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Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and
staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university
may be unable to access some of these resources.
Foster Business Library Databases:
The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.
Web Resources:
Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.
The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.
The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.
To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.
If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.
The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).
As an example for one industry, a search for the subject Biotechnology Industries retrieved over 160 records in the UW Libraries, with over 40 records are in the Foster Business Libraries' collections, including:The collection includes books on many other industries, including these examples:
Foster Business Library Corporate Annual Reports:The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of several thousand annual reports for hundreds of U.S. and foreign companies. These reports are filed in lateral filing cabinets near the Foster Reference desk under the sign Corporate Annual Reports. Annual reports for companies in an industry can be a valuable source of information about the industry itself. For a list of all the companies in the collection, see the library's Corporate Annual Reports Collection. For an index to corporate annual reports in the collection by industry sector, see the Annual Reports Industry Sector Index. For an index to companies in the collection with headquarters outside the U.S., see Corporate Annual Reports Headquarters Index.
Foster Business
Library Articles:
Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the
Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online,
24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.
Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of
spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations
and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street
Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New
Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO
Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest
NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.
This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full
text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals,
magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a
very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by
word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search
for your topic in the Topic Guide.
Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.
As an example, a subject search for SUB(Biotechnology Industry) produced over 7,000 articles, including over 270 articles in scholarly journals, over 300 magazine articles, over 3,000 articles in trade and industry periodicals, and over 1,400 newspaper articles (including over 130 articles in the New York Times).
Examples of articles, from the searches above, include:
Help:
The Foster Business Library Reference Desk is staffed nearly all the hours that the
library is
open. The
staff at the desk will be happy to help you find research tools on any business
subject. For
e-mail
questions, direct your query to balib@u.washington.edu. For
assistance by telephone, dial (206) 543-8012 during library hours.
See also the Foster Business Library's Business & Economics FAQ, and, in particular, the section for Company and Industry.
For research guides on a wide variety of industries,
products, companies, issues and topics, see the Team Librarian
Consultation archives.
See also the list of industry-specific research guides prepared by other libraries: Industry Research Guides.
ProQuest Databases: