Getting Started
Purpose of this guide
This guide is designed to help provide you with subject support identifying the most useful resources for Business.
Getting Started using the Library
The best place to start searching for resources for your course is your online reading list and LibrarySearch.
Researching for Assignments
For assignments you will need to go beyond your reading list and do your own independent research. The Library subscribes to a number of subject databases helping you to find academic books and journal articles on your chosen topic.
- Business Source Ultimate
- EconLit with Full Text includes key economic journals and books
- ProQuest Business Premium Collection
General databases such as Scopus, IBSS and Web of Science are also useful places to search as well as Google Scholar.
Business Resources
As well as the traditional academic sources the Library subscribes to a number of specialist database providing more detailed information about companies and markets.
Company Information
Fitch Bank Fundamentals 30 years of history on over 36,000 banks 12,300 insurers, brokers and syndicates, 115 sovereigns and 3,000 corporates.
Moody’s Analytics Bank Focus (formerly Orbis) database of banks worldwide
BoardEx detailed files of 1.7 million organisation and 1.2 million individuals who lead them
Fame Company reports and information service
Osiris database of listed and major unlisted/delisted companies around the world
Finance Information
FDI Intelligence database specialising in all areas relating to foreign direct investment and investment promotion.
FDI Markets database of cross border greenfield investments (only 5 people can use this resource at once).
F.T.com full text of Financial Times
Bloomberg is available at both the Canterbury and Medway campuses.
The Bloomberg terminals are located in Sibson PC2, and in the Medway Bloomberg suite. The rooms are often timetabled for regular teaching, but outside of those times, the terminals are first-come, first-served. The exception is when they may be reserved (e.g. 2 hours on Wednesday afternoons) for KBS research postgraduates, when they have priority.
There is also (limited) online access to a subset of the terminals – KBS students can follow the instructions on the Moodle page referenced below to request access.
Market Research
Statista statistics and data set from many fields and sources including industry reports
World of Advertising Research Centre case studies, research reports and more
Euromonitor Passport business intelligence on countries, companies, markets and consumers
IBIS World Industry Research reports
MarketLine Advantage up to date reports of company, industry, financial and country data
Mintel Consumer market studies
General Business Information
Business & Management Collection collection of audio visual talks
Cross National Times Series Data Archive country data from 1815 to present covering over 200 countries including economic, political and social data
Henry Stewart Business and Management Journal Collection includes around 5,000 case studies and articles from 20 journals in marketing, management, business and finance
OECD iLibrary books, papers and statistics
World Competitiveness Yearbook Online database on the competitiveness of nations
XpertHR resource for human resources workers includes employment law advice, HR good practice and toolkit Click Log in(top right), click UK Federation (Shibboleth), choose ‘University of Kent’ from the drop-down list and click Select.
You may also want to include other types of information such as newspaper account or data in your assignment our research skill module will help you identify different types of information, when these might be useful and where to search.
Online Resources
As well as the resources that the library subscribes to there is a lot of useful freely available information available on the internet. To help navigate this the library has created a reading list with links to some useful websites