Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and
staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university
may be unable to access some of these resources.
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.
See the industry fact sheet for Consulting and the five-page list of Companies
in this industry (in this database).
As an example, a search for the term Consulting produced over 3,000 reports.
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.
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.
Foster Business Library Reference Collection:
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.
Foster Business Library
Books:
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:
Examples of Foster Business Library titles from these searches include:
Foster Business Library Articles:
Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the
Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online,
24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.
Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of
spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations
and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street
Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New
Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO
Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest
NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.
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.
Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
ProQuest Databases:
