Librarians who work with business collections will be pleased to see a new edition of this classic work. Daniells is a former reference librarian at the Baker Library of Harvard Business School.
This edition has the same general arrangement as the last, published in 1985. There are new sections on competitive intelligence, economic and financial measures, and health-care marketing. Coverage of electronic sources has been expanded, and more entries now note if the source is available online (often full text) or on CD-ROM. In the chapter "Investment Sources," for example, the section "Computerized Financial Data" has been totally rewritten. The detailed annotations that compare a source to similar titles continue to be one of the strong points of this book, along with its lists of trade journals and statistical sources for specific industries. Browsing through this book, one is struck by how many important new sources have appeared in the past seven years: titles from Morningstar, Hoover's, and Gale, for example. This edition has separate subject and author-title indexes; they were combined in the previous one.
Lavin's Business Information: How to Find It, How to Use It (2d ed., Oryx, 1991) is more selective, explaining how to use tools and providing sample pages. Strauss' Handbook of Business Information (Libraries Unlimited, 1988) is also more selective.
Academic libraries supporting research in business will want a copy of Business Information Sources; the reasonable price means many public libraries can afford one too. But business is such a rapidly changing field, and with the long publishing process, this book is current only as of May_ 1992. Wouldn't it be great if Daniells could keep it updated on an online service such as OCLC or RLIN? Sandy Whiteley
Review
"If you are going to purchase only one book for reference, get this one." --
Industrial Marketing"The most important business reference book of the decade." --
The Library Quarterly
