Ford Library

UPDATED Tue. Jan. 11: Ford Library will be OPEN from 10AM until 4PM on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 due to winter weather and driving conditions.

All classes have been canceled for today, and Duke University’s Severe Weather Policy is in effect.

Please follow the Library’s Twitter feed for the latest changes in our hours of operation due to weather conditions .

Changes in Library hours will also be listed on our Hours & Directions web page, although it may not be updated as quickly as our Twitter feed.

Please drive safely, and remember to check the links above to make sure we’re open before traveling into campus to visit Ford Library .

If you’ve seen the movie The Iron Giant, you know it’s about a boy and his enormous robot which is capable of doing just about anything and doing it loudly.  In a nutshell, that’s how I describe Bloomberg.  Where  most news services are pulling back on coverage, Bloomberg is expanding.  Name an esoteric market instrument and Bloomberg probably carries its data.  From around the world to your town’s latest bond offering, Bloomberg covers just about everything market related, which may be why this Goliath commands an estimated third of the $16B global financial data market.

Used by our finance students, Bloomberg is also popular with faculty performing research due to the system’s large data footprint and its easy-to-use Excel add-in. Initial training on the system can take no more than 20 minutes for the new user to be up and searching, or they can enroll into Bloomberg University through the system to gain more expert knowledge.  An added bonus, it provides a responsive help desk via chat.

There are drawbacks for the academic user.  Because its software is loaded on individual computers, it can’t be accessed through the web.  And though it contains an enormous data warehouse, it’s hard to say exactly what’s in there other than to dig through the search engine.  Like the Iron Giant, Bloomberg is not the nimblest resource out there, but in terms of comprehensive news and financial information, it’s hard to beat.

The Qualtrics Web Survey software that Ford Library uses to manage some Library services and database subscriptions will be offline for system maintenance all day on Monday, December 20th.

Consequently, the following services will be unavailable on Monday, December 20th:

• Capital IQ account requests
• Vault Alumni account requests
• BoardEx account requests
• Professional School Libraries Staff Email List registration
• Ford Library Suggestion box

We apologize for any inconvenience this necessary down time may cause you; and hope to have the maintenance concluded by Tuesday, December 21.

Ford Library will be closing at 6PM on Thursday, December 16 due to deteriorating weather and driving conditions.

Please follow the Library’s Twitter feed for the latest changes in our hours of operation due to weather conditions .

Changes in Library hours will also be listed on our Hours & Directions web page, although it may not be updated as quickly as our Twitter feed.

Please drive safely, and remember to check the links above to make sure we’re open before traveling into campus to visit Ford Library .

Our latest titles:

Inception
Knight and Day
The Last Airbender
Shadowland
Shrek Forever After
Solitary Man
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Vicious Kind

Widely read and often quoted, these classic business books are among the most influential of all time. A decade ago, some of them were listed as NYT Best Sellers for months. In 2010, these books are still among the library’s most heavily requested.

As you head out for the holidays, browse our display of classic business books. Pick up a volume to read in the airport, or select an audiobook to listen to in the car.

Click on the title for the print book, or the audiobook link, to request material for pick-up at the Ford Library.

Happy Holidays!

• Ariely, Dan. Predictably irrational : the hidden forces that shape our decisions.
  Request Audiobook
• Bennis,Warren G.. On becoming a leader.
  View E-book
• Buckingham, Marcus. First, break all the rules : what the world’s greatest managers do differently.
  Request Audiobook
• Christensen, Clayton M. The innovator’s dilemma : when new technologies cause great firms to fail.
  View E-book | Request Audiobook
• Cialdini,Robert B. Influence : the psychology of persuasion.
  View E-book Read more …

S&P NetAdvantage, had you seen it before it was a database, would be shelf upon shelf of directories, stock guides, and industry reports.  Respected for years, S&P NetAdvantage provides users information on broad industries, company financials and stock performance, as well as executive biographies.  Whether you need to find trends within an industry or looking for investment information, this would be a good choice for your research.

Hsieh, Tony. Delivering happiness : a path to profits, passion, and purpose. Business Plus, 2010.

Monday evening, a new pair of Dansko clogs appeared at my door. I had ordered them two days earlier from Zappos.com. Any customer will tell you that Zappos has great selection, free shipping and problem-free returns. But the reason that customers keep coming back is their service.

Entrepreneur Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, has written a new book, part autobiography, part company history, part business advisory. He tells how he built a dot com business, LinkExchange, which he sold in Microsoft for $265 million, when he was only 24 years old. Then he used the money to fund a start-up, Zappos.com. Most of the book is the tale about Zappos, how the company survived on the brink of bankruptcy for years, barely making payroll, then became an overnight success.

Author Hsieh explains that he cultivated his business by combining profits, passion and purpose. He says his company was successful because they invested their time and money into three areas: into customer service to build the brand; into corporate culture and development of core values; and into employee training and development. Hsieh feels that those three areas are Zappos.com’s only competitive advantages in the long run.

The book closes in 2009, the year that Fortune rated Zappos as one of the best companies to work for. That same year, Amazon.com acquired Zappos for $1.2 billion. Hsieh explains how he made that happen in this entertaining and easy read.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Our Business Insights and MarketLine databases have been merged into a new product, Datamonitor 360. Business Insights is no longer available as a standalone product, and MarketLine will no longer be available as a standalone database after December 31, 2010.

Datamonitor 360 contains full text market research reports focusing on companies and broad industry sectors: consumer goods, energy, finance, health care, and technology. Market analysis and forecasting looks at major issues and threats for each sector with analytical commentary and data.

If you have any questions about Datamonitor 360 or MarketLine, please feel free to contact us.

Three new books about the men (and yes, they are all men), who made millions manipulating money — from the first investment bank in the early 20th century to the hedge fund boom and bust days at the millennium.

Click the titles below for information on location and availability.

• When money was in fashion : Henry Goldman, Goldman Sachs, and the founding of Wall Street. by June Breton Fisher. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
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  Henry Goldman’s granddaughter unfolds the story of the Goldman dynasty, their investment banking business, and the fights and feuds with the Sachs family. The book includes many details about family and society, interwoven with historical events of the era, as well as stories about Henry’s famous friends, including Einstein and FDR.
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• High financier : the lives and time of Siegmund Warburg. by Niall Ferguson. Penguin Press, 2010.
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  London investment banker Siegmund Warburg is credited with the first hostile takeover bid ever in 1959, and for creating the Eurobond market in 1963, largely to circumvent controls. He was instrumental in reestablishing London as a global financial center. Renowned historian Niall Ferguson recounts the life and times of a private and powerful man in this authoritative biography.
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• More money than God : hedge funds and the making of a new elite. by Sebastian Mallaby. Penguin Press, 2010.
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  Using interlocking stories about real life Masters of the Universe, this history of hedge funds profiles the men who gambled on their ability to spot market opportunities that others missed. The author concludes that today’s hedge funds deliver value to the investor; they are not too big to fail; and they are more likely to be contrarian than other types of investors — but as hedge funds grow, so does the risk to the global financial system.
  

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.