News from the library

Indices of Social Development
This new e-Resource has been added and is made available through the website of the VU Library. The ISD database brings together 200 indicators, synthesising them into a usable set of measures to track how different societies perform along six dimensions of social development. 

Zacks trial
WRDS has added the Zacks data to its portal. The trial gives access for one month to a subset of the Zacks database. The Trial Access Period is: December 6, 2012 through January 6, 2013. The trial subset covers: a limited date range for 100 of the largest global companies. Zacks data can be used to empirically analyze analysts’ forecasts and their revisions, price targets and recommendations (e.g., construct popular measures such as consensus forecast, earnings surprises, analyst track records, etc). The geographical coverage is: U.S. and Canada.

Worldscope
There has ben an update of the company data that is available through this database. The Worldscope annual report data can be found using Datastream or LexisNexis (reports). Here you find some specifics on changes by country.

Combining data from SDC & Datastream
A new blog item is available on using both databases for research. A step by step approach is offered.

Information literacy skills & Reference software

In the coming months many students will start working on their paper or Thesis. The library has a few courses that will help you get to a good start:

1) Information search & retrieval courses:

• Check the agenda of the library website for courses presented by library professionals
• Go to the online literacy skills courses which are available 24/7 !

2) Reference software
If you are planning to use much literature it may be a good idea to use special tools to manage your references. The software not only allows you to manage your literature, it also offers automatic export and efficient formatting options to use the references you collected in your paper. Check out the agenda on the library website for courses on: Reference Manager & EndNote.The software should be available on the computers at the university.
You can also try some of the free Reference tools that are available. One of the most popular free reference tools is a plugin called Zotero.

New sources added

A few new sources have been added to the databases that are available through the VU Library website. Most of the information in these sources is Open Access. The new sources are:

• Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS))
  DANS is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The DANS collection includes datasets from the Humanities, e.g. History and Archaeology, Social and Behavioural sciences, and Geospatial sciences. Data and documentation files are available for downloading free of charge for registered users (registration is free of charge). In some cases, permission from the depositor is required before you can download the datafiles.
• CBS websites
  The main website of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) is linked as a specific e-resource. Two links have now been added to specific separate CBS websites. The first of the new links goes to a website on Dutch Census Statistics (Volkstellingen). The second link goes to a website where newly digitized historical datapublications of the CBS become available.

Data Center courses 2012 - 2013

This year the Data Center will provide the following courses:

• Meet the Data Center: Live introduction on the Data Center service. Short introduction of staff, databases, media, tutorials, statistics and services of the Data Center.
• Datastream: Presentation of and exercises in the basic functions and options for Datastream. This includes basic searches, working with lists and Requests Tables. Datastream is a database with financial data from stock exchanges, annual reports as well as economics country data.
• SDC Platinum: Live presentation of the basic functions and options for using SDC. This includes some basic searches and download examples (in English). SDC Platinum is an interface that offers access to databases on Mergers & Acquisitions, Global New Issues, and Venture Capital.

Specific information on the courses (location, dates, times, etc.) is made available through the Black board course of the Data Center. Signing up is mandatory and will be possible as soon as these courses have become available through the agenda of the libary website.

News from the library

Collection Specialist
This October Mark Bruyneel (LinkedIn) has started as the new collection specialist for the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. In this capacity he succeeds Mrs. Montserrat Prats Lopez. Mark also works at the Data Center where the support of databases (like Datastream, Compustat,etc.) has been arranged. At the Data Center he works together with Rick Vermunt (LinkedIn).
I you have any questions about economics literature, (e)books or literature databases you can contact Mark Bruyneel. If you have questions about databases like Datastream, you can contact the Data Center.

Compustat and units
The past year there have been many questions from students about the data you get from databases like Compustat. Information on the presentation of the data in a download can be found on the following blog: On Financial Databases.

Database changes
There have been some changes in the websites/interfaces for two database: Passport GMID and Datastream. You can find some information on these changes at the following blog: Researchfinancial.

Nobel Economics Prize 2012

The Nobel prize for the field of Economics has been awarded to Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design". The two American economists won the Nobel Prize in economics Monday for their research into how to match different actors in given markets, such as job seekers with employers and patients with donated kidneys (WSJ). Below you find two links to publications of both that are available online or in print at the Vrije Universiteit for both scientists:

• Alvin Roth - Publications (Wikipedia)

• Lloyd Shapley - Publications (Wikipedia).

Data Center opening hours 10-12 October

The opening hours of the Data Center helpdesk will deviate from the usual opening hours on Thursday 11 October and Friday 12 October. Overview for the week:

• Wednesday 10 October: between 13:00 pm and 1600 pm
• Thursday 11 October: from 13:00 pm to 15:00 pm
• Friday 12 October: between 13:00 and 16:00 pm.

The data Center team.