trade & industry associations - National Retail Federation, etc.

Just a reminder that trade and industry associations are often a great place for industry statistics and other valuable information. (Some of the information may be for members only; some may be available at no cost.) There are thousands of associations out there on almost every imaginable industry, market, or area of interest. One standard resource for locating these associations is the Encylopedia of Associations -- the most current print edition that we have in the USFSP library reference collection is from 2004 (HS17 .G332). We also have a subscription to the current electronic version -- select "Databases by title/subject," and type in Gale's Ready Reference Shelf. Or, you can also quickly identify trade and industry associations by doing an advanced search in Google.

As an example of a trade association that may be useful to your research, take a look at the National Retail Federation web site: http://www.nrf.com. Select the "industry information" tab and note the types of research conducted by NRF and the resources available. Many of the reports are available for purchase. However, some information is available at no cost. For example, under Research/Retail Industry Research, some of the free reports available include: 2007 Global Powers of Retailing; 2006 Online Retail Holiday Best Practices Report; Retail Horizons; and Retail Industry Indicators. Press releases for many of the other pay-reports are also available.

Tampa Bay Business Journal, etc.....

Just a reminder for those of you whose business research or assignment may be focused on the Tampa Bay area. The Tampa Bay Business Journal is a local business publication that may be of interest. Unfortunately, current articles from this publication are not included in any of our library databases. Instead, you need to go out to the public web site from American City Business Journals, where you can search all of their local business journals here, or just the Tampa Bay Business Journal here. Free registration is required in order to access all of the features. You can narrow your search by keyword, company, industry, date, or geographic market.

Older articles from the Tampa Bay Business Journal (1999-2004) are available in ABI/Inform Dateline, one of our library subscription databases. This database is a great resource, with over 175 local and regional (U.S.) business publications included.

Translation tools

Below are some translation tools and services which were reviewed in a recent "InfoTip" from Mary Ellen Bates' email newsletter, available at www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html

FYI, I also use wordreference.com - it's not quite a full-blown translation tool but very handy for quick phrases and sentences. It's available as a plug-in gadget that I keep on my igoogle page. Another nice feature is that you can link to a forum where there is discussion of proper usage of particular phrases, etc.

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* Omniglot <http://www.omniglot.com> is a portal listing language- and translation-related resources. For translation, you can access online dictionaries as well as online translation and localization tools, many of which offer some free use.

* FreeTranslation <http://www.freetranslation.com>, from SDL International, offers text and web site translation in several European and Asian languages. SDL offers a desktop translation tool for subscription - a good investment if you have an ongoing need for translation.

* PROMT <http://www.online-translator.com/text.asp?lang=en> offers a free translation tool that enables you to translate text, web sites and email from and into English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. The quality of the translation is comparable to that of FreeTranslation.

* WorldLingo <http://digbig.com/4tqjr> provides free translation of up to 150 words for text, Web pages and email covering 15 languages. In addition, you can direct the tool to use specialized online glossaries when generating the translation.

* A very useful website is freelang.net <http://www.freelang.net/>, where you can download or view language dictionaries. The site lists translation resources, including tools for hand-held devices and free online translation software. The site also offers free human translation for smaller amounts of text.

[Many thanks to Barbara Verble, researcher and information developer, who contributed this month's InfoTip.]

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Online video sharing sites

For those of you that like to post, watch, or track online video clips, here's a link to a great comparison chart of what's currently out there:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=112147

Beyond YouTube, there are over 100 other sites listed here!

(from a posting by Gary Price at the Resourceshelf.com)