LibGuides: *School of Business & Economics: Get Started with NU Library: Searching the Library

Research Best Bets

ABI/INFORM This link opens in a new window
Content: Business research database covering economic conditions, management techniques, theory, and practice of business, advertising, marketing, economics, human resources, finance, taxation, computers, and more.
Purpose: This is a key database for business and leadership students.
Special Features: Country and market reports, SWOT analysis functionality, browsable by topic pathway.
Help using this database.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Content: Business research database covering topics including accounting, banking, economics, finance, international trade, marketing, management information systems, and more.
Purpose: This is a key database for business, accounting, and economics students.
Special Features: SWOT analysis functionality, market research reports, country reports, industry profiles, and more.
Help using this database.
Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Content: Database for company and industry research containing detailed information about many publicly traded companies, including inactive companies.
Purpose: This is a key database for business, accounting, and economics students.
Special Features: Economic and industry reports, as well as company filings, financials, a report builder, and much more.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Content: Database containing data and statistics on over 60,000 topics, including media, business, finance, politics, and much more.
Purpose: A key database for business and economics students.
Special Features: PDF/PNG downloadable content for easy insertion into papers or presentations, charts, graphs, reports, and dossiers.

Searching FAQs

Search for articles, books, dissertations, and more

How to Use Navigator Search

Search Tips

To maximize your time and effectiveness in the research process, take advantage of some of the following search techniques that can be applied to many databases, including article databases, the library catalog, and commercial search engines.

Boolean Operators

Boolean searching involves connecting terms and concepts using the words AND, OR, and NOT in order to narrow or expand your search.

Use AND to connect different main concepts in your research question/topic and refine your search results (internet AND bullying).
Use OR to connect like terms or synonyms to expand your search results ("artificial intelligence" OR AI).
Use NOT to remove unwanted terms from your search results (biology NOT marine).

Search Modifiers

Quotation marks can be used to tell the databases to search for exact phrases, names, and multi-word terms.

"artificial intelligence"
"Sigmund Freud"
"human immunodeficiency virus

Truncation is a technique used to broaden your search. Truncation searches multiple forms of a root word to include various word endings and spellings.

To use truncation, enter the base word and put the truncation symbol at the end (usually an *asterisk).
The results will include any ending of that root word.
Truncation symbols vary by database and website but are most commonly: *, !, ?
Example: child* = child, child's, children, childhood

Parentheses determine the order in which the database will search terms and Boolean Operators.

Searching for supply AND (chain OR network) will return results that include the word supply, plus either the word chain or the word network, or both.
Searching for car AND ("artificial intelligence" OR AI) will return results that include the word car, plus either the phrase artificial intelligence or the word AI, or both.