The Kirstein Business Library offers career and job hunting information, entrepreneurial resources, assistance to investors, and maintains a variety of business directories and industry statistics. For more information about the programs and resources at Kirstein:
Welcome to the Kirstein Business Library
Posted on December 27th, 2012 by Gregor Smart in Kirstein Business Library
FRED – Federal Reserve Economic Data
Posted on January 16th, 2013 by Gregor Smart in Kirstein Business Library
If you are looking for economic data, FRED is a great place to start. Put out by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, it’s an online database consisting of more than 61,000 economic data time series from 48 national, international, public, and private sources.
A sampling of the types of data available:
- Selected Interest Rates
- Gross Domestic Product 1947-Present
- Consumer Price Index 1947-Present
- Bank Prime Loan Rate 1949-Present
- Resident Population in Massachusetts 1900-Present
This resource also offers a set of data tools that will enable you to create your own graphs, access archival data, and download data with an Excel Add-in.
LinkedIn Boot Camp March 4-6 at 6
Posted on January 14th, 2013 by Betsey Lippmeier in Kirstein Business Library, Programs
Please join Amber De Angelis, reference librarian at the Kirstein Business Library for a three-day LinkedIn boot camp event.
Learn how to enhance your profile, build an effective network, conduct research, search for a job and more.
March 4: What’s in a profile?
Learn how to make your LinkedIn profile more attractive.
March 5: Networking
Learn how to make and maintain the connections you need to further your career goals.
March 6: Use it or Lose it
Learn how to use LinkedIn to its full potential for job searching or finding clients.
For more information please call 617 859-2142.
Market Yourself Saturday February 2 10-3:30
Posted on January 9th, 2013 by Betsey Lippmeier in Kirstein Business Library, Programs
On Saturday, February 2, starting at 10:00, Kirstein Business Library will hold a day of workshops on marketing yourself in Conference Rooms 5 and 6 at the Central Library.
Anna Fahey-Flynn, Curriculum Coordinator for the Boston Public Library will conduct these workshops:
10–Organize your job search — Keeping track of what you have applied for can be cumbersome. This workshop will provide you with some tips on how to stay organized.
11–Resumes — Tips on creating a resume using Career Transitions and other resources.
12–Interviewing — Tips on answering difficult questions and presenting yourself in a positive way.
Gregor Smart, Electronic Resources Librarian at Kirstein, will conduct the following workshop:
2:30 — Marketing yourself with Google Blogger.
Have you ever wanted to know how to create a blog? Writing a blog is a great way to network with others and promote yourself on the web. This workshop will be a hands on tutorial for beginners who need the basic tools for getting started. This class will show you how you can create your own blog for free using Google Blogger. You will learn the steps to creating your own Blogger web address, selecting a design template, and formatting text and uploading photos. The workshop will also discuss tips on what to write, how often, and ways to incorporate other social media tools onto your site.
For more information, please call 617 859-2142
Biography in Context – Business Leaders
Posted on January 9th, 2013 by Gregor Smart in Kirstein Business Library
Try using our Biography in Context electronic resource if you are looking for background information on your favorite business leader. This resource covers biographies on over 525,000 individuals. Biographical information is culled from various news, magazine, and reference resources. For some profiles, you will also find additional links to images, audio, and video content.
Some of the product’s sample profiles:
If you’d like to learn more about Biography in Context check out the following video tutorial:
Let’s make writing your business plan less arduous.
Posted on January 4th, 2013 by Amber De Angelis in Kirstein Business Library
Tags: amber, Small Business
Writing a business plan can be frustrating. There is a lot of information to include which means there is a lot of information to forget. We have assembled several resources to help you get started with your business plan, but sometimes you just need that extra leg up.
Enter Enloop — an online product to help you build a better business plan while assessing the viability of your idea. Enloop’s product has been featured by Mashable, CNNMoney, and many others.
Some cool features
While there is a free option, some of the more advanced tools are available if you if you purchase a premium account. Enloop asks you a series of questions about your business idea and analyzes the answers to compute your Enloop Performance Score or EPS. The FICO-like score updates as you or collaborators adjust the plan. Higher scores indicate the likelihood of success.
Moreover, Enloop calls attention to weaknesses in your plan and gives you suggestions on how to correct them. Enloop will also generate cash flow and profit and loss forecasts based on the information you supply. And depending on which account type you use, Enloop will calculate up to 15 ratios so you can see how your idea stacks up against others in your industry.
Another convenient feature is Autowrite. It will take all of the information you have entered and insert it into a business plan template. The template is pretty flexible so you can add sections, create charts and graphs, and download it as a pdf. Again some features will be limited depending on price.
Overall, Enloop is nifty tool to create a draft, especially if you are not sure how to phrase the language of your business plan. The free account is very useful, but if you chose to subscribe to the service you can always cancel it later.
One last note
Remember, we have several programs geared at helping small businesses get started. On Tuesday, January 29 we will be holding our very popular Getting Started in Business program.
Also we host SCORE mentors every Friday. To make an appointment please call 617-859-2142 or just ask a librarian at the reference desk.
Cheers!