Business Reference 101

BizRef 101 is for any librarian in-training who wants to gain confidence and knowledge around BizRef topics such as company and industry research, consumer and market research, entrepreneurship topics and more. This 3-week long, asynchronous course allows users to go at their own pace as they work their way through each section. In addition to interacting with other course participants and sharing BizRef "stumper" questions, students in this course will have access to a number of proprietary business research databases through trials set up specifically for them.

Students will be presented with resources guides specific to company research, industry research, small business and entrepreneurship, basic living and stock market research, consumer research, international business research, business statistics and more.

After participating in this eCourse, you will:

• Be familiar with basic company, industry, and other business-research related sources
• Build upon existing reference skills in order to confidently incorporate strategies for successful business reference outcomes.
• Gain practical experience using proprietary business databases.

Celia Ross has been teaching Business Reference 101 to sold-out crowds for RUSA since 2006. She has gained business research experience in a number of settings including a venture capital firm, a global consulting firm and in public and academic libraries. She is currently a Senior Associate Librarian at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. She is a past chair of RUSA's Business Reference & Services Section (BRASS) and the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Business Librarianship award.

An updated version of her award-winning book, Making Sense of Business Reference, was published in September 2019 https://www.alastore.ala.org/content/making-sense-business-reference-guide-librarians-and-research-professionals-second-edition