBook publishes VC Fundraising and Overhang Report

In the world of entrepreneurship, venture capital (VC) funding is paramount.  VC deals, especially those of the big, sexy, multimillion-dollar variety, are headline grabbers and the stuff of water-cooler conversation in towns like Austin and San Francisco. All that money has to come from somewhere though, right?  What about VC fundraising?  When a VC firm raises a fund, it rarely makes front page news.  Nevertheless, whether or not VCs are able to raise funds is a critical indicator of the broader health of the capital markets and how much money is out there for budding entrepreneurs.  For this reason, I was pleasantly surprised when a colleague emailed me a copy of PitchBook’s “1H 2013 Venture Capital Fundraising and Capital Overhang Report.”

As the title suggests, the report looks at two metrics: VC-fund overhang and VC fundraising.  The first of these, overhang, is a measure of how much money in a private equity fund remains uncalled.  In general, as Mark Heesen of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) notes, a high-level of overhang signals a “potential bubble, as VCs, in their quest to find a home for this bucket of un-invested capital, would presumably fund too many companies.”  Conversely, low overhang results from poor fundraising and suggests anemia in the capital markets.

The second of these, fundraising, is a more self-explanatory metric.  Before investing in companies, VCs typically try to raise a fund of a particular size ($100M, $1B, etc.).  Once they have hit their mark, or have at least come pretty close, they start to invest the fund in companies.

Of these two metrics, the  report is primarily focuses on VC fundraising.  As such, the majority of the report is dedicated to discussing fundraising levels and trends from the early 2000s through 2012.  A discussion and analysis of 2013-levels of  overhang frames the report’s fundraising coverage.

The tone of the report is accessible.  You don’t have to have a degree in finance to make sense of it.  The graphics are rich, informative and approachable.  Furthermore, the report is very clear on what types of funds they are covering and those that they are not (e.g. the report doesn’t include angel investment or corporate VC funding totals etc.), leaving no confusion for novice readers.   Bottom Line: I’m a fan.  This report, when combined with info from the NVCA, helps to paint a clear picture of what's happening in the world of venture capital.

Get the VC Fundraising and Overhang report HERE

Get Pitchbook’s 2013 VC run down HERE

NOTE: pitchbook requires you to enter your contact info to download these reports directly from the site.  However, expert Googlers can get around this by doing a simple file-type search.

BCC Research Special Offer

BCC Research has a great offer for fans of bizologie! bizologie through a partnership with BCC Research, has arranged for an option to purchase market research reports at a substantial discount.

All bizologie fans - business librarians and corporate partners - now have access to an extensive collection of thousands of market research reports spanning 19 industry categories. Essential market intelligence, five-year forecasts, statistical and analytical data and critical knowledge on markets, applications, major players, market share, industry dynamics and technology trends are all available to you.

BCC Research is a leader in business intelligence products and custom research services. For more than 40 years, their in-depth market analysis has provided corporations, government agencies and academia with the insight needed to make intelligent and strategic business decisions.

Contact your bizologie BCC Research Account Manager, Maura Tobin directly to receive a free demonstration to the BCC Research portal of market studies.

Maura Tobin [email protected] Direct Line: 1-781-205-2433 Mobile 1-508-208-2213

Mega Trends for the Holidays! Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds

Every 4 years, the U.S. National Intelligence Council publishes its Global Trends report.  The purpose of the report is to advise policy makers (particularly the president—hence the once-every-four-years timeframe) on the intelligence community’s predictions for the next twenty years.  This year’s report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, covers a variety of global social, environmental, political, economic and technological trends and draws on experts from equally diverse backgrounds.  This report is a gold mine for innovators, educators, policy makers, students and information professionals.  The 2012 global trends report is particularly interesting to folks working in my current field: technology commercialization.  The new edition contains expanded emerging technology coverage and addresses the question: “will technological breakthroughs be developed in time to boost economic productivity and solve problems caused by growing world population, rapid urbanization, and climate change?” (ii)  To answer this critical question, the NIC looked outside of the intelligence community and surveyed scientists and consultants from NASA to Silicon Valley.

Here is just a quick sampling of some of the mega trends forecast by the report:

• Global population will rise to approximately 8.3 billion
• Climate change will lead to a higher frequency of extreme weather events
• Decline in Western share of global wealth
•  Growth in the global middle class

In all, this is a fascinating report and a trusted source for information on global trends.  At 150+ pages, the report is not exactly light reading, but should be in every information professional’s tool chest nevertheless.

You can obtain a copy of the report (FREE) and the three reports that preceded it here.

Casual Friday: Face Retirement

Merrill Edge is helping you Face Retirement. They are convinced that we don't save enough for retirement because we just can't picture ourselves living into our 70s and 80s. By showing you what you will look like in the future they hope to convince you to save for retirement. All I have to say is that it worked. I now believe I should save more - for plastic surgery. If the age progression is correct, I might need a little nip and tuck at 67. Beyond scaring (and possibly scarring) you with a glimpse into your future, the site also provides some cost of living data. See how much a loaf of bread will cost, a gallon gas, or a movie ticket. It is all enough to make you realize that tomorrow will be here before you know it, and it will cost you a lot more to live the same lifestyle.

If you are brave enough it just takes a minute to find out what you'll like 20, 30, 40 years from now. The program uses your webcam to take your picture and begin the aging process. Bonus, you can share right to Facebook if you are so inclined.

So if you are ready to start saving more, find out exactly how much you need using the bizologie favorite tools: retirement planning post.

SEC History

This week, while looking for the major rulings of the SEC, I ran across the SEC Historical Society Timeline. The timeline is a treasure trove of information laid out in an easy to navigate format. "The Timeline highlights significant developments in the history of financial regulation against U.S. and world events. Choose a decade to start, click the arrow button to move through the years, and click on any development to read more". The timeline starts with the depression in the 1930s and go through the Occupy Wall Street marches of 2011. On the timeline you see the SEC regulations juxtaposed with the world events.

In addition to the amazing timeline,  The Virtual Museum & Archive of Financial Regulation also includes:

• Galleries:  Materials from the permanent exhibits on a particular topics
• Papers
• Programs: Broadcast live online
• Oral Histories: Available in video, audio/MP3 and edited transcript formats
• Photos
• Film, Radio and Television

Currently there are only 32 files in the Film, Radio and TV section, but they go back to 1921 and they are definitely worth a look. You can hear Ralph Saul from the American Stock Exchange speaking at the Women's National Democratic Club in 1970 or see 1950s films from the New York Stock Exchange.

Who knew SEC history would be this exciting?

The Information Institute Presents: 21st Century Business Research Tactics And Sources

If you'll be in the Austin area this January and would like a crash course in competitive intelligence, check out this new course presented by The Information Institute from the University of Texas School of Information. The class is called "Boiling the Ocean: 21st Century Business Research Tactics And Sources". Presented by Yours Truly along with Claudia Chidester, Gary Hoover and Joel Lang, who will be sharing all our best business research secrets. This is a 3-Day course from January 7 - January 9, 2013. Check out the description below and you can register for the class here.

Boiling The Ocean: 21st Century Business Research Tactics And Sources: Understanding Difficult-to-Size Markets and their Competitive Landscapes

This is a hands on workshop with industry experts in entrepreneurship and business research that will teach industry standards and the latest tools in the practice. You will receive hands-on practice using resources you've likely never used before.

• Are there any competitors to your new idea?
• If anyone is making money in a particular space?
• Is a particular private company growing or faltering?
• Who your potential customers are?
• How to set up a system of monitoring your competitors or customers and finding new competitors and customers?

Why is this course useful? You'll learn how to:

• Save money: what resources are worth their cost and when is free good enough.
• Save time: understand the 80/20 of research. Tips and tricks.
• Network with other researchers

You will receive hands-on practice using resources you've likely never used before. Solutions like Capital IQ and other subscriptions at the University of Texas and Austin Public Library will be used to develop research strategies. Be sure to bring your own research problems to class—there will be free consultation on strategies.

Who should take this class? Entrepreneurs, legal researchers, development officers, corporate librarians, market researchers, and anyone who wants to learn how to gain a competitive advantage.

Topics Covered

• Does market sizing matter? How the venture capitalists do it. Defining a thesis.
• Where to start: Use what you know. Define what you don't know.
• SEO tools: Compete, Alexa, comScore, Hitwise and Nielsen Online, crowdsourcing
• Database tools: Capital IQ, Thompson One, Bizjournals, Special Issues, Census
• People tools: Zoominfo, Linked-In, Associations
• CI Knowledge management: keeping up to date: Sharepoint, Google products

Online MBA Programs

If you are helping someone find an online MBA program, check out MBAOnline.com. The site offers program rankings and a search by specialty and state. The site offers an online MBA guide, and an Q&A section with information about online MBAs, but what I found most interesting were the interviews with students from different programs. "[The ] interviewees will give you insight, based on personal experience, regarding issues such as the application process, program curriculum and faculty and the job search. These interviews not only cover the basics of pursuing an online MBA, but they also tackle more in depth topics including determining how an online MBA program is legitimate, whether pursuing an online MBA is worth the cost and how employers view online MBAs."

A little research bonus, each of their blog posts includes a great infographic. Check out the recent post on Twinkies.

Casual Friday: Tank on Empty

Ever wonder just how far you make it on an empty tank of gas? Check out Tank on Empty to find our just how many miles people have been able to drive with the gas light on in your car's make, model, and year. I like to know I have plenty of gas to get where I'm going, so I don't push my luck since I can't push my car.. But, there have been times where I was a little nervous about getting to the gas stations. Kind of nice to know I probably have a little more fuel to get me to the pump. I do know a few people (won't name any names here) who will just keep on driving long after that light comes on. This site does shows that they are probably just fine going that extra 20 miles. But really, there are quite a few comments about burning up your fuel pump if you actually go completely dry. So not a good idea.

Still kinda fun to see how the experiments went and to learn what others in your car have experienced.

Form D Free For All

Do business research for any length of time and you'll likely be called upon to locate Form Ds. And as we bizologists like to say, why not find them for free? First of all, what is a Form D? Our friends at Investopedia define it as "a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required for companies that are selling securities in reliance on a Regulation D exemption or Section 4(6) exemption provisions." But for our purposes, let's use a simpler definition. Start-up companies file Form Ds when they raise money. And while there are a couple of paid subscription databases you can use to track down Form Ds, you can also find them on FormDs.com.

FormDs.com, founded by  former private equity firm investor Robert Hunt, offers a couple of paid services like monitoring or custom projects, but you can also get quite a bit of great information for free.

My favorite feature is their "Local FormDs" showing investments in a particular city. I simply click on my city of choice and I see a list of recently funded companies in my area which shows me the date and the amount of funding. Even better, once I click on a particular company, I can see their address, company directors and executives, a link to the actual Form D and, better still, a link to other companies in the same industry.

Speaking of industries, I can also filter by industry, location, amount and dates. And then display these results as a list or as a map. Below you'll see I've created a filter showing all the biotechnology companies recently funded in Texas.

FormDs.com definitely earns a spot on our Favorite Resources page.

"One Card to Rule Them All"

I am not one of those people that uses different credit based on the rewards I get. I have picked one credit card and use if for just about everything. The problem with my plan is that I'm losing out on all those points and cash back offers from credit card companies. Who knows how many vacations I could have had covered by now! Wallaby Financial to the rescue. "Wallaby keeps track of all of the different rewards offers for each of the credit cards you own, including limited-time and one-time discounts... Wallaby automatically picks the right card for you–every time you swipe." So many credit card companies now offer special monthly deals, this month it is on gas and next month you get extra points for restaurants. I would never keep up with this. With Wallaby I don't have to, I just use their card and let them select the best card for the purchase so that I can maximize my points and cash back. Wallaby calls itself "one card to rule them all." Pretty good idea and since they are all about points, I will give them extra points for the geek reference.

How much will will this convenience cost? The rate is $50 per year, and they are offering six months free right now. They are still in beta and they aren't working with private label cards yet, but it sounds like that might be coming soon. Since this isn't a credit card, there is no credit check and you still pay all the bills separately. Now, if they could simplify that last piece it would be even better! I'm going to test it out and see if I can earn enough point for my next flight!

The Looming Red Herring Shortage: How the JOBS Act Affects CI Analysts and Business Researchers

This April (4/05/2012), President Obama signed the landmark Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act into law.  The law is designed to encourage entrepreneurship both by making it easier and safer to go public and by relaxing certain fundraising requirements imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  The act also has some profound consequences for business researchers and CI analysts, as it changes the SEC filing requirements that certain types of companies (Emerging Growth Companies) have to follow when preparing to go public. Emerging Growth Companies—A New Category Under the JOBS Act

Before jumping into the new SEC filing requirements under the JOBS Act, it is first useful to discuss the types of companies that the new rules apply to: Emerging Growth Companies.  Quite simply, Emerging Growth Companies (hereafter EGCs) are those that posted revenues of under $1 billion during their most recent fiscal year.  Most IPO-bound companies, with some notable exceptions like Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), meet this criteria.  In fact, according to David Westenberg of the high-tech business and economics news sight Xconomy, 90% of all companies that went public prior to December 8^th, 2011 would have qualified as EGCs under the JOBS Act.  Thus, the changes in the JOBS act will impact the vast majority of companies that plan to file an IPO in the future.

But what about the actual changes to SEC filing requirements?

New Filing Rules under the JOBS Act:

Under the JOBS act, EGCs are able to confidentially file drafts of their registration statement (S-1) for non-public review prior to their actual public filing (adventurous readers might want to check out the full text of the law HERE, specifically Part I section 106).  An EGC's S-1 is only made public 21 days before it conducts a roadshow (if you’re not familiar with the term “road show” as it applies to IPO filings, here’s how Investopedia defines it: Road shows refer to when the management of a company that is issuing securities or doing an initial public offering (IPO) travels around the country to give presentations to analysts, fund managers and potential investors.)

So why should librarians, researchers and CI professionals take notice?  There are two reasons that this provision of the JOBS act makes our job more difficult:

No Red Herring Left Behind…

Each year, multiple companies withdraw their IPO as a result of poor market conditions or lacking investor enthusiasm.  In the past, when a company decided to withdraw its IPO, it did so knowing that valuable and previously confidential information about the business would remain in the public record.  With the new confidential filing rules, companies that decide to withdraw their initial public offering can now do so without leaving behind a so called “red herring” S-1 statement (i.e. a publically available draft of their S-1).  With the new confidential filing provisions in the JOBS Act, unless EGCs get to the point of conducting a roadshow, no one will have access to their business plan.

7 Week Wait for S-1 Filings?

How long will we have to wait for new S-1 filings to enter the public record?

According to Gus Fuldner, a VP at Benchmark Capital in Menlo Park California, the time commitment between filing to go public and actually selling shares on the open market can be as long as 10 weeks. Why?  Often, companies will have to bounce several drafts of their S-1 statement prior to the roadshow, which usually occurs in the final three weeks leading up to the sale of shares on the open market.   This means that interested parties could have to wait as long as seven weeks to get access to an IPO-bound company’s business plan. This is not a huge deal, but still could cause frustrating delays for researchers.

Less Transparency: More IPOs

The JOBS act is a very interesting piece of legislation that will have a tremendous impact on the American economy.  While I have outlined a couple annoying aspects of the legislation, keep in mind that the ultimate goal of the so called “IPO On Ramp” (the nickname of Part I of the law), is to simplify the process of issuing a public offering.  This, in turn, should lead to a steadily rising number of IPOs in the coming years.  More IPOs means more public companies and more S-1s, 10Ks and 10Qs for us all to sink our teeth into.

Stay tuned: in my next post I will be describing some of the new scaled back disclosure requirements in the JOBS Act and how these affect what information researchers will have access to.

American Business Leaders of the 20th Century...

...is  brought to you courtesy of Harvard.  We tip our hats to them for making a free and searchable database with hundreds of prominent business people from last century.  As they (Harvard that is) state,  this was, "an effort to identify and chronicle the lives of 20th century men and women whose business leadership shaped the ways that people live, work, and interact." Well it's a great effort, and the result is a good-looking and straightforward browsable list/advanced search interface, wherein you can narrow by basic demographic factors like gender, birthplace, and education.  (It's not unlike playing the Guess Who? boardgame, am I right?!)  Individual-level results also include a small blurb about their business success.  Oh and even better, if you ask nicely, they can apparently send you data in an Excel Spreadsheet.

Follow That Dollar!

I'll file this post under "Am I The Last To Know About This?".  Today I got a dollar stamped with "Track me at www.wheresgeorge.com". How could I resist? I went to the site and was greeted with a button saying "I found a WheresGeorge bill, and I want to see where it has been". So I typed in the serial number and found out that my bill  "has travelled 688 Miles in 177 Days, 1 Hr, 1 Min at an average of 3.9 Miles per day.  It is now 688 Miles from its starting location. "  It even came with a handy Google Map showing me its route. You can even set up an alert to keep track of where your bill goes after you spend it. Fun! According to their homepage, WheresGeorge is currently tracking 212,927,508 bills for a total of $1,145,953,996. They've also got a great page of links for interesting money facts as well as links to sites tracking bills in other countries, including the United Kingdom (www.whereslizzy.com), India (www.trackgandhi.com) and Germany (Wo ist Mein Geld (Where's My Money?) www.woistmeingeld.de) among others.

Retro Ads from Ad*Access by Duke University Libraries

Whether they prompt you to scratch your head and ask "They said what to sell that?!," or incite your inner-vintage-monster to go on yet another Mad Men bender, the high quality scans of advertisements in Ad*Access are worth a look back in time.  Chock full of thousands of printed ad spanning the early-mid 1900's, this database's five primary categories are Beauty & Hygiene, Radio, TV, Transporation, and WWII. Because I can't state it any better, here's what the About page says:  "Ad*Access is a pilot project to make a selection of historical advertisements available for study and research. The project draws on part of a large collection of magazine and newspaper ads within the Duke library's J. Walter Thompson Company Archives." (I especially recommend reading the Preservation paragraph if you want a bit of perspective on how Duke's archivists managed these materials.)

Simply put, this is a major tool for those doing advertising or marketing research through an historical lens.  And this database, an end-product with hundreds of hours of work behind it, is free for anyone to use.  Sold!

You'll find more free advertising resources here.

In the Emerald Multimedia Zone

For those who are not familiar with Emerald, it refers to both a prized variety of beryl as well as the name of a major publishing group in the realm of academia.  And with any "major" company, we really like when they dole out free swag, because, well, it's usually good swag.  While Emerald tragically is not giving away their mineral namesakes, we can't complain about their Multimedia Zone. It deserves a (green perhaps?) thumbs-up for being seeded with some kernels of business insight in the form of short videos and podcasts for anyone's viewing and listening pleasure.  First dig into the Talking Management video channel, which per Emerald, "features insightful interviews with leading business figures and management writers." Then if you still haven't gotten enough, try burrowing into the Podcasts page, where you can listen in or view the transcripts- they read not unlike news articles- to uncover new insights across a range of business topics.

bizologie Favorite Apps: Super PAC App

It's everyone's favorite time of year. Political campaign ads 24/7.  Oh, it's not your favorite time of year? Wondering how much of what you hear on these ads is true? (Hint: Probably not much.) Time to download the Super PAC app. When an ad starts  "a user can hold up her phone to identify the commercial and receive objective, third-party information. The Super PAC App allows the user to rate the ad, while understanding who and how much money is behind the ad, what claims the ad is making, and whether those claims are based on facts." Ah, facts. Refreshing. The app is free and currently available for iPhone. Check out the video to learn more about the Super PAC app.

Introducing... Super PAC App from superpacapp on Vimeo.

The Beginning of Cycling for Libraries aka Hanging Out in Vilnius

We arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, three days before the start of Cycling for Libraries, so we had a chance to explore this great city. (For those of you who haven’t heard of Cycling for Libraries, it is an unconference featuring two weeks of library workshops, debates, and tours with a diverse group of international librarians. This year the unique format combined library discussions with 387 miles of bicycling from Vilnius, Lithuania to Tallinn, Estonia. Yep, that’s right, we biked through the Baltics and solved global library issues! The 100+ participating librarians came from 26 countries and worked for national, public, academic, and special libraries. We’ll be writing more about the cycling and library tours in the next few posts.)

Vilnius’s new airport was quaint and easy to navigate. We were greeted with signs advertising “Recharge in Vilnius!”which turned out to be exactly what we did there. While walking around town for 7 hours (trying to beat jet lag), we saw some great gems. If you’re traveling to Vilnius, we highly recommend a visit to Vingio Park, a relaxing park dating back to the 16th century with a really cool Soviet-era stadium where both the annual Lithuanian song festival and Lady Gaga appear in concert. You can rent bicycles there, run through the beautiful forest paths, or just bring a book and chill in the park.

Vingio Park stadium

Gediminas Castle was completed in 1409 and a wonderfully restored tower remains today. You can take a funicular or the stairs up to the top, where you are rewarded with glorious views of the city that show the juxtaposition of the old and the new architectural styles.

View of Vilnius from Gediminas Castle

We were very charmed by Vilnius. The Old Town was picturesque, the restaurants were excellent, and the shopping was some of the best we’ve experienced in Europe. Plus, there’s nothing like sitting in a cafe with a latte watching the rain to make you fall in love with a city.

Our Favorite Places in Vilnius:

Sue’s India Raja totally knocked our socks off. Mint chicken may not sound good, but after one bite, you’ll be hooked. Who knew that the best Indian food we’ve had outside of India would be in Lithuania?

The Coffee Inn chain is the Starbucks of Lithuania, but so much better. Great furniture, free wifi, and good coffee. Recommend are the Frappes and the Almond Latte.

Alchemikas Cocktail Lab – They handcraft the most delicious cocktails. Each drink is a 5-minute work-of-art and as tasty as it is pretty. At half the price of what you would pay in the US, it is also a bargain.

Rental Bike Pick-Up

Picking up our rental bikes from BaltiCCyle for Cycling for Libraries was quite the adventure. We went to the bike shop in the Old Town and were told that the Cycling for Libraries had a special pickup location at the “bike warehouse.” The description of the warehouse was “Go to the big white building with a hook.” Huh? Once we found the building (you’ll note in the picture that the hook was much more obvious than one would imagine), we followed the spray painted signs to the back, where we could pick up our bikes. After a 3 hour ordeal, where we met many of our cycling colleagues, we set out on the streets of Vilnius by bike with our Po Campo bags in tow.

The building with the bike warehouse in the back.

One of many spray painted green bicycle signs leading us to our destination.

After hours of waiting, we had our bikes!

That night we had our first informal meeting at Town Hall, where we got to meet many more members of our new cycling family. We had a great dinner of traditional Lithuanian food, including potato pancakes and beet soup, which comes with more potatoes, the theme of the entire trip. (Seriously, after two weeks of potatoes twice a day, we can never eat another boiled potato. Luckily, we had Chef Pasi on the bike ride and he fed us the most amazing meals ever out of a tent.)

Many of the Cycling for Libraries participants at the Vilnius Town Hall the night before it all started.

Beet soup with potatoes – yum!

Stay tuned for more posts about all of the exciting adventures we had on the road with Cycling for Libraries in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia!

By Karen Holt of Librarian Lifestyle and April Kessler. Karen and April are librarians at the University of Texas at Austin and are now super fit after biking nearly 400 miles with amazing librarians from around the world.

Warming to ReportLinker

I felt conflicted as I began writing this because it goes against the grain of a bizologist to recommend commercial products when there is so much cool business info available online. I recently had a reference question though that brought me through ReportLinker, so I decided to revisit it outside of my fancy schmancy work subscription to see what’s what. Here’s the good non-subscription stuff: News: In the Top Stories + Archive you’ll find four categories of news: Business, Economy, Finance, and World. Unfortunately the news pages are not searchable by keyword, which is supremely annoying because you have to browse in hopes of finding a story that’s relevant to your research. But, if you do find one, you will be delighted at the amount of analysis and forecasting (read: excerpts from MarketLine reports) that goes into it. Conclusion:  Hot if you find what you need, but otherwise tepid.

Industry Overviews: From the homepage there are links to major industries and sub-segments, e.g. Consumer Goods -> Footwear. Click the “more” button on the Footwear page, you get a solid, citations included, executive summary of the industry including Regional Markets, Industry Leaders, and Market Outlook. Conclusion:  Improving by degrees!

A note on subscribing: Naturally RL wants you to give them money for their assemblage of “public” reports for download. Of course they keep titles vague and don’t tell where they sourced them lest you go find them yourself. On the other hand, when I drilled to the point-of-subscription, I was pleased to see the tag read $56 for a day of access. Conclusion:  Factors like time constraints and the number of reports RL has on a given topic might make the day pass a temperate investment.