University Libraries

• Wednesday, February 10th, 10-11am
• Thursday, March 17th, 10-11a 
• Tuesday, April 12th, 2-3p

Register online  or by calling 319-335-9151.

Explorer’s Legacy: James Van Allen and the Discovery of the Radiation Belts February 1 – April 8   After months of being closed for renovations the new state of the art […]

By Timothy Shipe, Curator of the International Dada Archive Friday, February 5 marks the 100th anniversary of Dada, the avant-garde literary and artistic movement that started in the neutral city […]

Each week we will highlight one of the many databases we have here at the Pomerantz Business Library.

The database: Mergent Historical Annual Reports (available in Mergent Archives)

“Dating back to the mid 1800’s, Mergent’s Historical Annual Reports collections offers over 1,000,000 documents available in .PDF format for the United States, Canada and Europe. Access an extensive library of high-quality historical documents featuring rich textual details and in-depth analyses on thousands of global companies.”

Where to find it: You can find it here, or under “M” on the Databases A to Z page.  Note: Mergent Historical Annual Reports are within the Mergent Archives platform.

Use it to find: Public company annual reports and various other company documents.

Tips for searching:

• Basic: Enter the company name, specify the date range of interest (optional), and identify the type of document you are looking for: annual report, 10-K, etc. (optional).
• Alternatively, to find reports for companies from a specific city/town, choose the “Or” option and select the desired country, state, and city.
• Advanced: combine these two elements by including company name, date range, document type, and location information.
• Browse alphabetically by company name from the main search page.

On a related note: be sure to look at our recent profile of another great source for public company annual reports: ProQuest Historical Annual Reports.

Want help using the Mergent Historical Annual Reports database? Contact Jim or Kim to set up an appointment.

Upcoming Events: Iowa Bibliophiles Wednesday, February 10th at 7PM in the Special Collections Reading Room. Heather Wacha will be talking about a single Medieval manuscript leaf from Special Collections, Msc […]

The U.S. government has long been an active gatherer and disseminator of information. In recent years, with the roll out of the data.gov website, it has made strides to make this data more accessible and useable by the public, researchers, app developers, and businesses. The site serves as a gateway to publicly available datasets from not only the federal government, but also state and local governments as well as universities. These data cover a wide range of subject matter including: education, employment, agriculture, and public safety.  According to the site, the number of datasets available currently stands at over 192,000.  The site also provides examples of businesses and organizations that rely on the data to power their sites/applications.

As some reviewers have pointed out, data.gov is not without its limits. For example, the currency of the data provided varies; in some cases, more recent data can be found on an agency’s own website. In addition, the file formats provided vary quite a bit, from HTML to XML, CSV, and others. The scope and depth of participation by federal agencies with the data.gov initiative vary as well; details can be found here.

To search the available datasets from the main page, enter a keyword(s) in the main search box. Or, to browse available datasets, select a topic from the “Browse Topics” icons. Then select the “Data” or “Data Catalog” tab to view the available datasets. These sets can then be narrowed using the filters on the left side of the screen. Results can be filtered based on the file format, the agency supplying the data, and other attributes.