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Resources: Business & Investing

A to Z World Business

Information about business culture and practices in 100 countries. Up-to-date information on importing, exporting, and logistics.

Business Source Premier

Covers all disciplines of business including marketing, management, accounting, banking, finance and industry information. It is a complete business database that offers many of its articles in full text from 1000s of sources.

Consumers' Checkbook

Find the best-rated doctors, auto repair shops, plumbers, veterinarians, banks, dentists, carpet cleaners...and much more. Checkbook will tell you which Chicago Area service providers and retailers rated best and worst for quality and price.

D&B Hoovers

Information on more than 162 million businesses, both public and private, around the world; including the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific and emerging markets. Search by Company Name, Executives, Industry or by using Conceptual Search and Business Signals.

Business data includes Annual Revenues, Employee Counts, Corporate Family Tree, Key Contacts, Analyst Reports, SWOT reports, stock data, financials, and other vital information.

Financial Fit

Easy-to-understand personal finance lessons, videos and interactive tools to make informed financial decisions and achieve financial goals.

Financial Ratings Series Online

Independent and unbiased values and ratings by Weiss Ratings of stocks, mutual funds and exchange traded funds. Check ratings of banks, credit unions, and insurance companies.  Compare Medicare Supplement insurance plans. Download free financial planning ebooks.   

Gale Business Entrepreneurship

Hundreds of sample business plans, journals, and multimedia content. All aspects of starting and operating a small business: financing, management, marketing, human resources, franchising, accounting, taxes and more.

Gale Business Plan Builder

A step-by-step online planning tool for starting, managing and optimizing a business or nonprofit. 

Gale Legal Forms

Authentic, professional legal documents. Useful for filing patents and trademarks, developing leases, creating bills of sale, delegating power of attorney, and more. Ideal for supporting legal tasks for personal or business use.

Justice Entrepreneurs Project

Affordable legal services provided by independent lawyers in a variety of areas such as family law, landlord/tenant, estate law, consumer law, employment law, criminal misdemeanors and traffic tickets, and real property law. Small business help available for business formation, contracts and intellectual property issues. Limited immigration assistance.

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com

LinkedIn has now acquired Lynda.com. Tens of thousands of online courses are available on many business, technology, and digital media topics. They also added tutorials in Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, French, German, and Portuguese.

Morningstar

Research and analysis of mutual funds and stocks.

Clich here to access inside the library.

Plunkett Research Online

Industry and business analysis, statistics, technologies, and company profiles. Generate customized reports and industry data. Perfect for business plans, market research, case studies and strategic business intelligence.

Click here to access inside the library.

Record Information Services

Data about new homeowners, businesses, foreclosures and bankruptcies in the Chicago metropolitan area and in Illinois.

Click here to access inside the library.

Reference Solutions (formerly Reference USA)

Directory of data about U.S. businesses and residences. 

RKMA

A collection of ebooks curated by RKMA (Richard K. Miller & Associates).  Contents include business, marketing, market research on the travel, sports, entertainment, leisure activities, restaurant, food and beverage and retail industries as well as consumer behaviors.

Statista

Statista gathers data from a wide variety of government and commercial sources and presents it in an easy to search interface. Data can be exported to Excel and charts can be exported as picture files or directly into PowerPoint. Statista also includes market research reports on selected industries. 

Value Line

Investment information for stocks.