Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.
• Hoovers Online:   Under Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. Hoovers Online offers information about 40,000 public and private companies worldwide, with links to company homepages and annual reports, charts, company capsule, competitors, divisions, earnings, financials, Fortune and Forbes rankings, history, industry information, insider trading, mission statements, news links, press releases, officers, patents, products, SEC filings, splits, subsidiaries, etc.

  See the industry fact sheet for Consulting and the five-page list of Companies in this industry (in this database).

• MarketResearch.com Academic:   This database contains comprehensive full-text market research reports covering a broad range of markets, industries, and companies from reputable market intelligence sources Icon Group, Kalorama, Packaged Facts, SBI, and Simba, for U.S. and global markets for 200 countries covering over 2,000 industries and products.

  As an example, a search for the term Consulting produced over 3,000 reports.

• ReferenceUSA:   Directory information for 12 million companies in the U.S.  Companies can be searched for by name, business activity, size and location. With this database, it is possible to identify businesses by geographic area and type of business, as well as by number of employees and gross annual sales. (This database is available widely on campus and may be accessed from home via the U.W. connectivity kit or via the Libraries' proxy server.)

  The SIC code is 8742, for Management Consulting Services. A custom search for SIC code 8742 produced a list of more than 95,000 firms in the U.S., in this industry, including more than 2,000 in the state of Washington.

• Social Sciences Citation Index:   This database "is a multidisciplinary index, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the social sciences. It indexes more than 1,725 journals spanning 50 disciplines, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. It "provides access to current information and retrospective data from 1956 forward."

  A search in this database for Business Consulting produced just eleven references.

Web resources:

Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.
• Association of Management Consulting Firms:   "Since 1929, the Association of Management Consulting Firms … has fostered understanding of the profession's scope and purposes; provided a forum for confronting common challenges; expanded the knowledge base of member firms and their clients; and championed a Code of Professional Conduct." See their worldwide list of Members. Unlike some trade association webpages, this site offers no public information on the consulting industry; instead, this site is set up to sell association publications. This site also offers a consultant Referral Service.

• Career Guide to Industries:   This Bureau of Labor Statistics site, part of the online Occupational Outlook Handbook, offers a career-oriented description of many industries, with information on the nature of the industry, working conditions, employment, occupations in the industry, training, earnings and outlook, as well as sources of additional information. See Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services.

• Consulting (Wetfeet):   This job-hunting site offers industry profiles for many industries, including consulting, with information on the industry's major players, the industry workplace, and job profiles and hiring in the industry.

• Consulting Guide:   This site is one of Harvard Business School's Baker Business Library industry guides, with company directories and rankings for the consulting industry, as well as trade journals and associations, industry statistics and analysis, and career and networking information.

• Institute of Management Consultants USA:   "Founded in 1968, the Institute of Management Consultants USA, Inc. … is the premier national professional association representing management consultants." This organization includes over two dozen regional or city chapters including one for the Pacific Northwest. This association provides a certification process for management consultants and an Archive of information, in the form of press releases, about the consulting profession. They also offer a consultant search function and a Code of Ethics.

The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.
• D&B million dollar directory.
  This five-volume set is a directory of America's top public and private companies, firms with more than 180 employees or more than $9 million in annual sales; there are also geographic and industry indexes to the directory. See volume five, pages 9763 to 9784, for SIC code 8742, Management Consulting Services.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HC102 .D8 2004.

• Puget Sound major employers directory pinpointer.
  Published by the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, this unique reference work to companies in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties covers almost 1,900 major employers in the region (employers with more than 100 employees), pinpointing them by map location and providing company addresses, number of employees, telephone numbers, principal products or services, and four names of contact persons. There is also an SIC code index. See SIC index page 26 for six companies in SIC code 8742, Management Consulting Services.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HC107 .W22 .P864 2001/2003.

• Business: the ultimate resource.
  This 2,200-page single volume is "designed to offer a wide range of insights, information, and practical guidance on every aspect of management" via 2.5 million words of text from 200 contributors, with 700 illustrations and 150 maps, in seven major sections including best practice, a management library, business thinkers and management giants, a business dictionary, a world business almanac, and a guide to business sources. See Using Management Consulting Services Effectively on pages 526 to 527.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD38.15 .B878 2002.

• The business of consulting: the basics and beyond.
  This book covers getting started in consulting, skills and personal characteristics of successful consultants, signs of a mediocre consultant, financing, starting a consulting business, staying in business, the cost of doing business, client development, ethics, professionalism, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .B534 1999.

• Plunkett's consulting industry almanac.
  This almanac offers information about major industry trends, industry statistics, industry information, major companies in the industry, with indexes by state, country, region, etc. Also included are one-page profiles of companies in the industry, with directory information, growth plans and special features, contacts, brief financials, brief salary and benefits data, and women officer-director and advancement information.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .P85 2005.

• Vault guide to top 50 consulting firms.
  This paperback, from the Vault Career Library, ranks consulting firms, with the addition of prestige rankings by practice area. Also included is an overview of consulting, how to get hired, and profiles of each of the top fifty firms, and the best of the rest, plus industry buzzwords and an index of consulting firms.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .V37 2006.

• Directory of management consultants.
  This older directory, in one volume, provides an A to Z list of over 1,500 management consulting firms in North America, with profiles of each firm, plus indexes by services, industries, geography, and key principals. There are also short essays on how to select a consulting firm, how to avoid failure, how to get value from a consultant, and an index of consulting associations.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .D55 2000.

• Harvard Business School career guide: management consulting.
  This paperback covers the management consulting industry, the top 40 firms, consulting versus investment banking, an associate's life in consulting, and recruiting for management consulting.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .M37 1998.

• The complete guide to consulting success.
  This large paperback bills itself as "a step-by-step handbook to build a successful consulting practice, complete with agreements and forms."
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .S516 1997.

• Vault guide to the case interview.
  The subtitle of this paperback is "launching your consulting career with winning strategies for your case interview." The book talks about types of case interviews, the top ten tips for answering business case questions, case frameworks, Porter's Five Forces, SWOT, PIE, Seven S, the Four P's, Four C's, Value Chain, etc. There are also some "real life" interviews, with firms like McKinsey, Kearney, and some business cases, guesstimates, and brainteasers.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .V38 2002.

• Consultants & consulting organizations directory.
  This annual two-volume directory, with supplements, profiles over 25,000 firms and individuals, engaged in consulting, for business, industry, and government. This set provides descriptive listings of individual firms, with information about each firm, including founding date, staff, executives, annual revenues, activities, geographic area served, branch offices, etc.; arrangement is not A to Z by firm name but by type of business, with indexes by geography, activities, and firms.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD69 .C6 .W38 2007.

• Encyclopedia of global industries.
  Twelve-page descriptions of 125 global industries, with background and development information, current conditions, industry leaders and further reading. See Management Consulting Services on pages 888 to 898.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD2324 .E53 2003.

• Market share reporter.
  Annual two-volume compilation of U.S. and world market share data for companies, products and services, arranged by SIC code, and with indexes by product, company and topic. See Consulting in volume two, on page 773, in tables 3420 and 3421.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5410 .M35 2005.

The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

A keyword search for Consultants or Consulting retrieved over 360 records in the Foster Business Library including. Try also subject searches, for:

• Business Consultants
• Consultants

Examples of Foster Business Library titles from these searches include:

• The business of consulting: the basics and beyond   (2007)
• Million dollar consulting toolkit   (2006)
• Coaching for leadership: the practice of leadership coaching from the world's greatest coaches   (2006)
• Guerrilla marketing for consultants: breakthrough tactics for winning profitable clients   (2005)
• Getting started in consulting   (2004)
• The consultant's big book of reproducible surveys and questionnaires: 50 instruments to help you assess clients' problems   (2003)
• The consultant's big book of organization development tools: 50 reproducible, customizable interventions to help solve your clients' problems   (2003)
• Great consulting challenges and how to surmount them: powerful techniques for the successful practitioner   (2003)
• Management consulting: a guide to the profession   (2002)
• Finding your way in the consulting jungle: a guidebook for organization development practitioners   (2001)

In addition to the 800 journals in the Foster Business Library Periodicals Collection, the Foster Business Library offers access to over 100 million full text articles in over 10,000 periodicals through its full text article databases such as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases may be found on the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Databases.

All four of these databases are available from any computer on the campus network as well as from home (via the UW Connectivity Kit or the Libraries' Off-Campus Access link, using your UW Net ID and password). The easiest of these databases to use is ProQuest Databases. For more information about accessing Foster Business Library databases from off campus, see Database Access. For more information about business databases, see the research guide entitled Databases, A to Z.

• ProQuest Databases:

  This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide. Article full text is often available in several formats, including text, text plus graphics, and PDF. This database also offers a very useful subject structure, to narrow search results, as well as article citation information.

  Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article. For tips on searching this database, see About ProQuest Databases.

  A basic search for Consulting produced over 470,000 articles, too large a result list to be useful; a subject search for SUB(Consulting) produced a more manageable 20,000 articles (but most of the articles assigned this subject are not recently published). A subject search for SUB(Consultants) produced a list of more than 36,000 articles, including more than 400 articles in scholarly journals, almost 1,000 articles in magazines, over 10,000 articles in trade and industry periodicals, and over 22,000 newspaper articles. A similar search for SUB(Consultants) produced over 38,000 articles while a search for SUB(Consulting Firms) produced over 16,000 articles. A subject search for Management Consultants produced over 6,000 articles.

  Examples of articles from these searches include:

  • "How To Quit -- Without Quitting"   (Business Week. New York: Oct 16, 2006. , Iss. 4005;  pg. 116)
  • "How Speaking Engagements Can Capture More Business for Consultants"   (USA Today. New York: Sep 2005. Vol. 134, Iss. 2724;  pg. 30, 2 pgs)
  • "The once & future consultant"   (Fast Company. Boston: Aug 2005. , Iss. 97;  pg. 48, 4 pgs)
  • "Nonstop innovation"   (Inc. Boston: Jul 2005. Vol. 27, Iss. 7;  pg. 34, 1 pgs)
  • "Consultant, good; consulting firm, bad"   (Consulting to Management. Burlingame: Jun 2006. Vol. 17, Iss. 2;  pg. 3, 3 pgs)
  • "Accenture's New High-Wire Act;"   (Business Week. New York: Nov 15, 2004. , Iss. 3908;  pg. 92)

Help:

The Foster Business Library Reference Desk is staffed most of the hours that the library is open. The staff at the desk will be happy to help you find research tools on any business subject. For more in-depth assistance, see the Team Librarian Consultation Archives. For e-mail questions, direct your query to balib@u.washington.edu. For assistance by telephone, dial (206) 543-8012 during library hours.

See also the Foster Business Library's Business & Economics FAQ, and, in particular, the section for Management.

For research guides on a wide variety of industries, products, companies, issues and topics, see the Team Librarian Consultation archives.

• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by class or program)
• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by industry)
• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by academic quarter)
• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by title of assignment)
• Index to All Team Consultations and Research Guides