Recommendations for Business Periodicals

Executive Summary
Conclusions drawn from this study suggest that these business periodicals be added to library. Asia Times Business Week The Economist Newsweek International Wall Street Journal World Trade Magazine Financial Times (UK) Fortune Forbes.com

Supporting these recommendations are the following findings and conclusions drawn from an observational study comparing the readership, the contents and the scope of each periodical. As a periodical, is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar examples are the newspaper, often published daily, or weekly; or the magazine, typically published weekly, monthly or as a quarterly, so the above mentioned periodicals are best suitable for this purpose. These Periodicals for Business was created with the business librarian in mind, containing ordering information on more than 21,000 business-related publications as well as descriptive information on many titles. The above mentioned periodicals are recommended as they have the following qualities:

BusinessWeek:
Top national and global (Europe & Asia) business news. Includes focus on investing, technology, automobiles, small business, etc. Users can register for access to special features magazine archives, newsletters, forums & message boards, and more.

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Recommendations for Business Periodicals

Economist:
The respected British weekly business magazine. Covers current political, economic, and business situations around the world. The website also provides free access to some of the Economist's data and country reports.

Financial Times:
British newspaper focusing on business news and analysis. An authoritative and well-respected source.

Fortune:
Online business news articles with expanded coverage of current issues. Includes international business news

Forbes.com:
Online business business news. the following: technology, logistics, services, care information and Industry news for manufacturing, commerce, energy, and health

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Recommendations for Business Periodicals

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BUSINESS PERIODICALS TO A LIBRARIAN

THE PROBLEM AND THE PLAN

Abstract:
For the acquisition of periodicals and indexes, the selector role of subject specialists and reference librarians has been transformed by electronic access. In the past these librarians made independent recommendations for new periodicals, indexes, and abstracts by using traditional selection criteria (e.g., relevance, quality, and cost). With electronic resources, considerations such as licensing negotiations and technical issues have complicated the decision-making process and have sometimes removed it from individual librarians or even individual libraries. The author discusses the opportunities for individual librarians, particularly in public service roles, to participate in serials collection management decisions and provides a case study of business periodicals collection management in an academic library.

Role of Subject Specialists:

In the acquisition of periodicals and indexes, the selector role of subject specialists and reference librarians has been transformed by electronic access still the suggestion of subject specialists have their own importance. The subject specialist is: A library staff member with superior knowledge of a subject or discipline, with responsibilities for the selection and evaluation of the library's materials in the subject area and sometimes with

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Recommendations for Business Periodicals the added responsibilities of information service in the subject area and the bibliographic organization of the materials. In the past, subject specialists, either bibliographers or reference librarians, recommended new serial titles on an individual basis, using traditional collection development criteria, such as relevance, quality, and relationship to the existing collection, use, and cost. They also used such methods as citation analysis, use surveys, and potential usage through coverage in indexes in managing periodical collections in their subject areas. They analyzed requests from faculty members for new serial titles, and they made recommendations for cancellations in lean budgetary times. Today selectors within academic libraries face a drastically changed landscape flooded with electronic resources. Writing in 1997, Barbara E. Kemp summarized these changes as follows: Now they must also be familiar with various technologies in order to make informed judgments about the most appropriate format for the purchase of materials available in multiple formats: print, CD-ROM, online databases.

Even with the influence of electronic full-text access and the changes in decision-making, subject specialists can still play a valuable role in serials collection management. Three areas of collection development in which the subject specialist can play a vital part: Doing serials collection evaluation to determine strengths and weaknesses in a mixed print and electronic environment Making cancellation decisions for print serial titles, including full-text electronic access as one of the criteria Adding subscriptions to new print serial titles for serials not available in full-text electronic form

Evaluation of a Business Periodicals Collection:

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Recommendations for Business Periodicals The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) is a comprehensive regional university with approximately 18,000 students. It includes the Belk College of Business Administration which has both undergraduate and MBA programs. In 2002, the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB-I) scheduled its ten-year accreditation visit to UNC Charlotte. This self-study included a survey of library resources. The J. Murrey Atkins Library, a centralized library facility, serves the entire UNCC campus. Journals available in full-text electronic form are included in the library's OPAC. The library subscribes to such aggregators as EBSCOhost and InfoTrac through NCLIVE, a statewide consortium. It also subscribes to ABI/INFORM Global (via NCLIVE), Academic Universe (now LexisNexis Academic), Project Muse, JSTOR, and electronic access to journals from such publishers as Elsevier and Wiley. As part of the College of Business self-study, the business reference librarian undertook a survey of the library's periodical holdings. For an evaluation of the business periodicals collection in a mixed print and electronic environment at UNC Charlotte, the librarian employed the following strategies: Usage of a standard list of core titles Development of a spreadsheet of these titles to check the library's holdings: checking for print subscriptions to these core titles; Checking full-text electronic access to these core titles in aggregators, etc. Development of a list of titles (based on full-text electronic access) for potential cancellation of print subscriptions Consultation with teaching faculty and other library faculty on possible cancellations Determination of savings from cancellation of titles Development of a wish list of new titles to add (print subscriptions for titles not available in electronic form) Subscription to new titles with savings generated by cancellations.

After completing the spreadsheet of business serials holdings, the librarian calculated the number and percentage of titles available in either print or electronic form for inclusion in the AACSB-I self-study. Also generated from the spreadsheet was a list of all of the titles that were available via a print subscription and in at least two electronic databases (e.g., EBSCOhost and InfoTrac. This list of titles formed the basis for determining titles for cancellation. The business reference

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Recommendations for Business Periodicals librarian then reviewed this preliminary cancellation list. Titles which were considered popular reading, (e.g., Business Week, The Economist, Newsweek International, Wall Street Journal World Trade Magazine, Financial Times (UK)) were not candidates for cancellation. The list was also circulated to other subject specialists within the library so that they had an opportunity to state any objections to the cancellation of any titles of an interdisciplinary nature that might impact other departments. The faculty representative for the College of Business received the revised cancellation list to share with the college faculty. After all parties agreed on a final list and savings were calculated, the technical services staff processed the cancellations. Concurrent with the cancellation process, faculty members in the College of Business were compiling a wish list of new titles. The librarian went through the same process of checking these titles in the OPAC for full-text electronic access and checking whether the titles were included in any electronic or print indexes available in the library. There was also a process of negotiation as well. UNC Charlotte is now a doctorate-granting institution, a status that it did not have during the previous accreditation visit. Consequently, the university chancellor and the dean of the College of Business place more emphasis on research; therefore, some faculty members wanted to acquire more research-based titles. But the business librarian also considered the need to provide resources that would be of potential use for undergraduate and graduate students. A compromise was necessary. Titles on the wish list were checked for electronic full-text access, and print subscription prices were considered as well. One method of compromise was to ascertain if any titles on the wish list were indexed in the aggregators to which the library subscribed. This was used as an indicator of potential student use. After negotiations, the business librarian and the faculty representative for the College of Business agreed upon the new print titles to be orderedthe cost of which almost equaled the cost of the cancelled titles. The business librarian sent a list of new print subscriptions to the technical services staff for ordering.

Recommended Magazine and Journal Reading for MBA Students:

To understand the nature of individual leadership and wise management, interviews and profiles provide a pleasant and useful education. I like Charlie Rose's interview show on PBS. He generally addresses the process of becoming successful, whether he's interviewing Warren Buffett or the Beastie Boys. Throughout all media, it seems, interviews and photographs with business leaders are more popular than articles based on market analysis. A "soft" news approach Institute of Business Administration Page 6

Recommendations for Business Periodicals to business, though appealing, makes me wary of missing the type of business news that is more immediately relevant to MBA studies and the job market. This is one of the reasons why I've been reading more targeted media with deeper coverage. Gadget blogs will always interest me, but there is a lot of peripheral information to sort through when I should be learning something useful about the electronics industry. I encourage myself: more Economist and Bloomberg news, less Valleywag and BoingBoing Gadgets. AllBusiness.com, of course, has a strong appeal for me. There is also an enormous stack of periodicals sitting right in front of me as I sit in the Graduate Business Program student lounge.

This table is good representation of recommended extracurricular reading for MBA students, even if it's under-appreciated. This "lounge" is primarily a study area, so students are usually looking at computers, papers, and textbooks. I like the table of magazines, though. I've spent more time reading the school's copies of the Economist the ones at my home. The appeal of extracurricular reading is improved by fact that the material is free, and placed next to a comfy chair where I do a lot of studying. Here's a quick list of most of the periodicals (MBA approved!): 1. Wall Street Journal 2. Orange County Business Journal 3. The Economist 4. Forbes 5. DiversityMBA Magazine 6. U.S. News and World Report 7.Business Week 8. Currents (magazine about higher education) 9. Meetings (a corporate perspective travel magazine) 10. Jungle (executive lifestyle magazine The last two seem like inspirational magazines for people who want to be the stated audience. Executive lifestyle magazines are, to MBA students, what "Seventeen" is to 12-yr-old girls. As my sister once told me: when she reached the age of seventeen, she had already moved on to "Cosmopolitan." In any case, I feel like there are enriching tidbits for me in most of these Institute of Business Administration Page 7

Recommendations for Business Periodicals periodicals, if not all of them. Still, it can take me hours just to get through the Economist (great for airplanes). Argh! There will never be enough time to read all that I feel I should. I am already becoming one of those people who goes on vacation to catch up on reading, collecting stacks of business journals like my parents did with National Geographic.

Bibliography:
www.marin.cc.ca.us www2.ebsco.com www.allbusiness.com www.hpu.edu/index www.wikipedia.com www.google.com

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