Finding Information on Companies: Library & Internet Guide

If you are off campus using your own internet service provider you have to enable remote access before you can use JCU subscribed resources.

Business Focus is a current awareness and resource finding blog maintained by the Liaison Librarians for the School of Business. It's a great way of discovering new resources and keeping up to date on JCU Library issues that effect your studies.

 

General Information about Companies

General information about Australian companies, including contact details and product descriptions, can be obtained from telephone directories,

• dLook - Australian online business directory includes links to online maps.
• White Pages - A-Z list of names, addresses and phone numbers of residential, professional, and business phone customers.
  
• Yellow Pages - A-Z list of names, addresses and phone numbers of businesses.

More detailed information, including some financial data, can be obtained from the following directories:

• ABN Lookup - provides access to the information provided by businesses when they register for an Australian Business Number (ABN).
• ABN Super Fund Lookup - contains publicly available information about superannuation funds that have an ABN.
• ASIC - Australian Securities & Investments Commission - Index of corporate and business names.
• ASX - Australian Securities Exchange - the primary stock exchange in Australia.
• ASX - Listed Companies - ASX listed companies sorted by company name, includes detailed company information.
• CorpWatch- holding corporations accountable
• Jobson's Online - Comprises Jobson's mining year book and Jobson's year book of public companies - searchable database of 1400 industrial & mining companies listed on the Australian & New Zealand Stock Exchanges - Password required: Contact InfoHelp.

 

JCU print resources - Click on links to check availability on Tropicat:

• Australian Business Index - 1992-1995.
• The Australian Financial Review listed company handbook - covers the top 500 listed companies, giving five years summary balance & stock market data.
• The Bulletin 1880-2008 (incomplete).
• Business review weekly : BRW 1985-present (incomplete).
• The Business who's who of Australia - directory of Australian companies and company directors.
• Duns Asia/Pacific Key Business Enterprises : 1994/95 - directory of businesses in the Asia/Pacific region.
• Kompass Australia - directory of companies, products and services.
• Personal investor 1999-2005 preceded by: Personal investment 1983-1999 and Australian stock exchange journal 1972-1983.
• The Queensland business register - directory of business names registered in Queensland.

 

Databases

Some services require passwords which can be obtained from InfoHelp on presentation of your student card.

• ABI/INFORM Global - a full text database covering business and management topics.
• AIMMAT AIM Management And Training - management, training and human resources, including organisational change, workplace relations, business ethics, customer service marketing and leadership.
• Australian Company Law Cases (CCH).
• Australian Public Affairs - Full Text (APA-FT) - Australian Public Affairs Information Service.
• DatAnalysis - provides reports for all companies listed on the ASX and other financial information.
  
• Expanded Academic ASAP on InfoTrac provides many full text articles.
• EconLit - full text database of articles compiled from the American Economic Association's Journal of Economic Literature. 
• Emerald Fulltext provides access to MCB journals covering the major management disciplines including, marketing, HR and organizational development, information management, quality and operations management.
• FirstSearch provides access to a number of business and economic databases containing information about companies - Password required: Contact InfoHelp.
• Informit Online - includes a number of useful Australian databases.
• Proquest - a major collection of online databases with full text articles from over 3000 journals with a business focus.

 

E-Journals

JCU has access to 1000's of e-journals. Click on the links below to browse the business and economics e-journals or search all of the e-journal titles. If you are off campus, first login via Remote Access before browsing or searching. In rare cases, access to full text articles requires a special password. For further information email infohelp@jcu.edu.au or phone InfoHelp on (07) 4781 5500 (Townsville), (07) 4042 1029 (Cairns).

• Business and Economics E-Journals
• Search all e-journals by title, ISSN or subject - E-Journals home page from Serials Solutions.

 

Annual Reports

All public companies registered in Australia are required to produce annual reports containing financial statements.  Annual reports provide the most detailed and up-to-date information about companies. 

• AnnualReports.com (annual reports from USA companies)
• Australian Graduate School of Management (1994-1996) Annual report file [electronic resource]
• Australian Graduate School of Management (1978-1994) Annual report file [microform] (annual reports of various Australian and New Zealand companies)
• FirstSearch - Information from the annual reports of multinational companies Password required: Contact InfoHelp.

 

Government Reports via APA-FT (Australian Public Affairs – Full Text)

Sometimes particular companies or industries are the subject of commonwealth or state government reports.  These reports may be found in APA-FT (Australian Public Affairs – Full Text) which is available in various formats:

• hardcopy -Townsville 1950-2000 and Cairns 1982-2000
• Austrom CD-ROM - 1998
• online via Informit on the web

Search APA-FT using company names (Mount Isa Mines), company abbreviations (MIM), amd industry descriptions (coal mining).

 

News sources

Feature articles and reports about leading Australian and New Zealand companies often appear in newspapers and periodicals (also called journals or serials).  Newspapers and periodicals with good coverage of companies include:

• The Australian 1964 - present.
• The Australian Financial Review 1964 - present.
• The Australian Financial Review Boss - online supplement to Australian Financial Review.
• Bloombergs - online
• Google News Business - online
• Oak-Tree Research - online comment on current issues.
• Yahoo!7 - online finance, business and company news.

 

E-Books

JCU library provides access to a number of e-books, viewable by anyone with a current JCU account and an internet connected computer. These items are listed in Tropicat. A small sample of what's available include:

• 20 top biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms
• E-business or out of business : Oracle's roadmap for profiting in the new economy / Mark J. Barrenechea
• Geographical information system (GIS) implementation success : some lessons from the British food retailers / Syed Nasirin
• The GE way fieldbook : Jack Welch's battle plan for corporate revolution / Robert Slater
• Inside Cisco : the real story of sustained M & A growth / Ed Paulson
• The McKinsey mind : understanding and implementing the problem-solving tools and management techniques of the world's top strategic consulting firm / Ethan M. Rasiel and Paul N. Friga
• Microsoft, antitrust and the new economy : selected essays / edited by David S. Evans
• The Nordstrom way [electronic resource] : the inside story of America's #1 customer service company / Robert Spector and Patrick D. McCarthy
• Plunkett's e-commerce & Internet business almanac 2003-2004 / editor and publisher Jack W. Plunkett

 

Resource Finders

• Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange - Wikipedia
• Encyclopedia of Corporate Governance
• Free Online Classes from the ASX about trading and investing in shares, including:

• ASX Company research assignment and ASX Guidance notes for assignment (cheat sheet for assignment).

 

 

If this information is inadequate, incorrect, or can be improved in any way, please let us know