My Favourite Tipples: March 2012
Jinfo Blog

By Jenny Robertson

Abstract

As a librarian in the commercial sector, I have worked with a wide variety of specialist subscription sources, but often find myself searching for resources that answer random questions posed by business analysts, usually with the proviso: “Oh, by the way, they MUST be free”. The ones with relevance to me outside of work are the ones I remember, and consequently are the ones I use again and again.

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As a librarian in the commercial sector, I have worked with a wide variety of specialist subscription sources, but often find myself searching for resources that answer random questions posed by business analysts, usually with the proviso: “Oh, by the way, they MUST be free”. The ones with relevance to me outside of work are the ones I remember, and consequently are the ones I use again and again.

Housepricecrash: this site has been great when working on real estate or banking projects in the UK. It provides statistics on the housing market collated from a number of sources. There are also links to resources that are extremely useful for those planning to move house.

The World Bank World Development Indicators and other datasets were in my bookmarks for years, and since making the databank freely available a while ago this is the source I recommend most frequently to staff. The World Bank DataFinder app for iPhone/android, lets you access 50 years of World Bank data on global economic indicators, chart and visualise that data, and share those charts.

Health Policy Insight is a great place to go for insider commentary on policies and news in the UK public health sector. When the UK government went through a phase of declaring new plans for the NHS it was my most visited site. It has frequently cut through the jargon in White Papers and commented with authority. The editor is providing some paid-for content in order to maintain the free insight, but hopefully the site will be around for years to come.

The re-branded epolitix site PoliticsHome filters parliament, press releases, radio, TV, newspapers, websites, blogs and Twitter. They also write many newswire articles making this a very comprehensive site for UK political current awareness.

Phil Bradley’s Blog is a must-read for me. He covers the web topics I care about (such as search engine developments and applications that do clever things on the web) but haven’t had time to investigate for myself.

This article appeared in FUMSI Magazine 51 (March 2012)

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