New reference tools for online searchers
Jinfo Blog

15th November 2010

By Penny Crossland

Item

As business researchers we are so used to learning about the latest search engines and web sources that it is easy to forget the more traditional publishers and their attempts at making their content more accessible to the web searcher. VIP Wire alerted us last Friday http://www.vivavip.com/go/w87228 to academic publisher Palgrave MacMillan’s latest release of the Statesman’s Yearbook online. A reference book on information for every country in the word, the Yearbook specialises in summarising the main global events for each year and has been a staple on most reference librarians’ shelves. While there are numerous sites covering basic country information, such as the CIA World Factbook (http://digbig.com/5bcwtn), CountryFacts (http://www.countryfacts.com/) and Index Mundi (http://www.indexmundi.com/), the Statesman’s Yearbook is an authoritative resource on matters covering politics, economics, trade and infrastructure. The Yearbook’s strength is its archive: it has been published annually since 1864. The reference book’s website(http://www.statesmansyearbook.com/) was first launched in 2002 and now includes useful features for those keen on getting their facts straight, such as a ‘credit crunch chronology’ and a ‘natural disasters chronology’. According to the accompanying press release, http://www.vivavip.com/go/w87228 users of the newly released site will be able to view some content before committing to a subscription. More news of interest to researchers keen on global business and economic information comes from Boston-based Credo Reference, an online reference services that acts as a portal for more than 500 titles from over 70 publishers. (http://digbig.com/5bcwtm) Information Today broke the news last week (http://digbig.com/5bcwtk) that Credo has extended its partnership with Berkshire Publishing to include further authoritative resources: Encyclopedia of China, Encyclopedia of Sustainability, Encyclopedia of World History, Global Perspectives on the United States, as well as titles on global terrorism and global sports. What all these publications have in common is that they are produced by well-respected experts in their fields – making their content considerably more reliable than so much of the open source material many web searchers use.

« Blog