Globe and Mail columnist John Heinzl recently asked viewers (he creates Investor Clinic videos) to send in their favourite books on investing.  Over a dozen books are listed.  We don’t have all of them, but some of the titles we do have are listed below.  Take a look at the article and see what you think.

• The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William J. Bernstein
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing  by Burton G. Malkiel.
• The Naked Investor: Why Almost Everybody but you gets Rich on your RRSP by John Lawrence Reynolds.
• The Investment Zoo by Stephen A. Jarislowsky
• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

We work hard to build a comprehensive and representative business collection of books and online resources at the library.  However, try as we might, we can’t carry absolutely everything.  If you’re looking for a particular book or resource and we don’t have it, there are a few things you can do.  But before we can do anything, please let us know.  If there are gaps in our collection, it’s harder for us to fill them if we don’t know what people are looking for.  Plus, we can’t help you if we don’t know there’s a problem.  Here are some of the ways we can help.

• We can look at adding an item to our collection.  We buy new materials all the time – new books arrive every week – and we like to get suggestions from our patrons. 
• We can refer you to another library.  If we don’t have something, maybe our neighbours in Oshawa or Ajax have it.  Durham residents can obtain a free library card at any Durham Region library (except Pickering), so a quick trip across town limits might get you what you’re looking for.
• Related to that, we can borrow books from other libraries across Ontario and Canada through Inter-Library Loan.  Please note that this can take a few days or weeks, depending on where the book is coming from, so this may not be an option if you need something quickly.  We’re also happy to pull in books from local libraries, although as noted, you can go directly to other Durham region libraries if you need it in a short time.
• We can suggest other books about the same subject that may help.
• We can help you search our databases and the internet for information and articles on the same topic.

Always remember, we’re here to help.  Please don’t hesitate to ask.

Looking for information on business financing?  Check out Canadian author Iain Williamson’s series of books.  Mr. Williamson has written several guides on a wide variety of financing topics, from start-up to seeking investment.  They’re written specifically for Canadians and updated editions are released every year or two.  Click here for a complete list of the titles in our collection or check out the individual books listed below:

• Your Guide to Starting and Self-Financing Your Own Business
• Your Guide to Government Financial Assistance for Business in Ontario
• Your Guide to Preparing a Plan to Raise Money for Your Own Business
• Your Guide to Arranging Bank & Debt Financing
• Your Guide to Canadian Export Financing
• Your Guide to Raising Venture Capital
• Your Guide to Financing Business Growth by Selling a Piece of the Pie

This isn’t in Whitby, but is still a useful event to note.  Derek Picard, Senior Policy Analyst for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, will explain how the new Harmonized Sales Tax is being implemented in Ontario.

This event is hosted by the Scugog Chamber of Commerce and will be held at Emmanuel Pentecostal Church (1680 Reach St., Port Perry) on January 28 at 7:30 AM.  For more details, click here.

Some of our new magazine subscriptions for 2010 have started to arrive.  One isn’t a magazine in the traditional sense, but is a great source of investment information.  The Value Line Investment Survey Small & Mid-Cap Edition joins the Value Line Investment Survey in our collection. 

This publication, updated weekly, reports on about 1800 different stocks from smaller and more volatile companies than those profiled in the regular Value Line survey.  Small and Mid-Cap companies can be difficult to research and Value Line is one of the most comprehensive and well-respected sources of stock information available, so this is a great place to look for investment data.

Both Value Line editions are available for use within the library at the 2nd floor Information Desk – just look for the big olive green binders.

And while we’re here – best wishes for the holiday season from the staff of the Whitby Public Library.  We look forward to providing you with business and investment information in 2010.

      

December is the time of year for “best” lists – best movies, best books, etc.  Business writer Harvey Schachter, writing in the Globe & Mail, listed his picks for the top ten business books of 2009, plus runners-up.  We’re  sorry to say we don’t have all of them yet  - orders for each title not in our collection have been submitted and will hopefully arrive soon – but here are the titles we currently have:

Who : The A Method for Hiring  by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
 ”…this New York Times Bestseller…provides a simple, practical, and effective solution to what The Economist calls the single biggest problem in business today: unsuccessful hiring.”

Managing by Henry Mintzberg
 ”Written for managers, this guide creates a new management model that shows how the most effective practitioners are the ones who dismiss popular trends of style, hierarchy and culture to focus on reflection, analysis, worldliness, collaboration and proactiveness.”

How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins
“In How The Mighty Fall, Jim Collins considers the “dark side,” offering a perspective on how a fall from greatness can happen – to even the seemingly invincible.  Adapting the very methodology that established Good to Great as a landmark, How the Mighty Fall shows that every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline, but recovery is possible. In some cases, companies emerge stronger – even after having crashed into the depths of a near-catastrophic fall.”

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis
“An indispensable manual for survival and success, this guide asks the most important question today’s leaders need to ask themselves: What would Google do? The result is an astonishing, mind-opening book that can change the way readers ask questions and solve problems.”

 Googled : The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta
“…the fullest account ever told of Google’s rise, shares the secret of Google’s success, and shows why the worlds of new and old media often communicate as if residents of different planets.”

The Town of Whitby has added BizPal to the town website.  BizPal is an online service that helps entrepreneurs find licence and permit information for all levels of government.  The site quizzes you on the type of business you plan to operate and asks you specific questions that will help determine what sort of permits you need.  From these questions, it creates a list with links to forms, contacts and additional information for each permit.  The great thing about this service is the local content – it contains information specific to Whitby and Durham Region, as well as the provincial and federal stuff.

You aren’t required to identify yourself, so everything is anonymous.  And you can save the page to your computer for future reference.

The Business Advisory Centre Durham (BACD) is offering one-on-one consulting services with business advisor Malcolm McTaggart.  Mr. McTaggart is a Certified Management Accountant, holds an MBA and has extensive business experience.  He’s available to discuss marketing, operational or financial strategies to accelerate your business and increase in your bottom line.

Please note that there is a $25 administration fee for this service. 

For more details and registration information, visit the BACD website.

(Note – We had posted this earlier, but had to change the date.  Please note the revised date below.)

We get a lot of questions about résumés, cover letters and job interviews whatever the economic circumstances, but it seems that we’ve gotten even more after the economic downturn hit.  Résumés are your foot in the door of the job market and a good one is a crucial step in landing a job. 

 So, in partnership with the Durham Region Unemployed Help Centre, we’re holding a  Résumé Writing Workshop here at the Central Library on December 4 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM.  The experts from the Help Centre will provide you with the knowledge you need to craft a new résumé or punch up your current one. 

We hope to make this a regular monthly event, so please tell anyone who could use some help with their job search.

To register, please contact the library at 905-668-6531, ext. 2020 or at askalibrarian@whitbylibrary.on.ca.

Every now and then, we get a question about demographics.  Demographics, as you probably know, refers to defining characteristics of populations – so many married people, so many people with a certain level of education, so many people who speak a certain language, etc. etc.  Demographics are a huge part of marketing.  Marketers can determine target populations and businesses can customize their services, products and advertising accordingly. 

Defining the population is one thing, but the other half of the equation is figuring out where that population is.  This can be tricky, since a lot of this information is proprietary (i.e. available only for a fee).  Still, there are a couple of useful sources available in the library and online.

Statistics Canada’s Community Profiles provide good, free basic demographic information for each municipality across Canada.  Data collected includes age, education, mobility, owners / renters, jobs, earnings and more.   There’s a new census every five years, so the current data is from 2006.

FP Markets Canadian Demographics is an annual publication from the Financial Post.  It includes data similar to that found in the Census, but with current estimates.  Other data includes retail sales, age of vehicles and liquid assets, all for municipalities across Canada.  Please note that the latest copy is a reference book for use within the library only.

Finally, for neighbourhood-level information, try StatsCan’s Census Tract Profiles.  StatsCan breaks down larger cities and towns into smaller areas called Census Tracts.  Just type in a postal code for the area you’re looking for and the site will provide the same data (age, education, mobility, owners / renters, jobs, earnings, etc.) for the neighbourhood.  A PDF map shows you the area covered.  Again, this information is from the 2006 Census.

If you’re looking for some demographic information, take a look.  After all, all of these sources are free!