Summer Semester is over?

Wow - where did the summer go?  Our summer semester ends today!  The MCOB Business Library will be closed during our Interim Session from July 31st - August 21st and will re-open on August 22nd at 7:30 a.m. ready for our new incoming freshmen, transfer students and returning students and faculty.  We look forward to seeing you on August 22nd!

How to make $6B in 2 years (teaser: may include a library)

It can be done!  In the most recent edition of Fortune magazine, there is a great article on how the Skype deal came to be.  Basically, Silver Lake Partners and a venture firm, Andresseen-Horowitz, bought Skype from eBay for $2.75B.  In May 2011, the new owners announced they were selling the company to Microsoft for $8.25B!

Of course, this transaction is an example of the current technology bubble but what would make this transaction grow by 6B in two years is a great read and we have this current issue in the MCOB Magazine Shelves.

The real kicker, however, is when one of the critical meetings was to be held between the venture capital company and Cisco's Tony Bates.  Mr. Bates had long been an admirer of Andresseen but when he came into the Andresseen-Horowitz office, he found they had a library!  So, Mr. Bates began looking at the books to see if any of his favorites was in the library and couldn't find one of his particular favorites by William Gibson titled Neuromancer.  As Mr. Bates tells the story, he said that this became a great opening to the discussion at hand.

You just never know the impact of libraries and reading books may have in your future business discussions - come see us and browse our books - we have alot to offer you!

P.S.  and yes we do have Neuromancer in the Main Library (PS 3557.I2264 N48 1984)

Harvard Business Review - it's all about collaboration!

The latest edition of the Harvard Business Review (July-August 2011) is in the library and the theme is about collaboration.  Articles range from "Are you a collaborative leader" to "Building a collaborative organization" which should be very interesting to those in management.

For those of you in marketing, there is also an article on "What is your social media strategy" that outlines four ways companies are using technology to form connections as well as an article on the Group phenomenon and understanding more about this latest online discounting approach.

Finally, a great read on how the CEO of Bayer Corporation created a lean growth machine to a case study of how management has to decide who has to be let go in a downsizing initiative when all of his employees have the same performance review scores.

Indeed - this issue, as always, contains alot of material for those in management, marketing, HR, etc. in our journal/magazine section - come enjoy!

Mitchell College of Business Faculty Publications in the spotlight!

One of our more popular offerings in the library is the collection of our faculty's published research.  I decided to create a special reading area with the publications in a bookshelf dedicated solely these writings.  We will also create an index to the specialization of each of faculty member's research so if a student needs to learn more about a specific area of research, we can guide them to our faculty's research in addition to the other library resources.

If you haven't been to the library lately, you should come check us out - we keep adding resources every day to assist you while you are at MCOB.

Our Electronic Books Collection continues to grow!

The USA University Library System continues to invest in eBooks with the recent subscription to ebrary's Academic Complete Collection with over 70,000 titles in 15 disciplines including business.  Currently, one can access these titles by going to the USA Library Homepage, choosing electronic books and then select ebrary.  The team is working on adding the titles to USA's catalog, SOUTHcat, as well so they will appear when one searches using the catalog.

Pages from ebrary titles can be printed using the InfoTools button and choosing Print as an option.  You can select to print one page or up to 60 pages.  You can also save books to a bookshelf within ebrary by creating a free account.  Since ebrary books cannot be saved to your computer, they currently cannot be used on an ereader.  This is something the company is working on and hope to make available soon!

Young Money

We often hear the term 'old money' but there is a website called Young Money and it is geared to the young adult community with a focus on money management, entrepreneurship, careers, investing, technology and travel.  The site is very user-friendly and of particular appeal is the variety and practicality of articles on personal finance and entrepreneurship.

You can also subscribe to a free newsletter as well as an RSS feed, Face Book or Twitter.  I recommend you use this website to assist you personally but in your course work as well.

http://www.youngmoney.com/

Summer Second Term - three weeks to go!

I am not sure about you but it seems to me summer is moving really fast!  We will soon be facing final exam time for the summer's second term the last week of July and looking toward the beginning of fall semester on August 22nd.

Please note the library at the Mitchell College of Business will close during Interim from August 1st - August 22nd but we will be busily preparing the library and its resources for your return this fall -- except for those lucky graduates who are completing their students this summer.