LSC 819: Information Sources & Services: Business Information

Due February 6st

All homework is reviewed in class on the day it is due. Bring the homework to class. If you are unable to attend, please send it electronically. Electronic submission must be received by 6:30 pm or no credit will be given.

Students are expected to work individually on assignments.

Defendable answers- 5%. Complete Citations (author/editor, title/database, publisher, copyright date, page number/ webpage, frequency, and cost [you might have to ask the librarian how much the source cost])- 2%

1- Core sources, online databases, government documents, directories, private companies

1. Name two sources can I go to find out more about Chicken/Poultry ranching and where did you find them?

2. According to a Dialog directory, how many poultry farms are there in MD?

3. Name any government document that will help me in become a beekeeper?

4. Can you find who in your workplace has made a political contribution in the 2006 campaign cycle? Where did you find it?

5. Search S-1 statements for a company that went public recently and list 3 risk factors.

6. Select a10-K statement and read the Management Discussion of an established company and identify one key strategy for the coming year. Follow up by reading the most recent 10-Qs and give the current status of the strategy.

7. Give the name and title of an alumnus/alumna from your undergraduate school serving as a officer or director in a publicly traded company.

8. How much money does your bank hold in Deposits ($000)? What source did you use?

9. What is the future of sneakersr? What source did you use?

10. Name one software program that can help in knowledge management. competative intelligence, or data mining. What does it do?

11. In the past year, how many stories were collected in Factiva mentioning L.L. Bean. How many are in US, in non-US, and featured your company?

12. Search for ("a company name" and Venture) in an internet search engine, blogosphere, company website, and a fee-based database. How many results did you get in each and how productive was it?

14. Using directories and let us know if the following companies are Private, Public, Subsidiary, Brand, or Obsolete.

Oryx Press, AZ ___ Post-it Notes, MN ___

Exxon, TX ___ J. P. Morgan, NY ___

Xybernaut, VA ___ Buena Vista Winery, CA ___

Sinclair Oil, NJ ___ Zapata, NY ___

Cooper Co, NJ ___ Hazama, JP ___

Manischewitz, OH ___ General Electric, CT ___

Coke, GA ___ Juno Online Services, NY ___

Taco Bell, KY ___ Georgetown University, DC ___

Standard & Poors, NY___ Thomson, ON ___

LSC 819: Information Sources & Services: Business Information

Due February 27th

All homework is reviewed in class on the day it is due. Bring the homework to class. If you are unable to attend, please send it electronically. Electronic submission must be received by 6:30 pm or no credit will be given.

Students are expected to work individually on assignments.

Defendable answers- 5%. Complete Citations (author/editor, title/database, publisher, copyright date, page number/ webpage, frequency, and cost [you might have to ask the librarian how much the source cost])- 2%

2- Industry, NAICS, ratios, financial statements, Economic Census, stocks, mutual funds, advisory services, experts, case studies

1. Use a North American Industry Classification System Manual, to retrieve the NAICS codes for the value chain of a hammer or candy from raw materials to retail.

2. Use the NAICS code for the last item or service you purchased and use that code to search the following databases. How many results did you get? Hint: use field searching

ABI/Inform or some other general business database
Investext or some other stock database
Business & Industry or some other trade journal database
Any business database on Dialog
Other: Surprise me

3. Use the NAICS code from question two and provide the following answers for the three major ratio books (RMA, D&B, and Leo Troy)

	RMA	D&B	Leo Troy
How many industries in each book
Sample Size
Dates covered
Sources of data
Collection Period
Total assets
Operating expenses
Inventory turnover
Quick ratio
Advertising expenses

4. Retrieve three years worth of Financial Statements for a company.

5. Using a Morningstar product find all international bond funds. Which fund is the top company listed by asset size?

6. Use Valueline Investment Survey, Selection and Option and choose a company. a) Has an insider bought back some of the company's stock? then get the Valueline company report and b) guess why she/he bought the stock back, based on the report.

7. a) Use the Valueline screener and search for a good stock pick with a safety ranking of 1 and financial strength of A++. b) What does Yahoo Finance say about the cheapest stock from that list.

8. Find a analyst report on the same company from question seven (if question 7 not done, choose another company).

9. Identify experts on the industry to which the company from question seven or eight belongs to from the a) academic and b) business world. Why did you pick those experts?

10. Are there any case studies on a company or industry mentioned in this homework? Where did you look?

11. How many Internet Service Providers are based in DC MSA? What is the average salary among these companies? Are there other areas that has more providers? Download and print out the results of the top ten MSAs in a spreadsheet.

12. How many bookstores are there in the US? Don't forget the non-employers? Download the results to a spreadsheet.

13. Where are the top ten establishment types for books sold in Maryland? Hint: use product lines. Download the results to a spreadsheet.

14. Cite five articles, from three different sources, about a reorganization in any of the industries from any question.

15. Take a company mentioned in any of the questions above and look them up in the stock market tables of the Wall Street Journal and tell me what the line means.

LSC 819: Information Sources & Services: Business Information

March 27th

All homework is reviewed in class on the day it is due. Bring the homework to class. If you are unable to attend, please send it electronically. Electronic submission must be received by 6:30 pm or no credit will be given.

Students are expected to work individually on assignments.

Defendable answers- 5%

Complete Citations (author/editor, title/database, publisher, copyright date, page number/ webpage, frequency, and cost [you might have to ask the librarian how much the source cost])- 2%

4- Marketing, adverting, demographics, GIS map, Patents, and Technology

1. Choose a product you have bought in the past two months. Find five demographic attributes and two psychographics features of users for that product or brand.

2. What are the top three popular magazines are read by the users of your product.

3. Choose two demographic characteristics and find the MSA that have the most people who meet those characteristics.

4. From the MSA found in question three, how much effective buying income or disposable income does have the average household have?

5. Find advertising rates for a one time full page ad in the magazines mentioned in question two.

6. MSA from question three, identify four local places to advertise in.

7. Use the Census website or ArcView to create a GIS map for the MSA in mentioned in question three to show income by county, show with 7 classes and label counties.

8. Who do I contact to get my commercial broadcast on the CNN Airport Network?

9. What is the market share for the product mentioned in question one and how much as the top three competitors spend on their advertising campaigns for last year.

10. What does "bleed" mean in media terms?

11. What are the magazines Carpe Diem Communications publish?

12. What kind of patents have Lockheed applied for from a VA- based inventor received in the past year?

13. Is there a patent for a mouse (animal) harness/leash?

14. What venture capital firms fund technology in MD?

15. How many gay couples are your census tract?

LSC 819: Information Sources & Services: Business Information

Marist Hall 208

All homework is reviewed in class on the day it is due. Bring the homework to class. If you are unable to attend, please send it electronically. Electronic submission must be received by 6:30 pm or no credit will be given.

Students are expected to work individually on assignments.

Defendable answers- 5%

Complete Citations (author/editor, title/database, publisher, copyright date, page number/ webpage, frequency, and cost [you might have to ask the librarian how much the source cost])- 2%

3- Economics, statistics, accounting, tax, international, trade

Due April 24

Must choose one question from 2-4, 5-9, and 10-14

1. Graph the annual national personal income from your birth year or 1959 until 2006.

2. What is the title and gist of FAS 141 ?

3. Give three facets of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

4. Find tables with the sales taxes for all fifty states. Which state has the highest tax on gas and which state has the lowest tax on tobacco?

5. Print all IFS data for Albania in 2005.

6. Graph monthly GDP an Asian country, between 2000 and 2006.

7. Compare the growth of literacy with the number of ISP in an African country by providing a table.

8. What was annual price of crude oil since 1972? (you will have to choose a market)

9. Which countries are the major suppliers of crude oil the US for the past 5 years?

10. What is the current Harmonized Code and Standard Industrial Trade Classification for honey?

11. What country exports the most honey and to a non-us country?

12. Name two custom brokers who deal with honey in US?

13. Are the investment climates of Honduras, Latvia, and Sudan good or bad, give me an example?

14. Which countries are buyers of cosmetics mentioned in Stat-USA?

15. Write one question about a topic we covered in class but homework did not cover.