The Business Bridge

1 Business Resources Galore, and Much More!

You may already be familiar with the various busi-ness-focussed sections available in the MississaugaCentral Library, Business Department: the SmallBusiness Collection; the Directory Shelf Area; mate-rials on business management and employee train-ing and development; and the electronic subscriptiondatabases such as Scott’s and Canadian BusinessOnline.

Yet the Business Department houses much more:the Career Centre; Federal and Ontario Statutes andRegulations; and materials on such topics as law,market research, economics, investment planningand personal finance, tax preparation, and citizen-ship exam preparation.

Read on to learn more details about the depart-ment’s collections in some of these areas.

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2Which Collection is the Most Heavily-Used in the Business Department?

The Career Centre is definitely the most heavily-usedcollection in the department. It houses over 2,500items covering the job-search process, including:

career selection

resume and cover letterwriting

pre-interviewcompany research

preparation for employment

interviews

the follow-up process.

1 Business Resources Galore!2 Which Collection is the Most Heavily Used

in the Business Department?3 Investment-Research Resources4 New Books for . . . the Investor5 Calling All Entrepreneurs and Wannabes! 6 Book Review: Thee MMannageerr’s BBook oof

Queestionns7 You Asked Us

Vol. 4, Number 1 April 2007

The Career Centre is the most heavilyused collection in the BusinessDepartment.

Career ToursBusiness Department staff provide Career Tours togroups of job-hunters totalling nearly 2,000 partici-pants annually. Each tour, lasting about 1¼ hours inlength, serves to introduce the job seekers to keycareer-related resources essential to finding work intheir chosen fields.

The tours are provided free of charge. Job-huntinggroups are asked to request their tour at least twoweeks in advance.

A free drop-in Career Tour is offered to individualsonce a month on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. For more infor-mation, or to pre-register, please contact theBusiness Department at 905-615-3500.

Career Cruising: Finding the BestCareer (for You)Perhaps someone in your family is faced with thequestion, “What career should I go into?”

Many employees credit their job satisfaction to thebook, What Color Is My Parachute? (published annu-ally and available from the Business Department). Inaddition, an excellent subscription database calledCareer Cruising can help answer this question.

Career Cruising is an Internet subscription databases available for “in-library” use from all library locations (but not remotely).

Organized in an easy-to-use fashion, it includessuch useful online tools as “Career Matchmaker”.Through answering a brief questionnaire based onone’s likes and dislikes, the database provides a listof potentially suitable career matches. One canexplore each career further, for example by readinginterviews with two individuals working in the field,and through investigating the education required,duties involved, and salary range.

3 Investment-Research Resources

You have some cash on hand, perhaps from aninheritance or from the sale of a successful business.Or perhaps it is time to rebalance your investmentportfolio. How to invest the money wisely? TheBusiness Department has an excellent collection ofmaterials on financial planning, along with a numberof investment newsletters which may help you indeveloping your invesment savvy. Read on to findout more.

For Researching Stocks

Financial Post Advisor (Internet subscription data-base) covers corporations whose securities aretraded on Canadian exchanges, and is available for“in library” use at all locations in the MississaugaLibrary System. Check this database for informa-tional summaries on everything from the “blue-chip”to the “penny stock” companies. Read “InvestmentReports” on the top 750 Canadian publicly-tradedcompanies.

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How Can We Help You?The Business Department has many booksand other materials that can assist you inmaking personal finance and investment deci-sions. They cover such topics as:

saving for retirementchoosing an investment advisordebt managementinvesting in stocks, mutual funds, options, and real estatetechnical market analysis techniqueshelping your children with money management.

For detailed information about library holdingson these topics, please contact the BusinessDepartment at 905-615-3500.

CBS Blue Book of Stock Reports (avail-able for “in-library” use from Information Desk)Recommended as a starting point in researchingparticular Canadian stocks, the “Blue Book” is pub-lished as a series of loose-leaf sheets, housed in onebinder, and updated on a regular basis. Each stockreceives one page of coverage, presented in a stan-dardized format including a stock chart, summary ofrecent news, operating performance, company out-look, financial ratios, and the CBS recommendationon the stock. The stocks are categorized by indus-trial sectors, thus facilitating comparison betweenstocks of companies in the same field.

Value Line Investment Survey (availablefor “in-library” use from Information Desk)By Value Line Publishing, New YorkPublished weekly and cumulated in a set of threebinders, this resource covers approximately 1,700stocks traded on the New York, NASDAQ, American,or Toronto Stock Exchanges. The focus, however, ison U.S. firms.

The two “Ratings and Reports” binders provideanalyses of particular stocks: one covers “largecaps” (large capitalization stocks, mostly “blue chip”)and the other volume, the “small and mid-caps”.Both binders house the weekly issues featuring com-pany reports, grouped by industry. The companyreports are updated every three months on a rota-tional basis.

Each company report is presented in a compactone-page, standardized format which includes a 12-year stock chart, key financial ratios, summary ofcorporate news, and the Value Line rankings. A one-page industry analysis precedes the companyreports in that industry.

The third binder, “Selection and Opinion”, summa-rizes current economic and stock market statistics,provides commentary, and includes three modelstock portfolios. This binder in particular may providesome worthwhile investment ideas.

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Investment NewslettersThe most recent issue of over twenty investmentnewsletters, such as the Morningstar Stock Investor,Investment Reporter, Investor’s Digest, GordonPape’s Mutual Fund Advisor, and The Moneyletter, areavailable from the Information Desk for “in-library” use.

4 New Books for . . .the Investor

The following Business Department titles on investingstrategies and techniques are proving quite popular.At present they all have waiting lists!

Select Winning Stocks Using Technical Analysis,by Clifford Pistolese 332.63204 PIS (2007)

Candlestick Charting Explained: TimelessTechniques for Trading Stocks and Futures (3rded.), by Gregory L. Morris 332.63204 MOR (2006)

Getting Started in Chart Patterns, by Thomas N.Bulkowski 332.63204 BUL (2006)

The Little Book of Value Investing, by ChristopherH. Browne 332.6322 BRO (2006)

The Single Best Investment: Creating Wealth withDividend Growth (Revised and updated ed.), byLowell Miller 332.6 MIL (2006)

The Standard and Poor’s Guide to SelectingStocks: Finding the Winners and Weeding out theLosers, by Michael Kaye

332.63222 KAY (2006)

Streetsmart Guide to Timing the Stock Market:When to Buy, Sell, and Sell Short (2nd ed.), byColin Alexander 332.63228 ALE (2006)

Available in book or cd format:Just One Thing: Twelve of the World’s BestInvestors Reveal the One Strategy You Can’tOverlook, edited by John Maudlin

332. 678 JUS (2006)

5Calling All Entrepreneurs and Wannabes! Free Workshop

Learn from the experts at COBSC about how to startyour business, grow your business, and expand yourbusiness. The Canada-Ontario Business ServiceCentre has a wealth of information as well as onlinetools, tips, and modules geared to the small- andmedium-sized enterprise. You can also find out aboutthe many resources available to women, immigrantand youth entrepreneurs “just a click away”.

Take advantage of this free presentation andoverview sponsored by the Mississauga LibrarySystem, the Mississauga Business EnterpriseCentre, and the Canada-Ontario Business ServiceCentre.

The seminar will be held on Thursday, June 7th,from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Noel RyanAuditorium, Mississauga Central Library, 301Burnhamthorpe Rd. W. No registration is required.

For more information, please call the BusinessDepartment at 905-615-3500.

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6 Book Review

The Manager's Book of Questions: 1,001 GreatInterview Questions for Hiring the Right Person(Revised and expanded ed.),by John Kador658.31124 KAD

John Kador has revisedand expanded his best-selling classic, TheManager’s Book ofQuestions, to include1,001 job interviewquestions and 40ready-to-use“scripts”. It is con-cisely written and isvery well organizedin three main parts.

In Part I, Mr. Kador has dividedthe interviewing questions into functionalcategories, each in a separate chapter: ice-breakerand background questions; behavioural questions;core competency; ethics; brain teasers and businessproblems; and closing questions. These questionsare cross-referenced to the 40 interviewing “scripts”contained in Part II of the book.

While the author does not provide sample answersto the questions, in Part I he does introduce eachchapter by highlighting key issues surrounding thetype of question, for example, how to go about devel-oping brainteaser questions.

The “scripts” in Part II are actually 40 lists of inter-viewing questions, each targeted at a specific pur-pose, for example, interviewing “Entry Level”candidates, or “Human Resources Management”candidates. Each “script” is itself organized into theseven functional categories. As in Part I, no sampleanswers are provided.

Be sure to leave time to consult Part III, whichincludes the list, “Questions Interviewers ShouldExpect to Be Asked”.

This book is highly recommended for anyonepreparing to conduct employment interviews. Severallibrary locations, including the Business Department,own copies for loan.

7 You Asked Us

Within the past few months, customers have askedfor books that would help with the drawing up suchdocuments as purchase agreements, leasing agree-ments, and employment contracts. The BusinessDepartment does have an encyclopaedia that pro-vides suggested wordings for such documents,including special clauses: O’Brien’s Encyclopedia ofForms.

This is an excellent resource, published by CanadaLaw Book in a multi-volume set of 26 binders. Thethousands of loose-leaf pages are organized intofour major Divisions: Commercial and General;Family Law; Court Forms; Labour Relations andEmployment; and Computers and InformationTechnology. There is a Master Index, and eachDivision begins with its own Table of Contents.

O’Brien’s Encyclopedia of Forms (Call number:347.055 OBR) is available for “in-library” use only atthe Mississauga Central Library, BusinessDepartment.

To subscribe to The Business Bridge:Forward your e-mail address to the MississaugaCentral Library, Business Department. You willreceive an email advising that the newest issueis available on the Library website.

Mississauga Central Library,Business Department, 4th Floor301 Burnhamthorpe Road WestMississauga, Ontario L5B 3Y3Tel: 905-615-3500 Fax: 905-615-3615E-mail Address:library.business@mississauga.caWebsite: mississauga.ca/library

Vol. 4, Number 1 April 2007