Resources » Business/Finance

Demographics Now: Business & People connects users with a wealth of highly detailed demographic data on more than 24 million U.S. businesses and 206 million consumers

Gale Small Business Builder is a step-by-step online planning tool for starting, managing and optimizing a business or nonprofit.

More than 3,600 encyclopedias and reference sources. Topics covered: world history and culture, medicine and health, statistics, literature, business and science.

Mergent Archives contains the full, digitized text of Moody’s Manuals, dating back to 1909.  Research is simplified through extensive screening options and linked tables of contents for every manual, allowing you to go right to the information that matters to you.  The Archives also contain annual reports dating back to 1925, and stock analyst  reports provided by Ford Equity Research.

Mergent Intellect is a database providing basic company facts on over 20 million North American companies and over 70 million global companies, including company locations; estimated sales and number of employees; industry analysis; Dun & Bradstreet data including D-U-N-S identifier numbers, credit ratings, and corporate “family tree” details; and executive contacts and biographies.

Mergent Online provides business and financial information for over 23,000 U.S. and international companies. 30 years of historical stock prices are available. SEC filings (real-time and archived to 1993) are included for the 10,000+ NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ exchange companies. Financials for 15 years are “as reported” and can be downloaded to spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel.

Everyone is familiar with Morningstar’s expertise in analyzing mutual funds.  But the Morningstar Investment Research Center provides much more than mutual fund information.  You can find analysis of stocks, ETFs, and the markets in general, including market indexes, market sectors, and specific industries.  You can also access all four of Morningstar’s most popular newsletters: Morningstar DividendInvestor; Morningstar FundInvestor; Morningstar StockInvestor; and Morningstar ETFInvestor.  Back issues are available for one year.

In addition to Morningstar’s powerful stock, mutual fund, and ETF screening tools, you can also use the Portfolio tools to learn about asset allocation and goal-based investing, or to assess the amount of risk in your current investment portfolio.

ReferenceUSA is an electronic resource that is useful for finding businesses by name, address, city, state, phone number, or type of business. You can also find 120 million residential listings here.  Who can benefit by using ReferenceUSA? Job seekers looking for companies and contact names; salespeople looking for leads or conducting market research; entrepreneurs searching for business opportunities or suppliers; consumers locating out-of-town companies; vacationers finding motels, restaurants and attractions in other cities; and anyone looking for residential or commercial telephone numbers and addresses, will all find information here. Video tutorials and webinars are available from the ReferenceUSA Learning Center.

ReferenceUSA is available from home to Evanston library cardholders, and is available to anyone visiting the library in person.

Small Business Resource Center is a comprehensive database that covers all aspects of starting and operating a business.