Specialist services provided & who to contact

Managers:
Raj Saxena, Frank Lowy Librarian
Natalie McDonald, Client Services Manager

Ask a Librarian
Natalie McDonald
9931 9390 library@agsm.edu.au

Borrower Registration
Library Desk
9931 9390 library@agsm.edu.au

Case Ordering
Dianna Hand
9931 9394 caseorders@agsm.edu.au

Copyright
Raj Saxena
9931 9397 rajs@agsm.edu.au
Natalie McDonald
9931 9395 nataliem@agsm.edu.au

Class presentations on resources and research tools
Dianna Hand
9931 9394 diannah@agsm.edu.au

EndNote
Raj Saxena
9931 9397 rajs@agsm.edu.au
Morgan Wilson
9931 9415 morganw@agsm.edu.au

e-journals, journal collection queries
Françoise Rodriguez
9931 9556 f.rodriguez@agsm.edu.au

Literature searches
Natalie McDonald
9931 9395 nataliem@agsm.edu.au

Records and Archives
Cathy Sayer
9931 9575 cathys@agsm.edu.au

Research Consultations
Natalie McDonald
9931 9395 nataliem@agsm.edu.au

Textbook and book ordering
Tamara Sushkova
9931 9396 tamara@agsm.edu.au

Further information about the duties and background of Frank Lowy Library staff.

The Frank Lowy Library and Executive Programs

The Frank Lowy Library has been piloting some innovative services to support AGSM Executive Programs. The goal is two-fold. Improve the learning experience of participants before and during program by working closely with course co-ordinators to provide readings which are relevant and accessible. In addition to the usual journal articles, the Library also provides self-updating pre-made searches. Recognizing that participants in ASGM Executive Programs are usually time poor, the Library also highlights the best of the web on the given topics.

The other goal is to ensure participants get value from their Executive Program even after the course has finished. The Library is assisting the establishment of these virtual communities by providing current and relevant content.

Bloomberg at the Frank Lowy Library

Bloomberg is one of the world’s premier financial databases. Bloomberg collects data for 3.7 million securities across all markets worldwide. Use Bloomberg to find nearly any type of financial and historical data.

The markets covered include: government and corporate bonds, mortgage, money-market, stock market indices, currency (spots, futures, options on over 100 currencies), commodities and equities.

Current students, faculty and staff may use Bloomberg at The Frank Lowy Library.

Blog round up, the slightly bigger edition

Because it's been a little while since my last blog round up, this will be a little longer. I've also found some good posts from the project management blogs I've recently added to my reader.

Marc Andreessen, The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, part 1: Opportunity, blog.pmarca.com
"Career planning = career limiting. ... The second rule of career planning: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities." See also part 2 and part 3.

Penelope Trunk, Business schools shift to accommodate the biological clock, Brazen Careerist
"People have been talking in hushed voices of creating faster ways to get through school in order to attract women. And people have been talking off the record about how top schools accept women at an earlier age than they accept men. But Harvard has made it official. In order to attract women into business school they are allowing women in after just two years of work."

Alexander Kjerulf, How NOT to lead geeks, Chief Happiness Officer
"Geeks hate management-speak and see it as superficial and dishonest. Managers shouldn't learn to speak tech, but they should drop the biz-buzzwords. A manager can say "We need to proactively impact our time-to-market" or simply use english and stick to "We gotta be on time with this project"."

Fast Company Now, Madonna's Moves Herald the Future of Music Distribution
"The bottom line: having to abandon DRM will force record labels to think more innovatively, and more comprehensively, about how to market their music. LiveNation's deal with Madonna is a prime case in point."

Steven D. Levitt, Paul Krugman Hits the Blogosphere Running, Freakonomics
"While economists are well aware of the patterns in inequality, there is less agreement concerning the reasons for its ups and downs. Krugman believes that the primary factor driving inequality is politics. I suspect that most economists would disagree."

Martha Lagace, Management Education's Unanswered Questions Q&A with: Rakesh Khurana, HBS Working Knowledge
"Given the rapidity by which our business context is changing, the graduates of business schools should be able to access continuing education. If we really do believe that knowledge is important for effective practice, then it would seem that having some mechanism for connecting graduates to what is relevant would be very important."

Garry Emmons, Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making, HBS Working Knowledge
"Edmondson says this reluctance to speak up stems variously from fears that superiors will not like the idea or that it may appear to criticize the status quo, which most people find reassuringly familiar or dangerous to challenge."

Mike Griffiths, Right-Brain Project Management, Leading Answers
"This conscious search for sense before making plans accepts the vagueness in early projects and embraces the futility of detailed plans made too soon. Rather than moving to planning too early, a focus on motivation and meaning is a great use for early project time."

Lisa Haneberg, When We're Wrong - Recovering from Bad Decisions, Management Craft
"Great managers make more bad decisions than do mediocre managers. Why? Because great managers approach and get active in more situations. Mediocre managers are more likely to sit back and let others make decisions or let situations linger."

Johanna Rothman, "But It’s Just a Small Change", Managing Product Development
"Murphy is one of your team members. Finish this project. Hold a retrospective. Work differently on the next one. But don’t make that one small change."

Gavin Heaton, The Future Isn't What You Think, Servant of Chaos
"This is why we use the term "disruptive" technology for those innovations that change the status quo. It is also why it is essential for us, as marketers, to continue to investigate and play with the technologies that become available"

Seth Godin, Radiohead and the mediocre middle, Seth's Blog
"Most industries innovate from both ends:
* The outsiders go first because they have nothing to lose.
* The winners go next because they can afford to and they want to stay winners.
* It's the mediocre middle that sits and waits and watches."

The Frank Lowy Library welcomes EY Cohort D1

It was a pleasure meeting you all on Wednesday night. I trust you are enjoying your stay on Campus.

Anna Gunnthorsdottir recommended a number of books on strategy and game theory that night and as promised I have put together a couple of booklists get you thinking about your next assignment. All of these are available in the Library and if you are out of town we can post them to you.

Don't forget the Library is here to support your research and study so please contact us if you need assistance.

Strategy

Blue ocean strategy : how to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant
Kim, W. Chan.
658.802/85
The competitive advantage of nations
Porter, Michael E 
382.1042/7
Harvard business essentials : strategy : create and implement the best strategy for your business
658.4012/353

Harvard business review : corporate strategy 
658.4012/48 

Harvard business review on advances in strategy
658.4012/262

On competition
Porter, Michael E
382.1042/11

Sun Tzu and the art of business : six strategic principles for managers
McNeilly, Mark. 
658.4012/186

Game Theory and decision making

Decision making using game theory : an introduction for managers
Kelly, Anthony
658.40353/17 

Decision traps : ten barriers to brilliant decision-making and how to overcome them
Russo, J. Edward.
  658.403/50 

Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds
Fridson, Martin S.
332.645/20 

Game theory and business applications
Chatterjee, Kalyan.
658.40353/13 

Game theory at work : how to use game theory to outthink and outmaneuver your competition
Miller, James D. 
658.40353/15

Games for business and economics 
Gardner, Roy 

658.40353/14 

Keeping up-to-date on trends in project management

The Frank Lowy Library also supports the work of Australian School of Business Executive Programs. This week I've been doing a little work compiling useful URLs for the Managing Project Managers course.

Here are just five of the project management blogs which I found.

• Codswallop
• Frank Patrick’s Focused Performance Business Blog
• A Girl’s Guide to Managing Projects
• Herding Cats
• Raven's Brain

The complete list, including podcasts and other interesting stuff, is available here.

Have I missed anything? Please let me know.

Weekly blog round up

Ok, it's been a little more than a week, but these ones were worth waiting for :)

Practically irrelevant?, Economist.com, 28 August 2007
Whether academic research actually produces anything that is useful to the practice of business, or even whether it is its job to do so, are questions that can provoke vigorous arguments on campus.

Lynda M. Applegate, Jumpstarting Innovation: Using Disruption to Your Advantage, HBS Working Knowledge, 4 September 2007
Disruptions in the business environment cause economic shifts that destabilize industries, companies, and even countries. They allow new entrants or forward-thinking established players to introduce innovations—in products, markets, or processes—that transform the way companies do business and consumers behave.

Seth Godin, The Scarcity Shortage, Seth's Blog
Scarcity, after all, is the cornerstone of our economy. The best way to make a profit is by trading in something that's scarce. ... So how do you deal with the shortage of scarcity?

Andrea Coombes, It's Time to Stand Up to Your Email, Wall Street Journal, 26 August 2007
Another strategy to take control of your in-box: Turn off "you have mail" alerts that interrupt you as you work. Instead, decide on a regular schedule to check your in-box, whether it's once every 30 minutes or three times a day.

Leading online tool for company & industry information

The OneSource Global Business Browser is on trial again until at least the end of August. This online database is a leading company and industry research tool for universities and libraries. OneSource integrates business information on companies around the world, covering 17 million global companies. The content is packaged into a web-based research tool and links together company and industry profiles allowing users to quickly conduct their research.

If you find this database useful, and think the University should subscribe to it, please let the Library know.

Here is a snapshot of what this database can do for you:

OneSource's business information includes:
* In-depth company profiles covering 17 million companies worldwide
* 21,000 Australian/NZ private and public companies with more added weekly.
* Get in-depth profiles of companies, including: financials, annual reports, corporate affiliations.
* Query for companies by industry, size, location and more
* Industry overviews, trends and market research
* Find information about executives and board members
* Up to date News wires, trade and business press
* Much of the data is exportable to Excel

Over 100 search variables are available for screening against global companies. These include:
* Business Description
* Corporate financials
* Financial Values and Ratios
* Parents and subsidiaries
* Industry codes including US and ANZ SIC
* Geographic variables ranging from international regions to postal codes
* Analyst company & Industry reports (up to eight long brokerage house reports provided)
* Rank Screening (e.g. Top 50 by Sales)
* Users can perform full text searches against the analyst report archive, allowing them to search for specific subjects such as new technologies.

OneStop Report
The OneStop report provides a unified, customisable report, which may be saved to PDF, allowing users to store detailed company profiles for later review. Users may include significant developments, executives and biographies, five years of financials, Company Insights and SWOT reports.

Industry Research – OneSource provides an industry module with market research and other industry content:
* Datamonitor (2,500 global market research reports by SIC) including 554 Asia Pac reports:
* Industry Sector Analyses (1,500 industry profiles) from the US Intl. Trade Administration
* US Private Company Industry Norms from RMA by NAICS and company size
* Current Industry reports from the US Census Bureau Government and association links from OneSource.
* Top Competitors by geography, industry, and size variable (e.g. Assets, Sales, etc.)
* Industry news by topic from Gale Business & Industry.

Weekly blog round up (with a nod to Career's Week)

With next week being Career’s Week, I decided that a few of these links would be on this general topic.

Dustin Wax, Advice for Students: 10 Steps Toward Better Research, lifehack.org
There’s some great advice here from someone who isn't a librarian. From when it’s appropriate to use Wikipedia, to allowing time for the research process, and the importance of taking a moment to familiarize yourself with the resources you have, particularly the library resources. He says some nice things about librarians too :)

Jim Heskett, How Will Millennials Manage?, HBS Working Knowledge
"There seems to a fixation these days on millennials as employees. But what kind of managers will they make?" Make sure you read the comments.

Ryan Paugh, Marketing Yourself Outside the Box, Employee Evolution
"Linked-In, Facebook and MySpace are all great ways to network online, but if you want to take things a step further, create your own Website [or blog]"

Penelope Trunk, To find your best next job, focus on the company not the job, Brazen Careerist
"... the best companies don’t use money as a recruiting tool. It’s not that they think you don’t care about money. But they know they cannot differentiate themselves with money."

Clarke Ching, When Trust Goes AWOL, StickyMinds.com
"The best way to build—or rebuild—trust is to act in a trustworthy way. I only needed to see my mobile’s alarm clock work properly once before I trusted it and thereafter I slept soundly, but it takes longer to build trust in people."

Seamus McCauley, Paying for the luxury of ignorance, Virtual Economics
The author disagrees with Google's Chief Economist's statement that it is easy to switch search engines. Although it is not difficult to go to a different search engine, people tend to stick with information sources that they trust. Putting on my librarian hat, I make a distinction between just "looking something up" and in-depth research. When doing the former, it's ok to do what's easiest and most comfortable, but the latter is work, and requires exploring all appropriate sources even-handedly.