General Information

About the Reading Room

In the Business Reference Services Reading Room all major business subjects are covered, including industry information, commerce, statistics, banking, insurance, economics, finance, investment, marketing, and more. The reading room is divided into three areas: a main reading area, and outer and inner alcoves. In the main reading area are tables for readers, the biography collection, and the beginning of the Business Reference Collection proper which consists of over 20,000 volumes located on open shelves throughout the reading room. The outer alcove houses the continuation of the business reference collection, special collections of US and foreign industrial directories arranged by state and country, and computer printouts of business serial titles with call numbers. The middle and back sections of the inner alcove contain the last segment of the business reference collection, business microfiche holdings with microfiche readers and reader/printers, and the business cd-rom network and stand-alone work stations.

The reference desks are located in the front room of the inner alcove. Nearby shelving houses the reference desk collection, a collection of current business periodicals, and business newspapers such as Commerce Business Daily and the Wall Street Journal.

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Reference Assistance

Reference specialists are available at the Business Reference Desk throughout the day to help researchers locate information and data. Using the latest in print and electronic sources, every effort is made to provide researchers access to current as well as historical information. Extensive business information is also available from books and bound periodicals in the Library's general collections, which are shelved in closed stacks in the Adams and Jefferson Buildings.

Finding the most current data on many topics may require a visit to the collections of newspapers, current issues of journals, and government publications in the Newspaper and Current Periodicals Reading Room (Madison Building, Room LM133); certain other indispensable information will be found only in microform in the Microform Reading Room (Jefferson Building, Room LJ139B). If special needs cannot be met by the collections at the Library, referrals may be made to other resources and collections.