Credo Reference Blog

Finance and Investment

One of the reference sources recently added to Credo Reference is the “Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms”. This is an American work but its entries apply to many other countries. Besides, the worldwide credit crunch is often said to have started in the USA.

1. In finance, what does “VAT” stand for?

2. Which currency replaced the ECU (European Currency Unit) in 1999?

3. What is the meaning of the Latin phrase “per capita”?

4. Give the full name of the British economist who devised Keynesian economics.

5. In financial projections, where would you find a “hockey stick”?

6. Is a “bear market” a prolonged period of rising prices or falling prices?

7. In the USA, what is the nickname for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC)?

8. When talking about investments, what is a “boiler room”?

9. Is a “widow-and-orphan stock” a stock that pays high dividends and is very safe, or a stock that pays low dividends and is very risky?

10. By what name is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) generally known?

Find the answers here.

Image “Saving her Pocket Money”, by Albert Roosenboom. Find out more about it on Credo Reference: http://www.credoreference.com/entry/bridgeart/saving_her_pocket_money

As my colleague Pete Ciuffetti wrote earlier this summer, Credo Reference recently instituted a new program challenging Credo employees to “Be Good, Do Good” both for our own health and for the good of others.

For my “Be Good, Do Good” I decided to get back on my bike – I had, once upon a time, spent a great deal of time cycling but in recent years let my lovely bike gather more dust than it deserved. To give myself more incentive to ride regularly and to push myself harder I decided to find and train for a 100-mile, or “Century” ride.

My criteria were pretty simple: a 100-mile, one-day ride here in New England that raised money for a cause I believed in. When I heard about The New England Parkinson’s Ride I knew I had found the perfect event. The ride takes place on September 12, 2009 and starts and ends in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. The ride offers three routes: 30, 50 and 100 miles – each a one-day ride. I’ll be doing the 100-mile loop with my youngest brother, Josh. Together we are hoping to raise over $1,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

My maternal grandmother, Helen Goldstein, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s when she was 68 and had been suffering from symptoms for a few years already. She was an amazing woman – creative, spunky, fashionable, energetic and oh so smart. Over the next 16 years the disease took more and more of her away from us until her passing in January 2005. I miss her every day and I do this ride to honor her spirit and memory.

Parkinson’s is a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder affecting 1 in 100 people over the age of 60. At present there is no known cure. The Michael J. Fox Foundation, beneficiary of my ride, is working aggressively toward finding a cure for Parkinson’s and improving the lives of Parkinson’s patients through research grants. To date they have funded over $149 million in research.

To learn more about the Michael J Fox Foundation, or to sponsor my ride, please go to http://www.teamfox.org/teamfox/blaine?faf=1&elid=2580208498

Image “bicycle“, from the Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide, on Credo Reference.

This week: Middle Names

Can you supply the middle names for these famous people? Where their middle names are not well-known, we give you three possibilities to choose from.

1. What was the middle name of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Mozart?

2. What was U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s middle name?

3. What was Thomas Edison’s middle name?

4. Was John Lennon’s middle name originally Julian, Anthony or Winston?

5. What was the middle name of the British novelist William Thackeray?

6. Is Stephen Hawking’s middle name William, Albert or Alan?

7. Was film director Alfred Hitchcock’s middle name John, Joseph or Julian?

8. Is U.S. computer scientist Bill Gates’s middle name Henry, Gordon or Michael?

9. Was jazz trumpeter Miles Davis’s middle name George, Noah or Dewey?

10. What was the poet Percy Shelley’s middle name?

Find the answers here.

Image entitled: “The United States Information Agency prepares giant pictures of Kennedy for export at the time of his inauguration in 1961.”. Find it on Credo Reference.

This week, we’ve added one new title, and updated an additional title. This brings the total number of volumes in the Credo Reference General Reference collection to over 400!

The new title is Geography of the World, by Dorling Kindersley. “Global diversity comes alive in DK’s essential guide to our ever-changing world, full of fact-packed spreads and full-color photographs.” This title has over 1000 images, including maps and other cultural images of various countries. Check out the entry on Italy for an example of the kind of content this title offers.

The title that has been updated is the Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, & Health Professions, from Elsevier Health Sciences. This title is “so much more than just a dictionary…the completely revised, bestselling, trusted Mosby’s Dictionary is the all-in-one reference you need to help you make sense of the complex world of health care, from a to zymorphic. It features superior-quality definitions plus full-color illustrations. But that’s only the beginning. Mosby’s Dictionary also includes encyclopedic entries to explain more difficult concepts in depth, appendixes with practical quick-reference information. It’s the ONE reference you’ll turn to from beginning to end!”. It also contains over 4,000 images!

Boston and Oxford, (July 21, 2009) – Credo Reference, the award winning online reference library, has signed an agreement with SAGE to provide titles from their Key Concepts and Key Thinkers Series on the Credo Reference platform.

Written by experienced and respected academics and with a focus on the higher education market, these new titles provide Credo Reference users with information on key concepts in a variety of disciplines. SAGE’s titles are well-complemented in Credo, enhancing the cross-referencing across Credo’s 400+ titles and millions of entries. A few examples of SAGE Key Concepts and Key Thinkers titles that will be integrated:

• 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies
• Key Concepts in Critical Social Theory
• Key Concepts in Early Childhood Education and Care
• Key Concepts in Feminist Theory and Research
• Key Concepts in Medical Sociology
• Key Concepts in Political Communication
• Key Concepts in Urban Studies
• Key Concepts in Work
• Key Contemporary Concepts
• Key Thinkers in Psychology

“We’re very pleased to add these key resources to the Credo Reference platform,” commented Huw Alexander, Rights Manager, SAGE UK. “We have found that Credo’s award winning service is a great way to further the reach of SAGE’s authoritative, comprehensive titles, so it was a logical decision to add these new titles.”

“Overwhelmingly, librarians and the library press have responded positively to the Credo Reference platform,” added John G. Dove, Credo President. “We’re pleased to be able to provide these Key Concepts and Key Thinkers titles from Sage Publications on Credo. They provide exactly the context for study for which undergraduate students are thirsting before diving into the professional literature of a field.”

At ALA in Chicago, three of the Credo team (Mike Sweet, Jenny Walker and Anne Kail) jumped in a cab to get to a meeting. As the cab sped away they discovered a wallet dropped by the previous occupant. There was no contact number to be found, so Jenny handed it over to ALA as the owner was a member and they could perhaps contact her.

What are the chances? Of all the shuttle buses plowing back and forth every hour (have you been to ALA?!) two rows behind her on one of those buses the following day, Anne heard a woman on the phone telling her husband that the wallet had been found but maybe they should cancel the credit cards, just in case. Anne turned around, and explained why there was no need to cancel the cards.

Much laughter on the bus as the owner called back her husband with the good news. She told him that she’d been concerned about the cash, too, but friends had told her not to worry – this was ALA, and the wallet would be found by a ‘library-type person’ (with all that that implied).

“I just knew that it would get to the owner,” said Jenny, “the (ALA) staff were so concerned.”

Don’t lovely coincidences like this brighten up a day?

Title Roles
The most important actor in a film is often the person who takes the title role. Test your knowledge of cinema by tackling these questions about title roles in movies.

1. Who played the title role of Detective Harry Callahan in the 1971 film “Dirty Harry”?

2. Who played the title role in the 1990 film “Pretty Woman”?

3. Who won an Oscar for his performance in the title role of the film “Gandhi” (1982)?

4. Who played Dr Strangelove and two other roles in the 1963 film “Dr Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”?

5. Who starred as Bridget Jones in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (2001) and its sequel “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” (2004)?

6. What was the name of the violent hero played by Mel Gibson in a futuristic Australian film (1979) and its sequels?

7. Who played “Alfie” in the 2004 remake of the film with that title?

8. Who took the title role in the 1979 comedy film “The Jerk”?

9. Who won critical acclaim for her role as Thelma in “Thelma and Louise” (1991)?

10. Who played a corrupting valet in the 1963 film “The Servant”?

Find the answers here.

In the last week, We’ve added 8 exciting new titles to the Credo Reference platform, from a variety of publishers:

Key Concepts in Postcolonial LIterature, by Macmillan. This text provides an overview of the main themes, issues, and critical perspectives that have had the greatest effect on postcolonial literatures. Discussing the historical, cultural and contextual background that has affected postcolonial literatures and our reading of them, it contains selected work of some of the major writers from this period.

Key Concepts in Early Childhood Education and Care, by Sage UK. Cathy Nutbrown, a leading academic in early childhood education, identifies and explains key terms and practices central to the work and study of early childhood in this accessible reference text.

A must for practitioners working with children from birth to the end of the foundation stage, and for students following courses in early childhood education and care, it details key issues, identified in a survey of over 300 practitioners in the field, and provides reading and reference sources to assist practitioners and students in identifying further material to support their work.

Key Contemporary Concepts, by Sage UK. This book is the essential roadmap to the key concepts which frame our understanding of society and culture. From cybernetics to quantum theory, from ideology to power, from aesthetics to mimesis, this book spans a range of disciplines to provide an insight into the current scientific and intellectual state of society. This ambitious pedagogical and intellectual project dazzles with insight and the breadth of knowledge presented.

Each entry, from Abjection to Zeno’s Paradox, provides a history and current meaning of the concept in question. It then outlines its place in the work of a key author, while also offering an interpretation of the term’s significance, both current and classical. Concepts are organized in alphabetical order, complete with references for further research, making this the essential reference for students throughout the social sciences and humanities.

Key Concepts in Feminist Theory and Research, by Sage UK. This original and engaging text explores the core concepts in feminist theory. This up-to-date text addresses the implications of postmodernism and post-structuralism for feminist theorizing. It identifies the challenges of this through the development of ‘conceptual literacy’.

Biographical Dictionary of British Economists, by Continuum. This Dictionary includes coverage of individuals who are not normally thought of as economists but who nonetheless made penetrating and original contributions, these include writers such as H. G. Wells, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens; astronomers and mathematicians such as Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley and Isaac Barrow; the chess grandmaster Augustus Mongredien; the mountaineer Albert Mummery; the inventor of the machine gun, George Puckle; and many others from the fields of medicine, religion, politics, banking, science, agriculture and the East India Company employees. Writers on issues such as population, poverty, socialism, monetarism, finance and banking and many other fields are included, in one of the most comprehensive biographical surveys of the field yet undertaken.

New to Know? Islam, by Collins. The aim of this book is to explain the principles of Islam and to show how Muslims strive to bring God-consciousness (taqwa) into every area of their daily lives, from the important and profound to the mundane and simple tasks; and in this devotion and urge to serve, striving for the greater pleasure of their Lord, they find their own fulfillment and happiness.

A Financial History of the United States, by M.E. Sharpe. The first comprehensive financial history of the United States in more than thirty years. Accessible to undergraduate level readers, it focuses on the growth and expansion of banking, securities, and insurance from the colonial period right up to the incredible growth of the stock market during the 1990s and the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

The author traces the origins of American finance to the older societies of Europe and Northern Africa, and shows how English merchants transferred their financial systems to America. He explains how financial matters dominated the founding and development of the colonies, and how financial concerns incited the Revolution. And he shows how the Civil War began the transformation of America from a small economy largely dependent on foreign capital into a complex capitalist society. From the Civil War, the nation’s financial history breaks down into periods of frenzied speculation, quiet growth, periodic panics, and furious periods of expansion, right up through the incredible growth of the stock market during the 1990s.

50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies, by Sage UK. This title offers 1,500 word expositions of topics central to the field.

Fictional Characters

A recent addition to the Credo Reference database is the “Chambers Dictionary of Fictional Characters”. All the answers to this quiz about people in books can be found there.

1. Which writer created the character Bilbo Baggins?

2. Name the heroine of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, who falls in love with Darcy.

3. Which 1851 book by Herman Melville includes a character called Queequeg?

4. In Kingsley Amis’s “Lucky Jim”, what was the surname of Jim, the struggling university lecturer of the title?
5. Which novel by Charles Dickens includes the character Little Nell?

6. Which 1951 novel features a rebellious 16-year-old called Holden Caulfield?

7. Name one of the two children – a brother and sister – who are the young governess’s two charges at Bly in Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw”.

8. Which author created the character Professor Timofey Pnin in his 1957 novel “Pnin”?

9. What are the names of the two “merry wives” in Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor”?

10. Claudia Hampton is a character in which 1987 novel by Penelope Lively?

Credo Reference will be attending the ALA Annual 2009 Conference in Chicago, starting later this week! Make sure to stop by Booth #2824 and say hello! We will also be tweeting from the Conference, so make sure to follow @credoreference.

See you in Chicago!