Help with Constructing a Works Cited List (Bibliography) using MLA or APA:

It's April, also known as term paper season.

That means gathering and formatting your list of sources to include on your 'works cited list' (also referred to as a 'reference list' or 'bibliography'). Most students are required to use either the MLA or APA style of citations.

Here are some links to guides which will offer some help with this (unpleasant, but) necessary step in writing a research paper.

• Citation Styles, Tools & Techniques

Note in particular the following guides:

• Citing Your Sources - APA Style
• Citing Your Sources - MLA Style
• Citations: Deciphering and Using Them

In addition, the Library subscribes to tools which can help you automate this process. Furthermore, some of the article databases will also gather the components for the citation:

• RefWorks
• RefWorks Resource Guide (i.e. a how-to guide)
• NoodleBib
• Citation Tools in Sawyer Library Databases

Recurring Reference Question: I sent myself a link to an article, but now the link doesn't work. Help!

If you capture a link to an article from the address bar in one of our databases, then chances are, the link will not work later on. This is because the URL in the address bar was created on-the-fly, based on the search that you performed, and it is not a permanent link.

Instead, look for a link within the identifying record for the article (where the title, author, and source information is given). This may be listed under "tools" (as in the Ebsco databases) and referred to as a:

• PURL, or a Persistent URL
• Permalink
• Document URL

Sometimes the permalink is located all the way at the bottom of the screen, at the very end of the article. The ProQuest databases are in this category (ABI-Inform, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe), as well as the Gale databases (Academic Onefile, Global Issues in Context, Opposing Viewpoints in Context, Biography in Context, Gale Virtual Reference.)

Also, if you find a book in the library's catalog, the permanent links are labeled as "Link to this record." Right clicking on the link will give the option to copy the link location.

Where is "The Chronicle of Higher Education"?

LexisNexis has changed its interface, and as a result, it is no longer easy to do a collective search of university and higher education newspapers, although the material is still covered by Lexis.

Here are a couple of options:

Open the 'Search the News' widget box.

Option 1) Type 'Chronicle of Higher Education' in the Source Title box. This will limit the search results to only those articles published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Option 2) Enter your search terms, and change the default source from Major World Publications to All News.

Then from the results screen, limit by the source type [Newspapers], and look to see if The Chronicle of Higher Education (or some of the University News Wires) is amongst the results.

Option 3) Use the Sawyer Library's eJournal Search to identify the databases which include The Chronicle of Higher Education, and follow the appropriate link.

From off campus, entering the databases will require a current Suffolk ID.


Option 4) Use the Browse function within LexisNexis Academic to locate The Chronicle of Higher Education and University Wire publications:

Notable E-Book: Handbook of Psychology (2nd Edition)

Cross-searchability and 24/7 anywhere and everywhere access options have always made eReference books attractive.  But sometimes there are other considerations, too.  In the case of the new Handbook of Psychology, one of those considerations is the amount of shelf space we'll save!  For the Handbook of Psychology is, in print, twelve large volumes.   So, we opted for the electronic version, which allows users to do keyword searching across all volumes as well as browse and open material from a table of contents.

Wiley, the publisher, claims that "The Handbook of Psychology, Second Edition, provides psychologists, practitioners, researchers, and students with complete and up-to-date information related to the field of psychology and behavioral science.  New topics include discoveries based in neuroscience, clinical psychology's new interest in evidence-based practice and mindfulness, and new findings in social, developmental and forensic psychology."

And reviewers are also impressed. Alan Kazdin, in PsycCRITIQUES, recently said "The work is extraordinary in scope by virtually any metric. The consistencies of the individual contributions across the many volumes are remarkable in level of depth and style of writing. The Handbook of Psychology is a major work without peer in scope and coverage of the conceptual, empirical, and applied advances of psychology. The volumes provide a status report on psychological science, even though clearly selective in their contents. There are broad issues to raise that span many volumes and areas of our field. Overall the volumes reflect an enormous accomplishment, statement, and status report. There is no other set of volumes I have seen that is as comprehensive, integrative, or enlightening as this Handbook."

The Wiley Online Library interface does have some quirks, however.  On the landing page, when you enter the Handbook, browsing is relatively simple, just expand the volume links in the lower middle of the page.  Searching is a little trickier, because if you just put your search terms in the box in the upper right, you'll actually search across the entire Wiley Online Library, so you'll likely pull up everything BUT content from this Handbook--including many articles and book chapters we don't have access to.  So, instead, click the link (highlighted in yellow in the above screenshot) to "Search in this Book."  You can search specific titles, authors or sections if you select from the the check boxes below the main search box, or just put in keywords.  If there are multiple hits, Wiley will sort them by relevance.

When you click on an entry in your search results

note that you first see an abstract.  Tabs provide links to the article, figures (illustrations, tables, graphs and photographs--a handy feature!) and to the references.  Look to the right (as circled in yellow in the above screenshot) if you want to go straight to a PDF of the entry/article.  You see that there are also article tools.  These include the ability to export a reference to RefWorks.

Here is a list of the twelve volumes of the Handbook of Psychology:

Volume 1--History of Psychology
Volume 2--Research Methods in Psychology
Volume 3--Behavioral Neuroscience
Volume 4--Experimental Psychology
Volume 5--Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 6--Developmental Psychology,
Volume 7--Educational Psychology
Volume 8--Clinical Psychology,
Volume 9--Health Psychology
Volume 10--Assessment Psychology
Volume 11--Forensic Psychology
Volume 12--Industrial and Organizational Psychology

As you can tell, this is a detailed and valuable resource.  As the publisher says: "While the field of psychology has been rich in both comprehensive encyclopedias that offer brief listings on a wide range of topics as well as in handbooks devoted to specific topics in the field, there has not previously been any single handbook designed to cover the broad scope of psychological science and practice. Handbook of Psychology fills the gap and provides the only singular source of information on the field of psychology."

Psychology researchers, and those interested in behavioral science aspects of other fields of research, take note of this new addition!

New Database: Mintel Oxygen

Are you interested in market trends and consumer research for the U.S. and Europe?  Then a database we recently added will be useful to you.  It is Mintel Oxygen.  And the company claims "Mintel Oxygen is a one-stop online platform, designed to give you easy and fast access to our smart consumer and market insight."  Constantly adding new reports, they claim that "more than 600 report titles covering UK, European, US and International consumer markets are added to Mintel Oxygen every year" and that each one constitutes "an insightful mix of sound data, opinion and comment."

Unlike many of the databases that run through our proxy server, this one has a few extra hoops to jump through.  First, when you click the link, you'll have to accept the rather lengthy "Conditions of Use" agreement.  Then, after you enter the database, it wants you to set up (or log into) your own individual account before accessing anything.

This is easy enough to do.

Just click one of the links to create a personal profile on the landing page.  (Since the database uses cookies, you'll probably go straight to a login page the next time you access the file.)

You are most likely to be interested in the Reports area, which you can click into from the categories (divided between U.S. and International) on the landing page after login--or through the pull down menu in purple top frame at any time. See screenshot above.

Report categories include Beauty and Personal Care, Drink, Finance, Food, Foodservice, Health and Wellbeing, Household, Leisure and Entertainment, Lifestyles, Multicultural America, Retailing and Apparel, Technology, Transportation and Travel.  The reports tend to be both varied and specific, as this partial list of recent drink reports

indicates. There are even some subject Webinars (look for link in the top purple frame).  The latest of these, at the moment, is "The Snacking Consumer."  You might also want to browse through the Analyst Insights area, also linked in the top frame.

Yes, you can search across the database.  Either plug a keyword or two into the simple search box in the upper right, or link into the the Advanced Search through the Search options in the top frame.

The database is awkward in many ways.  You have to look at report sections in bits and pieces.  The landing page for a report might have an area marked "Download" that offers a PDF of a "Report Brochure," which might make you think you are getting the full report.  Au contraire!  This is just an ad offering to sell the report you have right in front of you for $4000 or so. (You don't need to buy anything, of course.  We subscribe already!)  To access the report, either click the Report Content sections below or open the Table of Contents (a green button) to View Tables or pick specific report areas.

For more on the database, you might want to take a look at their quick help guide.

With more than 600 reports each year,  this database can certainly help you research market sizes, shares and forecasts, brand profiles and product innovation.  But don't forget that we have other databases with market reports and consumer data.  These include GMID from Euromonitor as well as the many reports tucked away in databases like Business Source Complete and ABI/INFORM Complete.  And for more on all our marketing and advertising resources, see our LibGuide.

[Find Mintel Oxygen on our A-Z database list, or in our Subject Database List for Business & Management.]

New Database: Sharpe Online Library

We know that most researchers, especially undergraduate students, have little patience for using print reference books these days.  So, one of our jobs, as librarians, is to identify and purchase reliable online reference that students can readily access and use to get basic information about a topic as they start their research process.  (That is, we need to give you a practical alternative to Wikipedia!)

To this end, we have several robust collections of online reference books.  These are the online equivalent of authoritative reference encyclopedias and handbooks where entries are authored by scholars and carefully edited by professionals in the topic's field.  (That is, something likely to be better and more reliable than Wikipedia!)  These collections include Gale Virtual Reference Library and Sage Knowledge, as well as Oxford Handbooks Online and CQ Political Reference Suite.

Now we have added another publisher platform of reference books.  It is Sharpe Online Reference (SOLR).

The publisher says that "Sharpe Online Reference offers interdisciplinary subject coverage" and "the convenience and flexibility of online research 24/7." They also claim that their electronic collections provide "revised and updated editions of Sharpe's most popular encyclopedias" and "free annual updates."  Also included: "SOLR Primary Source Archive: more than 500 key annotated documents, audio/visual clips, images, and other primary sources covering all periods of U.S. History," and "Global Voices: more than 125 primary resources and annotations, reflecting foreign perspectives on the United States."

At this point, we have purchased seven of the more recent titles on the platform.  On the U.S. side:

• Democratic, Republican, and Third Parties (1790-2011)
• Asian American History and Culture
• Culture Wars in America

And on the Global side:

• Booms and Busts: Economic History (1630s-Present)
• Global Social Issues
• Native Peoples of the World
• World Food

As always, we will add only those titles that seem to match the curricular interests of our students and faculty.  But we will certainly be adding additional titles of interest as they are published.  Sharpe encyclopedias are basic, useful reference tools that will likely provide a good starting point for research on related topics.  (But remember, your professors will likely want you to use peer-reviewed journal literature for most of your research!)

One example from our Sharpe titles is  Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures, and Contemporary Issues .  It was described by Library Journal in this way: "coverage of 400 different groups and selected countries and issues is by an impressive roster of historians and anthropologists from a wide range of institutions. It is particularly gratifying to see ethnic and native groups included from Western industrialized nations as well as from the more expected developing areas. ... The articles are written in clear prose and deal with the geography, history, religion, customs and rituals, and colonial experiences of each group while being respectful of each culture's heritage and customs. ... There are few reference sources available in this area with worldwide coverage. Because of its quality and its scope, this excellent work is recommended."

To use SOLR, from the landing page click a title to search within or browse just that one encyclopedia.  Or use the search box at the upper right to search across all the Sharpe content we own.  You should also know that although it is simple to print entries you like, other functions like bookmarking, emailing, and adding notes can only be done after setting up a sub-account.  And if you want a citation, MLA, APA and Chicago style are all included on any print request.

We hope you'll find this new and growing reference collection useful!

[Individual titles we own will all be in our Online Catalog.  Otherwise, find SOLR on our A-Z or eBooks database lists.]

Did You Know...We Have Our Own Google Scholar!

Although your average reference librarian will usually suggest that using one or more of our (expensive) fulltext-rich, enhanced scholarly databases is the best way to tackle most academic research, we also recognize that people love to just Google their topics.  The massive, scatter-shot nature of Google always ensures that you will get some results, no matter what you plug into the search box.  And if those results are not the best possible research materials, many students (and some faculty) don't much care.

Google is smart enough to know that to be all things to all people, they needed to help academics winnow out more scholarly materials when they search.  Hence, Google Scholar.  The company says that "Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research."  And although they are not exactly transparent about what goes in and what doesn't, they do have information about inclusion and metrics at this page.

One of the (several) frustrations about Google Scholar is, however, that much of the scholarly literature they index is in publisher databases that charge a lot of money.  If a database doesn't know who you are or how you are academically-affiliated, they will likely offer to provide easy access to a wide variety of peer-reviewed journal articles if you are willing to provide credit card information and pay between $15 and $75 dollars to view and download them.  But, remember those expensive databases I mentioned in the first paragraph? We own or subscribe to a myriad of them.  And those databases might well provide "free" access to those same articles as long as you are a current student or faculty of CAS/SBS!  But YOU MUST GO THROUGH OUR VERSION OF GOOGLE SCHOLAR.

As you can see from the URL in this screenshot,  the link to Google Scholar that you find on our homepage or in our LibGuides actually runs through our proxy server, allowing you to be authenticated and recognized as a Suffolk University researcher, no matter where you are, 24/7.

So when you do a search and get results, a great many of the articles that might come from sources like JSTOR, Wiley Online Library, Sage Journals Online and other databases, will open for you (after you authenticate) when you click on the title.

Keep an eye out for the 360Link that you sometimes see to the right.  This will check our eJournal Locator across all databases. This clickable access can make research much easier.  But be aware of two things.  First, not all materials cited in Google Scholar come from scholarly journal databases.   And, secondly, like all libraries, we do not own all items or all databases.  So, our version of Google Scholar can be a great help, it is not the magic bullet of universal literature access.  (Alas, universal open access is just a dream we dreamed.)

Also, consider using the Advanced Search Option in Google Scholar--

a hard-to-spot popup box. Here, you can indicate an author you want, look for an exact phrase (even just in the title of the article) or specify a date range.  This allows for (slightly) more focused searching.

But there are other things that Google Scholar can be useful for besides providing a wide-ranging index with links.  Did you know that many people use it to track cited references of important articles?  For an explanation of that, see this LibGuide page.  And related to this, some software and services actually use Google Scholar to do the kind of "citation analysis" we usually associate with the "impact factor."  Publish or Perish is an example.

And did you know that you can export Google Scholar references to RefWorks?  It's one of the "Settings."

 And for more on RefWorks, see this guide.

So, yes, Google Scholar can be a useful tool because it searches across so many materials.  But it is essential that you critically evaluate the items you find in it--especially those NOT from a peer-reviewed journal.  There are some sources in Google Scholar (like other student term papers) that your professor will probably not want to see on your bibliography.

Bottom line, if you are planning on using Google Scholar, be cautious and critical.  And if you are a member of the Suffolk community, be sure to use our version to reduce dead-end (or costly) frustration!

New Database: Mergent Intellect

This particular new database, useful for many B-School folks, is less a "new" database, than a rebranding--and a work in progress, at that!

At the start of 2012, Mergent (from whom we already got a financials-rich database called MergentOnline) became "the exclusive provider of D&B Library Solutions" like the benchmark product Key Business Ratios, Hoover's Academic and the industry information database, First Research.  Unfortunately, the transition has not been a completely smooth one.  First Research requires clicking far too many buttons before doing a search, and the old Hoover's platform never worked through our proxy server after the Mergent takeover.

That's why we have switched over to a new Mergent-branded database called Mergent Intellect--which is, essentially, a beefed-up version of Hoover's.

A company press release before the launch of Mergent Intellect claimed it was "a new web-based product. Mergent Intellect is highly flexible and features a deep collection of worldwide business information that enables companies to generate new insightful business intelligence. Powered by Mergent’s expertise in developing products for the reference marketplace with D&B/Hoover’s 85 million+ private company database, Mergent Intellect offers new and existing clients a unique opportunity to access private and public U.S. and international business data, industry news (First Research), facts and figures, company and executive contact information and much more."

That may be.  But, as I've indicated, this is basically a re-vamped Hoover's.  (Still, the important thing for Sawyer Library is that the new file actually works...even though operations tend to be slow!)  Many users will want to use this resource the same way they did Hoover's, to get a good overview of a company.  And although the database does include basic information for many private and international firms, it is strongest in providing info on U.S. public companies.

If you look up a public company, it is worth moving the radio button on the opening screen from "Both" to "Public" as you are more likely to pull up just your company and not a long list of poor matches.  Once on the initial company screen, note the options in the dark blue border above the "Key Information."  And whatever page you are on, you'll want to pay attention to the additional options in the lighter blue left frame.  When I look up Target, as an example, the useful links for Company History and a Competitors List are links to the left of the opening landing page.

The Company History is fairly straightforward (and valuable!), but although the competitors list is worthwhile (since each listed name is an active link that allows you to explore the other company), the initial display--at least on the searches I did--lists all the financial values on the competitors table at $0--which isn't exactly useful as a quick financial snapshot for comparing the companies!

Likewise, if you explore the top frame options, you'll probably have to explore a left-frame secondary choice on the next page for more and better information.  The initial "Industry Details" screen looks quite insignificant, as it only lists major segment categories as words. But if you actually go to the SIC codes from the left frame, and click an appropriate link, the database will transfer you over to its industry report partner, First Research and perform an industry search for that code.

You can export your reports, mailing lists, etc. to Microsoft Excel, Word or Adobe Acrobat, as well as print.  Look for icon links to the upper right.

And as an added option for those who want it,  there's a link in the top frame to a white pages ("Residential Search") database that will identify someone by name, provide an address and phone number, and even map their location.  (Privacy alert!)  Of this, Mergent says: "Through WhitePages Pro, Mergent Intellect will now include immediate access to contact information for 90 percent of U.S. households, including name, address, age, household members, and previous address, as well as offer reverse phone lookup capabilities."

Mergent Intellect is, frankly, not as smart or as user-friendly as it ought to be.  And we have been trying to get "user guide" information from the company for some time, but to no avail.  Hopefully, it will improve as it ages.  For now, those looking for what used to be Hoover's (who don't want to hunt down those profiles in LexisNexis Academic or ABI/INFORM Complete--where they can also be found) will likely find this database worth exploring.

[Find Mergent Intellect on our A-Z database list, or in our Subject Database List for Business & Management.]

New Database: MLA International Bibliography

In an attempt to provide the best possible professional-level resources for literature and related subjects, we made a database switch this summer.  We removed Literary Reference Center Plus from our roster of online files, and substituted the well-known MLA International Bibliography.  Although this database has no full-text content on its own, it is considered a premier index.  And since we are getting the MLA International Bibliography via EBSCOhost, we will be able to link many of the citations researchers will find to the complete articles they'll want.

The Modern Language Association (MLA) claims their product is "the most comprehensive listing of scholarly material in language, literature, culture, and folklore."

It is certainly a detailed bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations and because it was converted from a paper bibliography going back almost a hundred years, citations date back to the 1920s and total 2.3 million references.  The MLA International Bibliography indexes than 4,400 journals & series, and 1,000 book publishers.


Coverage is international in scope and includes almost 60 selected titles from JSTOR's language and literature (deep backfile) collections, all of which link as full-text.

MLA International Bibliography also contains nearly 11,000 subject names and terms. Subjects consist of literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing. Listings on rhetoric and composition and the history, theory and practice of teaching language and literature are also included.

In addition to the bibliography, the database includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals; the association's proprietary thesaurus used to assign descriptors to each record in the bibliography; and a proprietary, searchable directory of noted authors' names, with links to brief descriptive notes.

The MLA International Bibliography works perfectly well just doing a simple keyword or field search from the landing page.  Howeve, if you wish to explore the the indexes, just click the "More" link in the top blue border.  If I browse the index of "Literary Technique," for example, for the word iambic, I am offered several options, including "iambic meter," "iambic pentameter," "iambic tetrameter" and "iambic trimeter" with an indication of the records count for each index term.

The other complimentary add-on is The MLA Directory of Periodicals (which is also a link in the top border). Although most researchers won't need it,  it does provide useful facts about journals indexed, including information for potential contributing authors--like submission requirements and details (like time between submission and publication decision).

Remember, MLA International Bibliography is not inherently a full-text database, but you will find lots of full-text provided.

We hope that students and faculty in the English and Humanities & Modern Languages departments--and anyone studying international culture--will find this a vaulable database to consult.

  [Find MLA International Bibliography on our A-Z database list, or in our Subject Database List for Literature, Arts & Humanities.]

New Database: Nursing Resource Center

We have several options for finding useful medical information. These include MEDLINE with Full Text, Health Reference Center Academic, the more consumer-oriented Health and Wellness Resource Center and several other databases and reference resources listed on our Sciences Database list and our Medicine and Radiation Therapy Resource Guide.

Now, thanks to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the Mass Library System, we have access to one more--a database specific to the support of nursing students and professionals--called Nursing Resource Center.

Either click on or search specific drugs or diseases in the right search boxes (indicated the screenshot above) or do a simple keyword search in the Basic Search box in the yellow area to the left.

The default results will usually link you to "Diseases and Conditions" entries from a Gale medical encyclopedia or two. These would be useful to get a grounding in the topic and to learn some of the vocabulary used in discussions of that subject. But if you are supposed to use journal literature, click the separate tab for Journals. (See arrow in above screenshot.)

Reference book materials include a 2008 PDR Nurses Drug Handbook, Delmar texts like Foundations of Basic Nursing, and the Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health. There are drug monographs, medical illustrations, and even more than 200 nursing-related animations in the database, as well. For more on what's in the database and how to search effectively, take a look at this publisher webpage.

To be frank, this is NOT the best database we have for medical research. If you need scholarly journal literature related to medicine or psychiatry, I would recommend MEDLINE with Full Text as your best option. This exhaustive database indexes just about all medical journal literature and links you to all the publisher content that we have (just look for the 360 link green dot below results entries). And if you want more readable content for personal information, the user-friendly Health and Wellness Resource Center might be your best bet.

But if you do have an interest in nursing information specifically, then this database provided by the Commonwealth is worth exploring.

New Database: Business Insights: Essentials

We are fortunate enough to get access to several additional databases through the MBLC & MLS with Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Federal funding. The majority of these come from Gale/Cengage. And these include electronic resources like the useful Academic OneFile. This summer, there are some database changes. One is a switch from a database called Business & Company Resource Center (which is no longer available) to one called Business Insights: Essentials (BIE).

BIE is a brand new database. So much so that one of the few web sheets about the file still says "coming soon!" It is designed to be a multi-purpose database that provides a variety of company- and industry-specific resources. According to the publisher, the file allows users to:

• Easily research companies, industries and business topics in the context of timely news and reports
• Instantly analyze and compare financial and statistical data with interactive charting tools
• Utilize data from Gale staple publications, including International Directory of Company Histories, Market Share Reporter, Business Rankings Annual, Encyclopedia of American Industries and many others
• Access company profiles and industry rankings, as well as brand and product information
• Access SWOT reports, financial analysis tools, business associations, investment reports and market research reports.

Although you can select certain options from the dark gray bar near the top of the landing page, that isn't necessarily the best approach. For example, if you click "Industries" you don't get an industry search page, but rather over 1100 listed industries in an alphabetical list. So, it is easier to either type in a basic search in the opening screen or click the Advanced Search option just beneath the orange search button. A basic search isn't a bad starting point.

Like Ebsco's excellent Business Source Complete, it easy to sort and limit your results (as in the above, too large--over 137,000 results!--search for footwear) using the refining options in the left frame.

The many materials featured in the database include:

• More than 2 million investment research/brokerage reports
• Thousands of detailed financial reports (including fundamentals data and comparison tools)
• More than 2,500 market research reports
• More than 3,900 full-text periodicals
• More than 1,000 SWOT reports (updated quarterly)
• Nearly 25,000 industry reports
• Nearly 11,000 company histories
• Approximately 43,400 Market Share articles
• More than 65,000 articles from Gale’s Business Rankings Annual
• Nearly 2,300 corporate chronologies
• More than 2,000 additional reference articles published by Gale

One of the nifty tools you can access is one that allows you to compare companies or industries. (Click "Comparison Charts" on the right of the dark gray menu bar.) If you are doing company comparisons, the trick may be picking the right parent firm from the suggestions offered. For better results, use the ticker symbol instead of word name in the search box. Here's an example of a comparison between Nike and Skechers. I can change the point of comparison, add or remove companies, change the display option, and print or save in a variety of file formats. (Each dot on the chart is a data point.)

For training videos from the publisher, please see:

• Performing a Business and Company Resource Center Company Search using Business Insights: Essentials (3:08)
• Performing a Business and Company Resource Center Industry Search using Business Insights: Essentials (2:00)
• Performing a Business and Company Resource Center Article Search using Business Insights: Essentials (2:14)
• Basics (3:40)
• Content Types (5:50)
• Searching (5:56)

So here is another business research tool to explore! We hope you find it useful.

[Find Business Insights: Essentials on our A-Z database list, or in our Subject Database List for Business & Management.]

Note to Faculty: Harvard Business Review for Course Work

As you may already know, one of the crown jewels of Ebsco's top-of-the-line business database, Business Source Complete (BSC), is their complete run (back to 1922!) of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), one of the most important business journals ever published. A mix of the popular and practical with the highly academic, HBR is, indeed a valuable journal. That's why B-school professors are often interested in using articles from it for class readings.

Although HBR is in our database with full-text PDFs, you may have noticed the scary warning at the end of the articles that reads:

"Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org."

Generally, when a library leases a database, the use of persistent links (or PURLs) in BlackBoard syllabi would be considered "fair use" at that institution. But Harvard likes to write its own rules, and Ebsco is going along with it.

Therefore, even linking to the database record for an HBR article is, according to Harvard, not an "intended" use of database content, and according to them, verboten unless specifically licensed. So, as a faculty member at Suffolk, you might think that you (or the Bookstore, if they were helping to prepare your CoursePack) might have to email Harvard or go through a process at the Copyright Clearance Center to be able to use HBR for class.

Au contraire! As it so happens, our previous library director contracted via Ebsco to also license something called "Harvard Business Review for Course Work." We pay a large (and I would term it exorbitant) additional annual fee to cover course-related use of HBR. Exactly what does this extra fee cover? Harvard (and Ebsco) have always refused to spell that out. Early in our acquisition process I spoke to a Harvard rep. on the phone and tried to pin down the details. He was evasive. So I finally said that as far as I was concerned "anything short of handing out hundreds of copies of articles to strangers at Park Street Station was covered." And he concurred.

So, if you would like to use HBR in class, PLEASE DO SO. Although, as I say, we have no specifics for this so-called license. However, our interpretation of what we get for the fee is everything warned against in the above statement. That is, you may use HBR articles for:

• Electronic Reserves
• Course Packs (prepared by you or by the SU Bookstore for Suffolk student use)
• Persistent Linking to BSC/HBR Articles in Online Syllabi, Emails or BlackBoard Postings
• Even making Multiple Photocopies from a PDF and handing them out in class!

Keep in mind that this is ONLY for HBR. For most articles that you find in one of our online resources (either from the publisher or an aggregator like Ebsco) putting a stable proxyized link--one requiring a Suffolk IP or authentication of the user--on a reading list in your class BlackBoard account would be considered appropriate, but making multiple copies and handing them out or reprinting the article in a course pack would NOT.

(We are not copyright attorneys here at the Library, but if you are interested in delving into the nature of "fair use," you might want to look through our LibGuide on the Ethical Use of Information.)

We pay this very large fee to keep all Suffolk use of HBR covered, so please utilize this resource! Simply access the journal via links in our eJournal Locator or our Online Catalog, and identify the articles you want to use. Print them, download PDFs, or copy and paste the "Permalink" you can capture from a BSC record into your syllabus.

Ignore the warnings at the end of articles and please do NOT pay additional fees at Harvard Publishing or at CCC for Suffolk use of HBR. (Alas, the fair thing would be for those warnings to not appear on our copies of HBR articles. And BSC Permalinks should only work for institutions that pay the extra fee, like us. Harvard Publishing and the CCC should also refuse to accept additional HBR fees from anyone affiliated with Suffolk. But the world is not a fair one, so it is important for you to remember that you are completely covered for all HBR use while you teach at Suffolk....and while we can continue to pay this fee.)

If you want more information on PURL use in class readings, you might want to consult this general PURL guide and this one specific to BlackBoard.

And happy reading in the Harvard Business Review!