INFORMATION UPDATE "Helping Businesses Find the Facts" April, 2001 Number 20 A Monthly Publication of Shamel Information Services mailto:InfoUpdate@shamelinfo.com ============================================================ Welcome to INFORMATION UPDATE, the free monthly newsletter for business and healthcare professionals. For subscription information, refer to notes at the end of this newsletter. ============================================================ ------------------------------------------------------------ IN THIS ISSUE ------------------------------------------------------------ => DO IT YOURSELF - SEC Filings => DID YOU KNOW - Not Everything is on the Internet => Notes, News and Announcements => Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information ------------------------------------------------------------ DO IT YOURSELF - Securities and Exchange Commission ------------------------------------------------------------ Following the great stock market crash of October 1929 and the economic depression that followed, the U.S. Congress held hearings to identify problems and solutions for the nation's capital markets. Based on the findings in these hearings, Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The main purposes of these laws can be reduced to two common-sense notions: Companies publicly offering securities for investment dollars must tell the public the truth about their businesses, the securities they are selling, and the risks involved in investing. People who sell and trade securities – brokers, dealers, and exchanges – must treat investors fairly and honestly, putting investors' interests first. (from the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov) Whether you are part of a global corporation or an individual investor, the SEC web site has lots to offer. There is a great deal of background on the SEC, its commissioners, and the laws and regulations the commission administers. There are staff interpretations of the law, including accounting and legal bulletins. You can learn about investing, check out brokers and advisors, file complaints, and follow-up SEC legal actions. The site includes links to information for accountants, broker dealers, EDGAR filers, funds and advisers, municipal issuers, and small business. Besides this treasure trove of background and educational information, researchers will want to know about EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval.) "The SEC requires all public companies (except foreign companies and companies with less than $10 million in assets and 500 shareholders) to file registration statements, periodic reports, and other forms electronically through EDGAR. Anyone can access and download this information for free. Here you'll find links to a complete list of filings avail- able through EDGAR and instructions for searching the EDGAR database." http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml EDGAR is a serious tool for researchers working on mergers, acquisitions and investments. For more information on tools and techniques from professional searchers, I strongly recommend: Kassel, Amelia. Super Searchers on Wall Street: Top Investment Professionals Share Their Online Secrets. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 2000. $24.95 Tudor, Jan Davis. Super Searchers on Mergers and Acquisitions: The Online Secrets of Top Corporate Researchers and M&A Pros. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 2001. $24.95 ------------------------------------------------------------ DID YOU KNOW - Not Everything is on the Internet ------------------------------------------------------------ If you've been reading Information Update for any time at all, you've heard this before, but not everything is on the Internet. A recent article in American Libraries (April, 2001) included some interesting statistics: Only about 8% of all journals are on the Web To digitize a library of 400,000 books would cost about $1,000,000,000 Almost nothing on the Internet is more than 15 years old When you need some information, it is not unreasonable to fire up your favorite search engine and give the Internet a try. Just remember its many limitations. When you need assurance of quality research and reliable results, call Shamel Information Services. We can go beyond the Internet to hundreds of commercial databases and printed sources for the information you need. ------------------------------------------------------------ Notes, News, and Announcements ------------------------------------------------------------ Information Update readers living in California may want to consider purchasing a battery backup system for their compu- ters. In the event of a rolling black-out or loss of power, this system will give you time to save the information you were working on and to properly shut down your computer. April 19-22 Network in New Orleans with the Association of Independent Information Professionals. http://www.aiip.org June 9-14 Special Libraries Association meets in San Antonio. http://www.sla.org ============================================================= Information Update articles are now searchable on the web. Visit http://www.shamelinfo.com and click on "Newsletters." From that page you can enter your search terms to locate articles from past issues of Information Update. Give it a try and let us know what you think. The Shamel Information Services web site at http://shamelinfo.com contains Information Update archives. Just click on "Newsletters" and check for any issues you might have missed. -------------------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE -------------------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions to INFORMATION UPDATE are free. You may subscribe or unsubscribe by sending a message to: mailto:InfoUpdate@shamelinfo.com with SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Copyright 2001 Shamel Information Services Please feel free to forward this issue to colleagues, in its entirety. Other uses without permission may violate copyright. Online archives at http://www.shamelinfo.com/newsletter.htm =============================================================== Cynthia L. Shamel, editor Shamel Information Services Poway, California mailto:cshamel@shamelinfo.com Ms. Shamel is on the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Information Professionals http://www.aiip.org, a Special Libraries Association, San Diego Chapter Director and a member of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals http://www.scip.org Telephone: 858-673-4673 Toll Free: 800-330-9939