Team Librarian Consultation

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of business databases on its homepage; see under Business Databases; see also the five folders at the top of that list for lists of Foster databases by topic:  Books; Articles—-Full Text; Articles--Citations and Abstracts; Company and Industry; and International/Country Information.   For more information on the three dozen Foster business databases, click here.   For more information about which of the three dozen Foster business databases to use, click here.   For more information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, click here. For answers to some frequently-asked questions about connecting to UW library databases from off-campus, click here. And, finally, see the UW Libraries' Database Usage Guidelines.

• Hoovers Online:   Under Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. Hoovers Online offers information about 14,000 public and private companies worldwide, with links to company homepages and annual reports, charts, company capsule, competitors, divisions, earnings, financials, Fortune and Forbes rankings, history, industry information, insider trading, mission statements, news links, press releases, officers, patents, products, SEC filings, splits, subsidiaries, etc. Most information on this site is free and available on the Web (not just through the Foster Business Library homepage) but, via the Foster homepage, UW students and faculty can access the more detailed Subscribers information (on campus and from home). To connect with Hoovers Online's list of non-U.S. public and private companies in 70 countries, click here.

  See the Hoovers Online company factsheet for Caesars Entertainment, Inc. as well as the extensive overview for Caesars, with Financials and a long list of competitors, in Hoovers Online, in the Gambling Resorts & Casinos industry. See also the company's Competitive Landscape, comparing the company with its top three competitors.

• Investext:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Business Databases; also listed under Company and Industry. Investext contains indexing and the full text of company and industry research reports prepared by leading Wall Street firms, as well as regional and international brokerage and financial firms. All reports are in PDF format. (This database is available widely on campus and may be accessed from home via the U.W. connectivity kit or via the Libraries' proxy server.)

  A company search for Caesars, ticker symbol CZR produced a list of over 80 reports for this new company name; a search for Park Place Entertainment, ticket symbol PPE, produced over 675 reports. A keyword search for Gambling produced over sixty reports.

• Lexis-Nexis Academic:   To find company information, go to Business and then to Company Financial where you can obtain financial and other data for companies. Information is available from twenty different sources (each of which must be searched separately). Included among the sources is Hoovers Online, with members' access to company profiles. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, particularly company 10-K annual reports, are a particularly rich source of company as well as industry information. Use your browser's Find command (or Control-F) to locate references to particular terms of interest in 10K filings such as trends, strategy, competitors, industry, etc. (This database is available widely on campus and may be accessed from home via the U.W. connectivity kit or via the Libraries' proxy server.)

  Go to Business and then to SEC Filings to obtain the 10-K annual filings for Caesars, using the ticker symbol CZR. A search for 10-K filings for this new company name and ticker symbol retrieved just seven reports or parts of reports (for a total of one 10-K filing, which includes a section on company strategy). A search for 10-K filings for PPE produced over forty reports or parts of reports.

• EIU Online:   One of the world's top sources for country intelligence, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) employs 500 analysts who research almost 200 nations. The Foster Business Library provides access to their Country Profiles, Country Reports, Country Commerce, and Country Finance in print editions and this database provides online access to these publications, often in both HTML and PDF formats. Go to Client Access to obtain country information.

  A search in Viewswires for Caesar produced a list of over 25 articles; for Park Place Entertainment, just eight articles.

• Lexis-Nexis Statistical:   Under Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. Statistical Universe is an index to statistical data in commercial, international and U.S. government publications. Try the Power Tables for quick access to tables of data in GIF format.

  A search in this database for the subject Casinos retrieved over 35 Tables; for Gaming, 30 tables; for Gambling, over 250 tables.

• Mergent Online:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Business Databases; click on Company and Industry.   Online access to the print edition of the Mergent Manuals, with extensive information on 11,000 U.S. and 17,000 international companies, including financials, stock, properties, joint ventures, annual reports, subsidiaries, S.E.C. filings, etc. For search tips, see About Mergent Online.

  The company is included in this database, with extensive information.

• Value Line:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Business Databases.   Stock information and advice on 1,700 companies, 90 industries, the stock markets and the economy; an online version of the print Value Line Investment Survey. To search for companies or industries, go to the left menu for Look Up Company or Look Up Industry.

  See the Hotel/Gaming industry and Caesars Entertainment (both one-page PDF documents).

• Mediamark Reporter:     CD-ROM version of Mediamark Research, a tool for market research, with information on demographics, product and brand usage, and advertising media preferences based on survey responses from a sample of over 25,000 consumers in the United States. Print copies of Mediamark Research are available in over 20 volumes in the Foster Business Library reference collection, call number HF5415.3 .M43, dated spring 1998; the online version offers year 2000 data. Search tips for using this database are available by clicking here. Available only on PC #19.

  Demographics of gamblers may be found under Leisure, Casino Gambling.

Web Resources:

Unlike library databases, these Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the UW Connectivity Kit or the UW Libraries Proxy Server for authentication. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.
• Caesars Entertainment:   Public company homepages are often (but not always) an excellent source for information about the company, with links to annual reports, company news, product details, information about corporate goals and culture, company financial information, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and company history. Look for the Investor Relations and About Us areas on the company homepage for company information.

  For corporate information, see About Us, for company profile, overview, growth strategy, new markets, technology, responsible gaming, and social responsibility. Go to Investor Relations for SEC filings, speeches, and Annual Reports back to 2001.

• Industry At A Glance:   This U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics site is a good source for information and data about U.S. industries.

  See the Occupational Outlook Handbook general information on the Gaming Services industry.

• American Gaming Association:   Industry and trade associations are often excellent sources about their industry, with statistics, data, trends, studies—some of which are available to non-members for free. "The American Gaming Association (AGA) opened its office in Washington, D.C., in June 1995 with the fundamental goal of creating a better understanding of the gaming entertainment industry by bringing facts about the industry to the general public, elected officials, other decision makers and the media through education and advocacy."

  See their Industry Information for fact sheets, surveys, federal issues, etc. See also their Surveys on the gaming industry, from 2003 back to 1999.

• Casino Management Association:   "The Casino Management Association is a national non-profit professional trade association of and for casino professionals. Our goal is to develop and expand concrete educational programs and certification standards for our members and the gaming industry. In 1994, a dream shared by a group of casino mangers led to the formation of an organization that would raise the standards of professionalism in the casino industry. That dream is still alive today. In 2000 the Association successfully launch the DetroitWindsor Chapter, which now includes active participation by over 400 market executives."

  See their gaming industry Links.

• Quicken.Com:   This site is a good source for information about companies and about their position among their competitors; use the Compare Companies feature on the left menu for this information.

  See the company profile for Caesars as well as the company's position (a close third place) among its competitors in terms of market capitalization in the Resorts & Casinos industry.

• Yahoo! Finance:   This site is excellent for company and investment information as well as an excellent source for financial ratio comparisons with industry, sector and S&P 500.

  See the company profile for Caesars as well as the company's Key Statistics and Ratio Comparisons to industry, sector and S&P 500.

• Porter's Five Forces:   This site is from QuickMBA, with a good summary of Porter's five forces. "QuickMBA is an online knowledge resource for business administration. Our goal is to help you to quickly find the business knowledge you need, when you need it, wherever you may be. Topics are presented as frameworks and summaries in the various subjects of business administration, as taught in the world's top MBA programs. QuickMBA is operated by the Internet Center for Management and Business Administration, Inc. No registration is required." See also their SWOT Analysis page. For similar pages, see Business Resource Software, Inc.'s pages on the Michael Porter Five Forces Model and SWOT Analysis. Finally, see Porter's homepage.

The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics, including many books useful for country research. To identify relevant books, go to the UW Libraries Catalog on the Foster Business Library homepage (under Business Databases). Try searching by keyword. Use the Limit/Sort feature to create a list of books in the Foster Business Library and in order from newest book to oldest. To do so, use the pulldown menu under WHERE item is located to specify Foster Business Library and click on the box near the bottom Sort results by year. Then click on Limit/sort items retrieved using above data. Clicking on the titles in the resulting list will bring up the full catalog record, indicating which Foster area has the book (general stacks, reference, reserve, etc.), the call number and the circulation status.

Circulation status is indicated in the box in the middle of each online catalog record, on the right. Check Shelf indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. Due and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated.

The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

A keyword search for Caesars Entertainment produced no relevant records; a similar search for Park Place Entertainment produced just their annual reports; see the next section for those reports. A subject search for Casinos produced a list of over 35 records in the UW Libraries, with two records in the Foster Business Library:

• Casino industry developments   (1990-1995/1996)
• Audits of casinos   (1990-1995/1996)

See also the subject Gambling; a subject search for this term, limited to the Foster Business Library, retrieved a list of over six records, with only one of these books published since 1984:

• Selling sin: the marketing of socially unacceptable products   (1996)

Foster Business Library Corporate Annual Reports:

The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of several thousand annual reports for hundreds of U.S. and foreign companies. These reports are filed in lateral filing cabinets near the Foster Reference desk under the sign Corporate Annual Reports. Annual reports for companies in an industry can be a valuable source of information about the industry itself. For a list of all the companies in the Corporate Annual Reports collection, click here. For an index to corporate annual reports in the collection by industry sector, click here. For an index to companies in the collection with headquarters outside the U.S., click here.

The collection includes annual reports for Park Place Entertainment as well as competitors in the Leisure sector.

Foster Business Library Articles:

In addition to the 800 journals in the Foster Business Library Periodicals Collection, the Foster Business Library offers access to 11,000 full text periodical articles through its full text article databases such as: ABI/Inform Global, Factiva, and Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. These article databases may be found on the Foster Business Library homepage, listed alphabetically under Business Databases or in the Articles: Full Text folder.

Of these three main sources, all but Factiva are available from any computer on the campus network (as well as from home) via the UW Connectivity Kit or via the Libraries' proxy server. The easiest of these databases to use is ABI/Inform Global. For more information about accessing Foster Business Library databases from off campus, click here. For more information about business databases, click here.

• ABI/Inform Global:

  This database offers full text articles for over 800 journals. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box. ABI/Inform Global includes journals but not national or Washington state newspapers (though the Wall Street Journal is included). It also does not include valuable trade and industry and other periodicals. Your searches will span the widest possible array of publications by expanding your search to all databases in ABI/Inform. To expand your search to include all collections in this database, click on Select multiple databases, to the right of the search box. Click then on Select all databases.

  Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article. For tips on searching this database, click here.

  A search for "Caesars Entertainment" produced a list of 47 articles. A company search for CO(Caesars Entertainment) produced just 27 articles.

  A company search, in all databases, for CO(Park Place Entertainment Corp.) produced over 200 articles, including no articles in scholarly journals, 12 articles in magazines, over 50 articles in trade and industry publications, and nearly 100 articles in newspapers. This search may be combined with other subject searches to narrow and focus the list of articles. Examples include:

  • CO(Park Place Entertainment Corp.) and Strategy, just three articles;
  • CO(Park Place Entertainment Corp.) and Competitors, just two articles;
  • CO(Park Place Entertainment Corp.) and Suppliers, just one article;
  • CO(Park Place Entertainment Corp.) and Trends, five articles; and
  • CO(Park Place Entertainment Corp.) and Future, four articles.

  To find articles about the industry, try searches for the Gambling Industry, with 13 articles in this database, or—better--Casinos, with over 25,000 articles in this database.

  To increase the yields of these searches, go to More Search Options at the bottom left of the display, and change Look For Terms In from Citation and Abstract to Citation and Article Text.